O King of the nations, the ruler they long for, the cornerstone uniting all people: Come and save us, whom you formed out of clay.

Listen and Download

MP3: Ted Carnahan – O King of the Nations.mp3
Ogg Vorbis: Ted Carnahan – O King of the Nations.ogg

O King of the Nations by Ted Carnahan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Scripture

Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
   ‘Be strong, do not fear!
Here is your God.
   He will come with vengeance,
with terrible recompense.
   He will come and save you.’

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
   and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
   and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
   and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool,
   and the thirsty ground springs of water;
the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp,
   the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

– Isaiah 35.4-7a

Lyrics

O King of the Nations, the ruler they long for,
O King of the Nations, the ruler they long for,
The cornerstone uniting all peoples,
You are the cornerstone.

Come and save us all,
Come and save us all,
Come and save us all,
Whom you formed out of clay.

O King of the Nations, the ruler they long for,
O King of the Nations, the ruler they long for,
The cornerstone uniting all peoples,
You are the cornerstone.

The post O Antiphon: O King of the Nations appeared first on Ted Carnahan.

O Rising Sun, splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness: Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

Listen and Download

MP3: Chuck Meyer – O Dayspring.mp3
Ogg Vorbis: Chuck Meyer – O Dayspring.ogg

O Dayspring by Chuck Meyer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Scripture

‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
   for he has looked favourably on his people and redeemed them.
He has raised up a mighty saviour for us
   in the house of his servant David,
as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
   that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors,
   and has remembered his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham,
   to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies,
might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness
   before him all our days.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
   for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
   by the forgiveness of their sins.
By the tender mercy of our God,
   the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
   to guide our feet into the way of peace.’

– Luke 1.68-79 (The Song of Simeon)

Lyrics

O Dayspring, Radiant Dawn, O Dayspring, Morning Star, come.
O Dayspring, Sun of Righteousness, Splendor of Light, of Light Eternal:
Come and give your light to those who dwell in darkness;
Come illumine those in the shadow of death.
O Dayspring, Radiant Dawn, Morning Star,
Sun of Righteousness, Splendor of Light Eternal:
Come and give your light.

The post O Antiphon: O Dayspring [Chuck Meyer] appeared first on Ted Carnahan.

O Key of David and scepter of the house of Israel, you open and no one can close, you close and no one can open. Come and rescue the prisoners, those who are in darkness and the shadow of death.

Listen and Download

MP3: Ted Carnahan – O Key of David.mp3
Ogg Vorbis: Ted Carnahan – O Key of David.ogg

O Key of David by Ted Carnahan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Scripture

Thus says God, the Lord,
   who created the heavens and stretched them out,
   who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people upon it
   and spirit to those who walk in it:
I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness,
   I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,
   a light to the nations,
   to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
   from the prison those who sit in darkness.
I am the Lord, that is my name;
   my glory I give to no other,
   nor my praise to idols.
See, the former things have come to pass,
   and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth,
   I tell you of them.

– Isaiah 42.5-9

Lyrics

O Key of David
You open and no one can close
You close and no one can open
Come and save us

O Key of David
And scepter of the house of Israel
You open and no one can close
You close and no one can open

Come!
And rescue the prisoners,
We who are in darkness and the shadow of death.
Come!
And rescue the prisoners.

O Key of David
You open and no one can close
You close and no one can open
Come and save us

O Key of David
And scepter of the house of Israel
You open and no one can close
You close and no one can open

The post O Antiphon: O Key of David appeared first on Ted Carnahan.

O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples; before you kings will shut their mouths, to you the nations will make their prayer: Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.

Listen and Download

MP3: Chuck Meyer – O Root of Jesse.mp3
Ogg Vorbis: Chuck Meyer – O Root of Jesse.ogg

O Root of Jesse by Chuck Meyer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Scripture

A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse,
   and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
   the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
   the spirit of counsel and might,
   the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
   or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
   and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
   and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
   and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
   the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
   and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze,
   their young shall lie down together;
   and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
   and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
   on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
   as the waters cover the sea.

On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.

– Isaiah 11.1-10

Lyrics

O Root of Jesse, an ensign standing for the peoples,
before whom kings will shut their mouths as the nations implore:
come deliver us; please do not delay.
We need deliverance– come down and save!

The post O Antiphon: O Root of Jesse [Chuck Meyer] appeared first on Ted Carnahan.

