Volume 4 - Number 2
August 2009
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VOICE From Co-Director
Richard C. Resch
he Good Shepherd Institute is more than an annual conference. Its mission is to be a thoughtful, vibrant, ongoing resource for the church in the areas of pastoral theology and sacred music. I would like to take this newsletter opportunity to bring you up-to-date on what resources are now available from the Institute, and at the same time to let you hear how these resources are being received by the church.
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Comfort & Peace:
Without a doubt, our CD, Hymns of Comfort and Peace: Hearing God’s Promises in Time of Need, is meeting a need for those overwhelmed, sick, lonely, grieving, depressed, and dying. Pastors and churches have ordered 20, 50, 100 copies at a time. We also have a growing file of letters from clergy, laity, and members of the military telling us how this sung proclamation has given Christ to their hearts and minds in the time of need. Concordia Publishing House offered to administer sales of this CD through iTunes, and GSI accepted. We received our first monthly report of healthy sales and have discovered that more than half of the sales were from countries using the Euro. You may access this CD on iTunes by entering Hymns of Comfort and Peace at the iTunes Store. Friends of GSI may simply contact Yohko Masaki at 260-452-2224 for the best quantity price. We are very happy to report that the Institute’s DVD, Singing the Faith: Living the Lutheran Musical Heritage, is being used all over the world, with quantities being sent to Africa, Japan, Russia, and Sweden. Reviews and responses to this resource have been wonderfully positive, and we offer here a sampling: One cannot watch this DVD without much joy and thanksgiving that here, at last, is told and sung the story of the godly musical heritage that we in the Lutheran church have been given, and at a time when so many have already tragically surrendered or are about to exchange their birthright for a mess of pop-cultural pottage. Pastors and musicians in the congregation will find in it a serviceable tool for reclaiming and celebrating this heritage. As such it will help them understand and teach not only the history of our hymnody but also the divine blessing that is given as we sing it. . . . Once in a great while, a work is produced for which the whole church on earth can give unreserved thanks to God. This is such a work. Thomas V. Aadland, in a review for Lutheran Forum
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HEARING GOD’S PROMISES IN TIMES OF NEED
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Pastoral Theology and Sacred Music for the Church
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