With such a short amount of time for instruction, Sunday School teachers can find it difficult to fit music into class time. Especially challenging is having the music support and add value to the existing curriculum. Here are some ideas you can share with teachers at your church for smoothly incorporating music into Sunday School in a meaningful way.

There’s no question that Lutheran churches often love tradition, and yet many churchgoers benefit from the options technology brings. Along that vein, CPH Music is excited to release two new editions of Lutheran Service Book. One is a pocket-size hymnal, which is reminiscent of generations past. The other is a text-only ebook, for those who are more future-minded.

A music history professor once painted this picture for me: “Imagine you are a commoner in the Middle Ages, slaving away in the fields every day. Now imagine you walk into church. When it is cold outside, the church is warm. When it is hot outside, the church is cool. Now imagine you come into church and hear this.” And she played for us a Gregorian chant.

Having served on the committee that created Lutheran Service Book and being a church music director, Mark Bender has a complex understanding of how music functions in the Divine Service. Mark also has published more than a dozen compositions with CPH Music. Hear from Mark himself about how he chooses music for worship and what tools he recommends to his fellow music directors.

This post is adapted from Gathered Guests: A Guide to Worship in the Lutheran Church, Second Edition.

The duties of an acolyte vary considerably, depending on the circumstances and location of the congregation, as well as the time of the service and the season of the Church Year. Acolytes often are young people from the congregation who assume the responsibility of lighting and extinguishing the candles before and after worship services.

God created us to be in community, and that applies to every aspect of our lives, including our jobs. If you’re a church music director, you need musicians to make music with, coworkers to run ministries with, and other music directors to learn and get help from. All these things require relationships—in other words, a network. Here are some ways to build a network that can help you continue to grow and move forward.

There’s always more to do for a worship service than there are time and hands to complete the tasks! By making a few adjustments to the way your team works, your church office can reduce friction and confusion and increase efficiency.

We know that music is important in teaching people about Jesus, but what does that actually look like? What practical steps can music directors take to teach not only music but also the Christian faith? Below is an excerpt adapted from Kenneth T. Kosche’s article in The Pedagogy of Faith, a book for Lutheran educators about teaching methods they can use in the Christian classroom. Our excerpt is from the chapter about music.

We often use music as a tool to memorize things, whether they’re presidents, books of the Bible, states, parts of grammar, the Small Catechism, or any number of other items. The rhythm of songs and the catchiness of melodies make music a convenient vehicle to relay and hold onto facts, stories, lists, and so on. Music in this way serves a great purpose.

But have you ever stopped to wonder why we memorize things? Sure, instantly recalling a fact or name is good and useful and usually speeds up the work that needs to be done. But is there a greater purpose to memorization? Does music’s ability to make memorization quick and easy contain a higher good than simply recollection of fact?

In our churches, we focus a lot on welcoming visitors with the hope of them becoming regular worshipers. But what about people just passing through for a vacation or a holiday weekend? Though these vacationing visitors aren’t as likely to become members, it’s important to create a welcoming atmosphere while still acknowledging that they may not stay long term. As we move into the summer months, here are some ways your church can cater to these short-term visitors.