O Adonai and ruler of the house of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the burning bush and gave us the Law on Sinai. Come with an outstretched arm and redeem us.

Listen and Download

MP3: Ted Carnahan – O Adonai.mp3
Ogg Vorbis: Ted Carnahan – O Adonai.ogg

O Adonai by Ted Carnahan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Scripture

God also spoke to Moses and said to him: ‘I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name “The Lord” I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they resided as aliens. I have also heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are holding as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say therefore to the Israelites, “I am the Lord, and I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgement. I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has freed you from the burdens of the Egyptians.

– Exodus 6.2-7a

Lyrics

O Adonai
and ruler of the house of Israel,
who appeared to Moses in the burning bush
and gave us the Law on Sinai.

Come with an outstretched arm
Come with an outstretched arm
Come with an outstretched arm and redeem us.

O Adonai
and ruler of the house of Israel,
who appeared to Moses in the burning bush.

The post O Antiphon: O Adonai appeared first on Ted Carnahan.

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to the other mightily, and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence.

Listen and Download

MP3: Chuck Meyer – O Wisdom.mp3
Ogg Vorbis: Chuck Meyer – O Wisdom.ogg

O Wisdom by Chuck Meyer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Scripture

A voice cries out:
‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
   make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
   and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
   and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
   and all people shall see it together,
   for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’

– Isaiah 40.3-5

Lyrics

O Wisdom, coming from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other,
mightily and sweetly ordering all things:
come to teach, come to teach, come to teach us the way of prudence.

The post O Antiphon: O Wisdom [Chuck Meyer] appeared first on Ted Carnahan.

1. December 17: O Sapientia (O Wisdom)
2. December 18: O Adonai (O Adonai)
3. December 19: O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse)
4. December 20: O Clavis David (O Key of David)
5. December 21: O Oriens (O Dayspring)
6. December 22: O Rex Gentium (O King of the nations)
7. December 23: O Emmanuel (O Emmanuel)

Our commission was to write an individual, unique-to-us musical setting of an antiphon and perform it at Wartburg’s annual Service of Lessons and Carols.

(Good news! We’re doing this service again this year. I hope to record it and post as much as I can online.)

We enjoyed the project so much we took it with us on internship. We each wrote two more antiphons for a total of six, and we worked together on a seventh. The result is this series of songs. The only connecting threads in this project are the O Antiphon texts and that we wrote them. Use the series navigation box below to jump between titles, and feel free to download and share what you find here. All the songs are Creative Commons licensed.

Note: The recording for the seventh antiphon, O Emmanuel, won’t be available for download because it was poor quality.

The post Introduction to our O Antiphon series appeared first on Ted Carnahan.

If you’re looking for the official ELCA directions on this, look no further than the ELCA Style Guide. Rather than make you flip through 52 pages of it, though, here’s the one minute version, taken straight from the Style Guide:

• baptism/Baptism – baptism is the celebration of the Sacrament of Holy Baptism; capitalize when referring to the Christian sacrament or rite: “Holy Baptism,” “Sacrament of Holy Baptism”; lowercase when used as a general term: “baptism by fire,” “remembering my baptism,” “Jesus’ baptism”
• baptismal, baptismal candle, baptismal garment – any such adjectival usage of “baptismal” is lowercase
• sacrament/Sacrament – capitalize when used in a title: “the Sacrament of Holy Communion”; otherwise lowercase

Now you know!

And don’t forget to remember your baptism during the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, where baptismal promises are made by the whole assembly.

The post Uppercase or lowercase baptism? appeared first on Ted Carnahan.

There is nothing more frustrating than asking a question and not getting an answer. Timely communication is critical in the business world, and it’s critical in the church world too. Churches seem to recognize this: as I noted in part 5 of this series, over 95% of congregations posted email contact information on their website.

Just listing an email address isn’t enough, though – someone has to check it.

To find out whether there was someone on the other end, I sent this email to each of the 81 congregations that listed an email address or had an online contact form on their website:

Subject: Church Website Study

To whom it may concern:

My name is Ted Carnahan, and I am currently an M.Div. Intern at Wartburg Theological Seminary serving St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sterling, IL. I am conducting a research project on demographic trends and church website quality, and your congregation’s website was randomly selected for evaluation. Part of this evaluation involves testing whether email addresses posted on the congregation’s website are checked and responded to in a timely fashion. If you could simply reply to this email (or otherwise contact me at ted@tedcarnahan.com) to let me know you’ve received it, you will significantly advance my research and the quality of internet outreach for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Thank you for your time and participation.

