Emily R. Brink

Alva William Steffler. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2002. 800-253-7521. 176 pp. ISBN 0-8028-4676-9. $12.00.

Phyllis Vos Wezeman and Anna Liechty. Colorado Springs: Meriwether Publishing, Ltd., 2002. 800-937-5297. 28 pp. $2.50. A book of liturgical materials for twelve weeks. Each week introduces a different part of the worship service, from Call to Worship (illustration: a bell) to Benediction (an outstretched hand). Each week is scripted for an adult leader, four child readers, and a child to add the symbol for that week. The actual banner kit must be purchased separately.

Pamela T. Hardiman and Josephine Niemann. Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2002. 888-933-1800. 196 pp. $20.00. ISBN 1-56854-368-9. After introductory information on the liturgical year and celebrating rites and sacraments (from a Roman Catholic perspective), the authors provide helpful chapters on the basics of design and hardware, techniques for quilted fabric panels, block designs, and working from free-form drawings. Appendices include several detailed patterns and colored photographs.

David Philippart, editor. Published bimonthly by Liturgy Training Publications. 16 pp. per issue. $20.00 for one year. 800-933-1800; www.ltp.org. Includes sixteen pages of full-color photos of beautiful worship spaces—interior and exterior, windows, liturgical furniture, and more (also includes ads). Roman Catholics take the relationship between worship and architecture very seriously, and each issue provides teaching to ponder as well as examples of beauty for visually starved Protestants to feast their eyes on.

If you were to read this issue cover to cover (which most of you probably seldom do!), you would find at least three sets of intersecting themes, along with our regular columns. Ascension and Pentecost This issue includes Ascension and Pentecost resources, but also some reflections on the implications of Pentecost for the mission of the church to the world. The first two articles (pp. 3 and 7) offer both perspective and resources on these two Christian festival days.

Song of Intercession A Touching PlaceClick to listen  [ full version ]

Chris Stoffel Overvoorde. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2002. 800-253-7521. 210 pp. ISBN 0-8028-3953-3. $20.00.

Every Sunday, and especially on the great festival days of the Christian year, preachers and worship planners search for ways to tell the old, old story in fresh new ways. On the other hand, many congregations cherish longstanding traditions such as a Christmas Eve candlelight service or an Easter sunrise service. Those services may include a few of the same elements year after year.

He Is Lord Click to listen  [ separate versions | versions combined ] One of the best-known and most versatile Easter choruses from the mid-seventies started out as a single anonymous stanza. Typical of many praise choruses, the very structure invited expansion, and the expanded version found here also came from an anonymous source.

Hughes Oliphant Old. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002. Revised and expanded edition. 195 pp. $19.95. Old published an earlier version of this very readable and practical book on Reformed theology of worship in the 1980s. If you missed it then, get it now.