Geneva Press has recently released a new collection of service music for use with the Book of Common Worship. The collection, titled Holy Is the Lord: Music for the Lord’s Day Worship, was compiled by the Service Music Task Force, a group of nine people gathered by the Office of Theology and Worship of the PC(USA). Included in the volume are twenty-two complete settings of music for the Lord’s Supper, several settings of music for the celebration of Holy Baptism, and about sixty-five miscellaneous settings of prayers and other portions of the liturgy. Several of the complete settings have been previously published, but seven of them are appearing in print for the first time in this collection. Two settings are in Spanish, and four settings are in an African American gospel style. Also included are settings ranging from classical and traditional to praise genres. In the back of the collection, music for congregational participation is printed. Prior permission to reprint (with the purchase of the volume) has been obtained for a significant portion of this music, making it simple to use for congregational worship.

If your congregation is not accustomed to singing parts of the liturgy, how might you get started? One way might be to make use of the psalm settings in the Psalter for Christian Worship by Michael Morgan, edited by Paul Detterman and published by Witherspoon Press. Morgan has adapted Book of Common Worship themes to poetry that fits common hymn meters, enabling congregations to sing liturgical texts to familiar tunes, thereby addressing the need to move toward singing the liturgy without having to jump in and learn new music.

If your congregation does not celebrate the Lord’s Supper each Lord’s Day (or does not yet want to sing the Communion liturgy), there still is the opportunity to use portions of the music from Holy Is the Lord in other ways. Would you like to use a sung “Lord, Have Mercy” in your liturgy? In addition to the twenty-two found in the complete settings, there are thirteen more in the collection, including two from Central America, one from Asia, one from Africa, and one that can be sung in canon.

How about a rousing “Gloria” to respond to the Declaration of Forgiveness? Or an “Alleluia” to sing your praise? You will find multiple settings of these texts available for easy inclusion in your bulletin, and the settings range from the Russian liturgical tradition to the music of the Caribbean.

Want to sing a prayer at mealtime? How about singing a prayer of preparation for worship? Want to sing the Lord’s Prayer? Several possibilities in various styles present themselves in Holy Is the Lord.

So . . . get your copy of Holy Is the Lord and begin to explore the possibilities of singing the liturgy with your congregation. You are sure to find something that will help your faith community find expression in song, whatever the style.

David Eicher, editor of Holy Is the Lord, is Director of Music
at LaPorte Presbyterian Church, LaPorte, Indiana.
Call (219) 362-6219, or send e-mail to davide@laportepresbyterian.org.

Holy Is the Lord: Music for the Lord’s Day Worship
Edited by David Eicher
Geneva Press
Paperback #501087 $49.95

Psalter for Christian Worship
By Michael Morgan; edited by Paul Detterman
Witherspoon Press
Hardbound #097811 $25.95
Soft #097810 $14.95

To Order, call (800) 524-2612, or order on-line at www.pcusa.org/marketplace.