WELS Western Wisconsin District-Worship

09/17/2021

re. the formal Reformation Service for 2021--particularly for The Central Conference of the WW District. Due to my recent retirement (though I'm still serving in a "vacancy" call), as well as the onerous move my wife and I have had over the past few months from a parsonage to our own home, plus my "bout" with Covid, I was not able to organize a Festival Service for this year at Luther Prep. I apologize for that, since this is such an important year in Reformation history. May your individual celebrations at your parishes reassert Luther's declaration to stand firmly on the saving truths of Scripture.
-- R.W. Lehmann, District Worship Coordinator

(P.S. Part of the onerous moving included sifting through, and dispensing in various ways, the huge library of music scores of all kinds, some 150+ LP recordings [mostly Classical music], and music/worship textbooks that I "inherited" from my father, as well as had gathered myself during my graduate & post-graduate student and teaching years. Contact me if you have any questions regarding this announcement at: [email protected] )

09/17/2021

Brothers in the Ministry,
Our fellow brother, Paul Stratman (St. Stephen-Beaver Dam; also on WWD Worship Committee) is offering the following collection of prayers in which you might be interested. Paul has been doing numerous projects in providing prayers for worship, Here's his summary of this work:
Free preview of Praying with the Readings for CW21, Year B. Preview contains prayers for Proper 20 / Pentecost 18 through Thanksgiving. Chart included for use with CW93 lectionary. This preview package is free for your use in the year 2021 only. For future use, please purchase the complete download package through www.acollectionofprayers.com. Link will take you to my SendOwl account. Link takes you to the product page, and it will say "buy now," but the preview is free. Praying with the Readings for CW21, Year C will be available for purchase in a few weeks. Here is the link: https://sowl.co/s/4HH6w.

Pastor Paul C. Stratman

Available for free on SendOwl

05/28/2021

Pastors, Teachers, Church Musicians, Worship Planners, Church Council members and anyone interested in resources for the new Christian Worship 2021.

Here's your link to Northwestern Publishing House's array of books and other helps for the new hymnal project. May the Lord bless the worship which you lead, oversee, or plan for your congregations!

01/21/2021

Paul Stratman continues his prayers for the Church projects with another helpful tool for this coming Lenten Season. Here is the latest on that project:

LENTEN MIDWEEK PRAYERS - Year B.
I have them up for purchase at this link:
https://acollectionofprayers.com/2021/01/17/lenten-responsive-prayers/

At that link, there is also a link to a preview PDF, and a link to purchase for $3.00.

Here's the description:
In Christian Worship: Occasional Services (p. 152), readings from Matthew, Mark and Luke are offered as an option for the readings in midweek Lenten services. Readings for Year B are as follows:

Ash Wednesday – Ash Wednesday lessons
Second Midweek – Mark 14:1-26
Third Midweek – Mark 14:27-42
Fourth Midweek – Mark 14:43-65
Fifth Midweek – Mark 14:66–15:15
Sixth Midweek – Mark 15:16-47

A Collection of Prayers: Digital Products presents Lenten Responsive Prayers: Year B, prayers written to complement the Passion Readings for Year B from the Gospel of Mark.
ZIP package contains…
* Litany of Repentance for Ash Wednesday
* Prayers of the Church based on the readings from the Gospel of
Mark for Lenten Midweek Services, responses taken from the
seven penitential psalms
* a Prayer of the Church for Holy Week, based on 1 Corinthians
1:18-31 and John 12:20-36
ZIP file for purchase contains files in Word (docx), PDF and
Rich Text Format (rtf).

In Christian Worship: Occasional Services (p. 152), readings from Matthew, Mark and Luke are offered as an option for the readings in midweek Lenten services. Readings for Year B are as follows: As…

01/07/2021

Pastor Paul Stratman explains his latest prayer project this way: (check it out!)

Prayers of the Church: Historic Lectionary. This is a work in progress. Advent through Holy Week is complete. Note that these prayers are written for the Historic Lectionary. Holy Week prayers will be useful for those following the Three-Year Lectionary.* Follow the link below for complete descriptions and contents. Reasonably priced.
* Prayers of the Church for the Three-Year Lectionary
is a separate project. https://acollectionofprayers.com/dp_prayersofthechurch_historic/?fbclid=IwAR0y2Gn6MCgJUQpdNLTva9g5bsFnsiW857BeXzbgGuQZJkgDITcCGdHhmfs

Prayers of the church for every Sunday of the church year. Flexible responsive prayer format with scriptural responses and options for traditional litany responses. Prayers for higher festivals are…

12/04/2020

Piano music for Advent/Christmas by Kurt Weber

Church pianists--Are you looking for ideas and new arrangements for pre- and post-service? Check out Kurt's offering, 'A Christmas Journey'. It received its name as It is divided into three parts: Advent Hymns; Christmas hymns; and Epiphany hymns. Not only are they useful for Church services, they also are just fun to play for yourself as well. There are a few selections that have violin accompaniment, and the binding is a spiral bound (which makes it easy to set on a piano or music stand).

