Worship practices vary as churches glorify God and proclaim the gospel.

What does worship in WELS look like these days?

One marvelous blessing of our fellowship is that we don’t accuse one another of sin when we use different ceremonies for worship. After all, there are no ceremonial laws for believers in the New Testament. The important thing is that the gospel is preached in its truth and purity, and the sacraments are administered according to their institution by Christ.

Because we are so interested in our fellowship, we do discuss our motives for using different worship practices. We also discuss the circumstances that lead us to use certain practices. After all, in the New Testament, morality is often established by motive and circumstance.

In order to have facts for healthy discussion, in 2025, the Commission on Worship polled all WELS congregations with ten simple questions about their worship practices. About 80 percent (1,000 out of 1,241) filled out the survey. You can read some of the results below.

Hymnal usage data validated Northwestern Publishing House sales data. About 80 percent of WELS congregations are using the resources of the new hymnal suite published in 2021. Congregations choosing not to use the new resources are usually small in size and limited to electronic rather than live music.

Only 6 percent of WELS congregations have no hymnbooks in the pews, relying only on bulletins or screens for worship information. But 68 percent of congregations print the whole service in the bulletin, and 56 percent of congregations project slides on screens for at least a portion of the service.

Nearly every congregation that has adopted Christian Worship: Hymnal (CW21) resources has also begun using Christian Worship: Service Builder to produce bulletins or slides. What used to take half a day now takes half an hour.

Just under half of WELS congregations use Christian Worship: Psalter resources to choose the style for singing the psalm on a given Sunday. Worship planners report that they would like help figuring out which psalm settings would work best in their congregations.

Such help is provided in The Foundation worship planning resources from WELS Congregational Services. About 62 percent of congregations report using those resources every week, a number which has continued to grow.

Many English Bible translations are in use in WELS. The New International Version (2011) is the most frequently used translation, with the Evangelical Heritage Version following next. Many pastors still preach from the New International Version (1984), which has been out of print for 15 years.

The survey reveals an extraordinary variety of instruments being used to accompany God’s people in worship. While 84 percent of congregations use a piano some of the time, and 78 percent use an organ some of the time, 17 percent of WELS congregations have some sort of a liturgical ensemble.

Besides answering the ten survey questions, responders offered many helpful suggestions for improvement of the available resources. The Commission on Worship plans to use the survey results to help guide future decisions as it continues to produce resources that will help God’s people proclaim the gospel in Word and sacrament.

Learn more details about the survey results in the Commission on Worship’s online newsletter, Devote Yourself. Subscribe at welscongregationalservices.net/subscriptions.

Author: Paul Prange
Volume 113, Number 06
Issue: June 2026