Travels, Texts And Tunes — A Pastor’s Pathways

On Friday, March 28, 2008, another travel group again called the “Pastor’s Pilgrims” will be leaving from Newtown to head abroad. The destination of the nine-day journey this time is France. The European trip will include visits to Paris, Orleans, the chateaux country, the Normandy beaches, and Mont Saint Michel.

An informational meeting about this “Jewels of France” journey, which is open to anyone interested, will be held at Christ the King Lutheran Church on Saturday, November 17, at 7:30 pm. The France trip will be the 12th hosted by Pastor Gregory Wismar of Christ the King during his 20 years of service here in Newtown. Previous travel groups have gone to such diverse destinations as Malta, Scotland, Jordan, and Austria.

In 2010 Pastor Wismar will be leading another Pilgrims group to the Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany. In 2000, he led a group from Newtown to the Play that included more than 100 travelers.

Visiting Germany is second nature for the local Lutheran pastor. In September he and his wife attended a family reunion in the village of Luechow in northern Germany as part of a family gathering that has been meeting every decade since the family’s benevolent association was chartered in the year 1401.

Although travels take up part of Pastor Wismar’s “down time” from his parish responsibilities, work with texts and tunes is also a significant component. This past August Dr Wismar was appointed to a fifth term on the Commission on Worship of the Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod, the national church body with which Christ the King congregation is affiliated. At the September meeting of that group, he was elected to another term as chairman of the commission, which is made up of church professionals and lay people from around the country.

Over the past ten years the commission has been engaged in a major project, preparing a new hymnal and support materials for the national Lutheran church. Named Lutheran Service Book, the hymnal was released in August 2006. In its first year it has sold about one million volumes and is being used not only in the United States but in English-speaking congregations around the world.

Included in the hymnal are hymn texts and prayers composed by Pastor Wismar as well as hymn stanzas originally written in German that he translated for the new book. Contributing materials for the new hymnal continues the pastor’s avocation as a church music writer. Through the years his texts and tunes have appeared in a number of American church publications, as well as in Canadian and Australian volumes.

For Lutheran Christians, the church’s hymnbook serves a number of important functions. It is used during the worship services of the congregation and at other church gatherings on many occasions. It is also often found in the homes of the members of the congregation, where it serves as a devotional resource for the people.

Included in the pew edition of the Lutheran Service Book is a variety of prayers, the Small Catechism of Martin Luther and brief orders of worship that can be used for devotions in the home.

As chairman of the Commission on Worship, Pastor Wismar had a great deal of responsibility for the final selection of the materials used not only in the pew edition of LBS but in the support volumes such as the Lectionary, the Agenda, and the Pastoral Care Companion, a pocket-sized prayer book taken by clergy on hospital and home visits.

The various travels with the Pastor’s Pilgrims and the labors on worship resources such as the new hymnal are seen by Pastor Wismar as extensions of this local ministry in Newtown.

“Each month the calendar brings some new adventure or opportunity for creative work,” he said, “and that is renewing in every way.”