Lutheran Hymnal With Supplement - The 'Lutheran Hymnal With Supplement'

The 'Lutheran Hymnal With Supplement'

The 'Lutheran Hymnal' was the last, and possibly the best, hymnal for an age that was, even as it came off the printing press, passing away. Through the 1970s, many fine spiritual songs were composed, and the dignified but conservative nature of the Orders of Service prepared in 1966 no longer found ready appeal among the younger members of the Lutheran Church of Australia, which subsequently resolved to revise the existing hymnal. The result was the Supplement to the Lutheran Hymnal. Its Preface reads that the times were 'rapidly changing', and that there was an 'ever-growing demand for hymns and orders of service which are not available in the current hymn books...this Supplement is not meant to displace the hymn book of the Church, but to be...a supplement.' This supplement was first made available in 1987, in the form of a small red booklet containing the revised Orders of Service, with 174 newer hymns which did not appear in the 'Lutheran Hymnal'. The two works first appeared as a combined edition in 1989, and the 'Lutheran Hymnal with Supplement' was born, known as the 'Red Hymnbook'.

While the hymns which appeared in the 1973 edition remain unchanged, the Orders of Service have been revised and updated, though they are substantially the same as they were in 1973. The Propers, with the lists of Suggested Hymns, have been deleted as being of little or no use to the layman. The Hymnal with Supplement also contains a second setting of Divine Service, called the 'Contemporary Order'. Confusingly, around the same time, a completely new setting of Divine Service was printed, to go with the 'All Together, Now!' series of spiritual song-books, themselves of Lutheran origin. These Orders have supplanted the Hymnal with Supplement in some congregations.

This Hymnal with Supplement remains the official hymnal of the Lutheran Church of Australia, though in recent years even its revisions have been regarded as conservative, and it has fallen out of use in some congregations where a more contemporary approach is taken.