Settings versus Occasions

The new Lutheran hymnal – Evangelical Lutheran Worship – contains three times the number of settings for Holy Communion that the Lutheran Book of Worship does. These settings are usually distinguished not by the order of worship or its particulars but instead by music styles. There is a gospel setting, a Latino setting in Spanish, a chant setting, and others. In many ways the usage is designed only for topical worship particular to a specific congregation; that is to say the Latino setting is designed for a Latino parish, the gospel setting for an African American parish and so on and so forth. Some may disagree saying that this is not the purpose of the settings. However I must point out that most congregations which consist of white Americans use only about three of the settings from the new book, and none of them being what most would consider the multi-cultural options. Now I think infusing the liturgy with music from different cultural sources is good in many ways, but an entire liturgy which the congregation must learn can be a bit much. And certainly using all of the settings is not a viable option. For example, if each was cycled so that setting one was sung one Sunday and then the following Sunday setting two was sung, it would take about two months to cycle though all the settings. This hardly allows enough time to learn a setting.

I would humbly suggest an alternative. What if instead of providing music settings which very so much why don't we proved settings which are designed for difference uses? Why not have a setting of Mass used for daily worship, a Mass used for Sunday worship, and a setting of Mass designed for festival use? Each of these could be augmented with different music so that the same setting could be used just with different music. I don't think it would be too difficult to do; the ELW already has a "Service Music" section in the hymnal and service book which allows other music to be used with any other setting. Why not take this attitude instead of having a new and separate setting of the liturgy for each subset of worship styles. Indeed if we tried to include all particularities of worship styles in the Lutheran church we would find ourselves using a hymnal with hundreds of settings instead of just three.