| Lutheran Book of Worship | |||
 1978 edition of theLutheran Book of Worship | |||
| Commissioned by | Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Approved for | Lutheran Church in America,The American Lutheran Church,Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada,Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (officially withdrew) | ||
| Released | 1978 | ||
| Publisher | Augsburg Fortress | ||
| Pages | 960 | ||
| No. of Hymns | 569 | ||
| Psalms | 150 | ||
| Service music | Yes | ||
| |||
| Hymnal Supplement 1991 | |||
 Hymnal Supplement 1991 | |||
| Released | 1991 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Publisher | GIA Publications | ||
| No. of Hymns | 7 canticles and chants, 118 Hymns | ||
| Psalms | 13 | ||
| Service music | Yes | ||
| |||
| With One Voice | |||
 1995 edition ofWith One Voice | |||
| Approved for | Evangelical Lutheran Church in America | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Released | 1995 | ||
| Publisher | Augsburg Fortress | ||
| No. of Hymns | 207 | ||
| Service music | Yes | ||
| |||
TheLutheran Book of Worship (LBW) is aworship book andhymnal published in 1978 and was authorized for use by severalLutherandenominations in North America, including predecessors of theEvangelical Lutheran Church in America andEvangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. TheLutheran Church—Missouri Synod was initially involved in the hymnal's development but officially withdrew.
Additional hymns and service music are contained in the companionsHymnal Supplement 1991 andWith One Voice (WOV). A successor was published in 2006 titledEvangelical Lutheran Worship, althoughLutheran Book of Worship remains in use by some congregations.
TheLBW is sometimes called the "green book", as opposed toWith One Voice, which is bound in blue, or the olderService Book and Hymnal andThe Lutheran Hymnal, which were bound in red.
When Lutheran churches were first established in North America, the immigrants from Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and other non-English-speaking countries retained services in their native languages. However, as the children and grandchildren of these immigrants began speaking English in their everyday lives and the various Lutheran denominations began uniting, many felt that the North American Lutheran churches needed a common English-languageliturgy and hymns. Although the eighteenth-century missionaryHenry Melchior Muhlenberg had hoped for the day when Lutherans would be "one church [with] one book", it was not until the 1888 "Common Service" that a majority of English-speaking Lutherans in North America began to use the same texts for worship, albeit with minor adaptations. (Senn, 584–591.) The "Common Liturgy" included in the 1958Service Book and Hymnal was a major revision of the "Common Service", and introduced a Eucharistic Prayer into American Lutheran usage.Culto Cristiano, a 1964 service book, attempted to offer a unified liturgy for Spanish-speaking Lutherans.
The process leading to the publication of theLBW was started in 1965 when theLutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) invited other North American Lutheran denominations to join it to work on a common service book. Together with the LCMS, theLutheran Church in America, theAmerican Lutheran Church, and theEvangelical Lutheran Church of Canada formed theInter-Lutheran Commission on Worship to undertake this project. The commission conducted its work through four sub-committees: Liturgical Text Committee, Liturgical Music Committee, Hymn Text Committee, Hymn Music Committee. The work of the committees was validated via provisional liturgical and hymn materials, questionnaires, conferences, and dialogs. The Rev. Dr. Eugene Brand was named project director for the development work and The Rev. Leonard Flachman was named publishers' representative and managing editor. TheLBW was published in1978. The LCMS pulled out of the ILCW just prior to the publication of theLBW, but having been a participant in the development of the materials its name appears on the title page. The LCMS published its own hymnal,Lutheran Worship (LW), in 1982. Although theLW liturgies are very similar to those in theLBW, there are differences which reflect differing theologies. For example,LW lacks the option for a Eucharistic Prayer.
TheLutheran Book of Worship has remained in service for more than forty years. There are a couple reasons for that longevity. The first is the careful, forward-looking, inclusive work of the ILCW and the four subcommittees. The second is the careful work done by the staff ofAugsburg Publishing House in selecting and testing the materials with which the book was manufactured; the books did not wear out.[citation needed]
The first printing of theLBW was one million copies and required 19 semi-trailers to carry the book from the printer to 14 distribution points around the United States.
While it is in its twenty-seventh printing and widely used by the ELCA and the ELCIC, theLBW was replaced in October 2006 as the primary worship resource in the two denominations byEvangelical Lutheran Worship. The new book is intended to reflect the changing demographic of the church bodies and the subsequent changes in language and ritual practice.