Sincerely,

Ted Carnahan
M.Div. Intern
ted@tedcarnahan.com

The email was designed to look professional, non-spammy, and filled with keywords that would hopefully make it stick out from the garbage that routinely ends up in most churches’ inboxes. Here were the results:

The Data

I measured the turnaround time in whole numbers of business days. Responding on the same day was a turnaround time of “0” business days, etc. The average congregation that responded to my query responded in 1.8 business days. I would suggest that that is very high – the average ought to be 1.0 business days, with most queries being answered the same day.

Fortunately, if you remove the 4 outliers that took longer than two business days to respond, the average drops to 0.75 business days. This is fantastic! By the way, those outliers responded in 5, 6, 8, and 23 business days. The last one is not a typo – a full calendar month went by before they responded. I applaud their honesty in trying to get caught up on email.

Contact forms seemed to be counter-productive: only 2 of 7 congregations offering online contact forms actually responded to the messages sent through them.

I was surprised that only three email addresses bounced. More surprising was that 38 congregations silently failed to respond at all. Perhaps my message was rejected as spam, or a busy secretary didn’t have time for a lowly intern, but I can’t help but wonder if these churches have lost visitors as a result. Community context had no statistically significant impact on whether or how quickly a congregation responded to email.

Conclusions

• Most ELCA congregations understand the need for email communication.
• The congregations that answer the email answer it in a timely fashion.
• Half of congregations have no one answering the email. If your congregation has a website, review the procedure with your secretary, webmaster, or whoever else is responsible for that account, and check to make sure that email is being answered in a timely fashion.

Next: A look at blogs and calendars on ELCA websites.

The post ELCA Congregational Email Turnaround appeared first on Ted Carnahan.

There are plenty of things that churches can do to make their websites more appealing to visitors and members. I was curious to find out how common some of these “advanced content” ideas were. These things aren’t advanced because they require advanced technology; instead, they are just “above and beyond” a simple brochure-style website.

• Pastor’s bio. Often times this can be the most popular page on a church website.1 Don’t ask me why, but I guess people would like to know whether the person up front has a screw loose before they come visit.
• Sermons. Whether audio, video, or written transcripts of sermons, this content has Search Engine Optimization written all over it.
• List of current ministries. I’m not really sure whether this is particularly interesting to most visitors, but it might indicate the vitality and diversity of interests in a congregation.
• List of current leaders. Again, I’m not sure whether visitors care about this, but it might be useful to other members as they try to connect across the congregation.
• What to expect in worship. In my opinion, a must-have. With the broad variety in worship styles, people want to know what to expect.
• Real time communication. I was curious whether many church websites have begun to offer ways to connect in real time, whether through instant messaging, Skype, or some other way.

Characterizing the Data

Of the 84 with working websites in the sample:

• Twenty sites (about 1 in 4) had sermons online. These were almost exclusively text transcripts, though some were available for download in audio formats.
• Twenty-seven sites gave biographical information about the pastor.
• Twenty-eight sites told visitors what they could expect in worship, but these congregations were almost exclusively in suburban or large-ish cities.
• Thirty-seven sites posted a list of leaders in the congregation.
• The most common “Advanced Content” was a list of ministries. Again, I’m not sure whether this is interesting to visitors, or whether this serves to make webmasters feel like they have a lot more “content” on their website, but two-thirds of the sites (56) had this.
• Only 1 had any kind of real-time communication on their website. That means that 99% of ELCA congregations are missing the opportunity to connect immediately with visitors through the internet to answer questions, provide guidance, and offer prayer.

The two most popular Advanced Content items were a list a ministries and a list of congregational leaders, and where one was present the other was usually present too. The only two congregational contexts where this wasn’t the case were rural farming communities (which tended to put more sermons online) and near suburbs of large cities (which emphasized worship expectations more).

Take-home Message

• The most common “Advanced Content” on ELCA congregational websites is lists of ministries and lists of leaders, which might not be interesting for visitors at all.
• There is huge untapped potential to exploit Skype, chat rooms, and instant messaging to make immediate connections between church website visitors and ministry staff.

Tomorrow: Sure, you’ve got your email address on your website – but do you actually check it?

1. Mark M. Stephenson, Web-Empower Your Church: Unleashing the Power of Internet Ministry, (Abingdon, 2006), 47.

The post Advanced Content on ELCA Websites appeared first on Ted Carnahan.