Musical Offering

This companion volume to Gloria: Letters From Hymnwriters provides:
• a brief commentary for each season of the church year
• imaginative letters from the writers of traditional hymns
• suggested hymns by the writer of each letter to be sung by choir and congregation
• original descants for several hymns, including "Hark The Herald Angels Sing" and "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."

The Buentings entice us back into the neglected riches of our own tradition... Packaging these "letters" along with the hymns associated with their "authors," and creating a Hymnfest that takes an entire congregation through the church year together, is a stroke of genius from a deeply pastoral heart... We owe much to Ruth and James Buenting, and to Joy Berg for her lovely descants. What a memorable experience any congregation that celebrates this unique Hymnfest has in store for itself.
J. Robert Jacobson, First Bishop
Synod of Alberta and the Territories
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada

Ruth M. Buenting, who contributed the letters from hymnwriters for this collection, is the author of Gloria: Letters From Hymnwriters as well as the Canadian Lutheran Handbook, part of the Whole People of God series. Her husband, James Buenting, pastor of Christ Lutheran Church in Kelowna, British Columbia, provided the comments on the church year seasons, and Joy Berg arranged the hymn verses and supplied several original descants. Ms. Berg is Visiting Professor of Music at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta.