Tom Leeseberg-Lange has been full-time Director of Music Ministry at First Evangelical Lutheran in the Baltimore suburb of Ellicott City, Maryland since January 1999. He has been leading worship since the third grade and began playing organ regularly for church services in 1967. He has a Master of Music degree from Valparaiso University where he studied organ with Martin Jean. Since 1997 he has served as ALCM’s Administrator and stepped down from the position in July, 2007. He served as editor of the ALCM journal, Cross Accent, from 1997-1999. His special interest is hymnody. He has written more than 20 hymn tunes, many for the texts of Jaroslav Vajda; two of which have been enthusiastically mentioned in the Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians.

Ronald A. Nelson served as Director of Music for 37 years at Westwood Lutheran Church in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. He directed the choir school he founded there, and choirs including singers from ages 3 to 80. Since retirement, he devotes his time to composing and guest conducting. He holds degrees from St. Olaf College and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Nelson’s setting of Holly Communion appears in Lutheran Book of Worship, Lutheran Worship, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, and Lutheran Service Book. His choral compositions have been published by one Swedish and fifteen American publishers and recorded by Gloria Dei Cantores, the St. Olaf Kantorei, the Ascension Youth Choir¸ of Stillwater, Minnesota, and the Michigan State University Children’s Choir. He served as music editor of the Alleluia series and is author of the first volume of Chorister’s Guild Stepping Stones choir curriculum.

Zebulon Highben & Kristina Langlois, editors, Foreward by Paul Manz

ISBN:978-1-933-794-03-7

$16.00

Available: Baker & Taylor, Kirk House Publishers

To Order: Call 1-888-696-1828

The Rev. Dr. Herman G. Stuempfle was the 10th president of Gettysburg Seminary. He is the author of several books and numerous articles and lectures on preaching, history and theology. As a hymn writer Stuempfle is among the most honored and respected of hymn writers of the 20th and 21st Centuries. His texts have graced Lutheran congregational anniversaries, consecrations of Roman Catholic bishops, and English hymnal supplements. Stuempfle has always been mindful of the link between preaching and hymn writing, saying “hymns are the sung testimony to God’s mighty acts of grace and judgment,” and creating hymns always remained for him a part of his “fundamental vocation to communicate the Gospel.