Below is a list of YouTube links of all the pieces in the book. If you go to the web page and click on the image of the particular volume for sale that interests you, it will take you to YouTube where you can hear it. More information about everything (and himself) can be found at his website: www.kdweber89.com Examples are:
Advent
Savior of the Nation's Come
On Jordan's Bank the Baptists Cry
The Angel Gabriel From Heaven Came
Christmas
Of The Father's Love Begotten
Now Sing We Now Rejoice
Gentle Mary Laid Her Child
The Infant Priest
Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming
Epiphany
Oh Morning Star, How Fair and Bright
Arise and Shine in Splendor

He also has put together a collection of piano selections entitled "Hymns I Love."

Leave a message for Kurt Weber on his web page if you can't get to the samples of the Christmas pieces he's done. You might still want to get the book for this year!

Hymns That I Love. Solo Piano Arrangements of Confessional Hymns.

12/04/2020

“Prayers of the Church Year”
One of our WWD Worship Committee members, Pastor Paul Stratman, has taken up the project of revising and updating all
the Prayers of The Church for all three years of the ILCW series. I’ve been using some of them and really appreciate them. Paul has other "prayer projects" also for worship services such as "Psalm Prayers from Sarum" and "Now and Forever" (New Collects for Modern Lectionaries). Contact Pastor Paul ([email protected]) if you’re interested in such a treasure trove of prayers.

11/19/2020

https://www.christianworship.com/articles/2020/11/12/new-preview-resources-available?fbclid=IwAR0E9Ngbhm55b6R2dnQQyG_Zcb0Bu8hx4bDfVIGD9db5hkrcdrf-qNTBJJY

The WELS Hymnal Project is please to provide several new preview resources as part of the introduction of Christian Worship to WELS. This post lists what’s new and offers links to download the November 2020 batch of preview resources.

07/13/2020

Dear Brothers in ministry in the WWDistrict and WELS:
A Memorial service for Rod Warnecke is going to be held at
St. John-Watertown on July 25th (Saturday) at 11:00 a.m.
(A private family service had been held back when he went to his heavenly rest). The family is requesting a PASTORS CHOIR to sing "The Church's One Foundation." I have the arrangement that my father made which many of you (as did Rod) have sung, either at NWC or Sem. We might be able to have the added choir also (from St. John) which the arrangement provides for. We'll meet for practice at 10:30 in the church's lower level where a fellowship area has a piano handy. We'll sing as a choir in the church's balcony. If you want a copy in advance to practice it, just e-mail me at [email protected]

06/23/2020

Dear fellow worship leaders, We've regrettably canceled our WWD worship conference due to ongoing challenges in hosting it during these uncertain Covid times, as well as due to a very low registration number only a month from the event. Those who did sign up will get their registration fee returned. We urge you all to make sure to attend next year's 2021 WELS National Festival of Worship, Music, and the Arts in Kenosha. God's blessings on your worship endeavors for His glory.

06/02/2020

As of June 1, Registration is still up and going for our Western Wis. District worship conference on Saturday, July 25, at the St. Mark campus in Watertown, WI (215 N. 6th Street). We haven’t given up hope, yet. BUT we need to have your registration this month to know how to proceed.

Registration has been very slim to this point, probably because you and others have been unsure of your situation or condition, or what rules the state might declare….and that’s understandable. But if you’d really like to be a part of this Conference, we have to know soon through pre-registration.

If Covid-19 restrictions and injunctions in July would hamper our conference, we’d cancel the conference and your registration fee ($45) would be refunded to you. But we need to know if you’d be coming. We have to know that we have enough registrants to afford putting on this conference. So please, register by June 26 if you’d be coming so we know how to proceed. Register online at:
https://gf.wels.net/ww-district-worship-conference/

Check out the schedule for that day (July 25) on this web site.
It's been posted for some time.

---Pastor Richard Lehmann, WWD Worship Coordinator Questions? E-mail me at [email protected]

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05/23/2020

Just an update on our plans: As of this Memorial weekend we are still willing to "wait and see" how the various injunctions re. Covid-19 are going to pan out the next few weeks. There are a number of issues that the Covid-19 injunctions face us with, as you might imagine. But our greater concern is how many of our worship leaders are willing to deal with the challenges and still come. We will likely have to be concerned about “distancing” and continual disinfecting of areas, as well as how our Food Service will be able to operate according to whatever the injunctions are at that point. At this point, we really need to see our musicians and worship leaders begin to make a commitment to come. If there is apprehension due to the current conditions (and we realize that’s an honest concern), it would be helpful for you to let us know. In a month from now we have to make a final decision on whether we can afford doing it or not, so please sign up if you really plan to come. Don’t wait until July. We have many presenters, some coming from distances, that would appreciate knowing if the Conference will still be on. God bless you in your music and worship leadership as we are able to “reopen” and get back to “live” worship with our Christian brothers and sisters in the house of God.