| Service Book and Hymnal | |||
 Service Book and Hymnal, published in 1958 | |||
| Approved for | American Evangelical Lutheran Church,American Lutheran Church,Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church,Evangelical Lutheran Church,Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America,Lutheran Free Church,United Evangelical Lutheran Church,United Lutheran Church in America | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Released | 1958 | ||
| Publisher | Augsburg Publishing House, et al. | ||
| No. of Hymns | 602 | ||
| Psalms | 150 | ||
| |||
TheService Book and Hymnal (SBH) was used by most of the Lutheran church bodies in the United States that today compose theEvangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) prior to the publishing of theLutheran Book of Worship (LBW) of 1978. In ELCA circles, historically, theService Book and Hymnal has been called the "red book" while theLutheran Book of Worship has been called the "green book." The newest ELCA hymnal,Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELW) is also red in color, and has apparently been dubbed "the cranberry book".[citation needed]
Prior to the merger of 1987 which created the ELCA, there were several smaller Lutheran church bodies. The ones involved in the Service Book and Hymnal included theAmerican Evangelical Lutheran Church, theAmerican Lutheran Church, theAugustana Evangelical Lutheran Church, theEvangelical Lutheran Church, theFinnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, theLutheran Free Church, theUnited Evangelical Lutheran Church, and theUnited Lutheran Church in America. These churches (most of whom are now in the ELCA) had many differenthymnals until 1958 when the Service Book and Hymnal came out.
Service Book and Hymnal contains 602 hymns, the first 148 of them organized to correspond with the Church Year. The liturgies and Psalms precede the hymns, with indexes in the back. Three settings of The Service were available whereas only the first two (p. 15 & p. 41) were included in the pew editions of the hymnal. Chant, chorale and plainsong styles were used. The cover ofSBH features a gold cross on a circle logo symbolizing Christ in the world.