1,000,000 Copies of Lutheran Service Book Sold: Hymnal In Every Home Campaign Launched
I am thrilled to announce today that Concordia Publishing House has sold ONE MILLION COPIES of Lutheran Service Book. One. Million. Copies. That’s 1 with six zeros after it. And, we could not have made this up even if we tried, the pastor who purchased the one millionth copy, Pastor Gary Benedix, purchased it for a confirmation student. He is “retired” and serving a very small congregation in….ready for it?…Jackpot, Nevada. I’m not making this up.
You can read all about it, and read about the Hymnal in Every Home campaign which we launched today to celebrate the 1,000,000th copy of Lutheran Service Book sold. From today until the end of the year, we are selling the pew edition of Lutheran Service Book for only $20 and the gift edition, for only $30. A mailing will be going out to all LCMS congregations making it easy for them promote this effort and give their members a chance to order copies of the hymnal for their homes, and request custom imprinting on the cover, etc.
Here is the Hymnal in Every Home website for more information. Check out the videos below. Your humble blogger is on one of them, but don’t let that stop you from watching them.
Pastor McCain:
Any idea how many ELWs Augsburg/Fortress has sold? My guess… not even close to a million!
Congrats on this acheivement
They sold a million, but the ELCA is about 2.5 times the size of The LCMS. Their sales results were very disappointing to them and they have not experienced anywhere near as high a level of adoption across their church as we have in The LCMS.
Congratulations, Paul, and to all the CPH family.
Just a question of curiosity… does anyone use LW any more? I know there are a few TLH holdouts in my district (I think there is even one still using the first English hymnal – the old green one), but has anyone held on to their LW?
I’m sure some congregation do…but…only very few now. We literally can not give away the remaining copies of Lutheran Worship that we have in inventory.
Could they be sent to the mission field, say Cameroon? I have a friend there…
We can ship hymnals anywhere in the world, our Customer Service Center would be happy to help you make this happen.
I have LW in my collection, but I have to admit, despite containing some very good hymns, when browse through it, you get the distinct impression that it was a rushed job, something to put out to compete with Lutheran Book of Worship. I have no idea if that impression is accurate. But LW is nowhere near as good as LSB, that much is sure. That being said, I really like Fred Precht’s Companion to LW.
P.S. The color of LSB is also far preferable to that bright blue of LW!
The funniest part of the McCain video (which was really well done) is that one of the “random” hymns shown from the LSB is Earth and All Stars, the great LW hymn. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the appearance of that hymn in a video celebrating the success of the LSB. Will we ever be free of that dreadful thing???
It’s a favorite of a lot of people! Believe it, or not.
: )