Can’t decide? Choose an assortment of Christmas cards!
New this year, we are offering an assortment of our 
eight Christmas card designs. Each set includes two of each design, including our newest cards pictured here. Visit our Christmas cards page for more details and pictures!
The Brotherhood Prayer Book: New Music for Advent 1
While there are more than 450 mp3 files available on The Brotherhood Prayer Book CD, there still remain propers without musical composition and yet to be recorded. Now, we are pleased to make available newly composed and newly recorded propers for Advent. Using Reformation-era resources, Mr. Matthew Carver composed antiphons for the Benedictus of each week of Advent. Rev. Sean Daenzer then sang and recorded the antiphons and other propers. We thank them for their contribution to the music of the BPB!
Advent 1:
Invitatory for the Venite (p. 389):
The Venite (p. 31):
Responsory for Advent (p. 390):
Hymn at Morning Prayer (p. 391):
Antiphon for Benedictus (p. 391), pdf of newly-composed music:
Hymn at Evening Prayer (p. 392):
Antiphon for the Magnificat (p. 392):
Listen to a sample of how to move between the parts of the Canticle – from the Antiphon to the first verse of the Magnificat to the Gloria Patri, back to the Antiphon:
God With Us: How we developed the lectionary
If you’ve taken a look at the Table of Contents link for God With Us, you may be curious to know how we chose texts for the daily sermons in Advent. At Redeemer Lutheran Church, we follow the historic one-year series, and it is our custom to preach on the Gospel text for Sunday’s Divine Service. We have simply carried the theme from Sunday’s propers to the rest of the week, with the week’s Introit, Old Testament, or Epistle text forming the basis of the weekday sermon. There is also a series on the Lucan canticles: the Benedictus, the Magnificat, and the Nunc Dimittis. The remaining days of Advent are comprised of the unique Epistles and Gospels for the Wednesdays and Fridays in Advent and also the saints’ days that fall in December. Thereafter come sermons for the twelve days of Christmas, Sundays in Epiphany up to the Transfiguration, and other saints’ days that fall in January and February.
New free download!
Click on the Downloads tab above to find a new download of Church Father excerpts formatted as bulletin inserts for Advent 1 through Epiphany 6.
*Be sure to take a look at our 5 day promotion in the post below. Earn $5 for every $25 spent!
Reviews for God With Us
“Pastor Peterson preaches in a way which reveals deep study, rich knowledge and devotion, but also with a keen sharpness on our present situation. He preaches with simplicity and accuracy, zeroing in on multiple things at once, the text, the hearer, and always upon Christ….His common call to “repent” is never generic, but always pointed with a sternness that leaves you unable to wiggle out on your own. The Law is in full force, and with a brevity that is common to the prophets of old. It accuses, it instructs. The Gospel similarly is not generic, but sweet and set to the text and occasion, fully applied and delivered to ears that have heard. There is a Luther-like simplicity and exactness to his preaching. There is more than enough for both new hearer and seasoned saint to listen and inwardly digest.” -Rev. Joshua Scheer at Brothers of John the Steadfast
“Pastor Petersen is a faithful pastor. When he preaches, he preaches Jesus. And when he preaches Jesus, you consider your Savior in a way you hadn’t the week earlier. ‘He has laid Himself not only into a manger surrounded by dung in the cold winter air but also onto the rough wood of a cross surrounded by liars and cheats, thieves and terrorists. He has loved us to the very end.'” -Adriane Heins at Let It Stet
“Law preaching is some of the most difficult. We preachers find it hard to speak to people the hard words of the Lord. If for no other reason than to discover how well the Law can be preached, this volume of sermons is worthy. We find it too easy to preach to imaginary sins or sins that do not touch close to home. Pr. Peterson excels in laying bare the soul before the unbending gaze of the Law….And just when he has exposed my captivity to desire and my wish to pretend everything is fine, Pr. Peterson enters into with the sweet balm of the Gospel.” -Rev. Larry Peters at Pastoral Meanderings
“The book is a treasure trove for private or family devotions, as well as a solid source of homiletical material for daily chapel or Divine Services….Most importantly of all, at the center of each and every one of these sermons, leaping out triumphantly on each and every page, is Christ: Christ the incarnate, Christ the crucified, Christ the victorious, Christ the risen, Christ the Savior, Christ the coming-again. As with all good Christian preaching, this collection of sermons isn’t about pithy sayings, trenchant soundbites, insightful teaching, poetic turns of phrase, profound exegetical insight, but rather it is all, first and foremost, from Alpha to Omega, about Christ and the Gospel that He, our Emmanuel, our God With Us, bears to us in His very Body and in His Word.” -Rev. Larry Beane at Gottesdienst Online
*Visit our Reviews tab above for a complete listing.
Our new Christmas cards are now available!
We are pleased to unveil two new Christmas cards for 2014. The first card (right) features stained glass found in a local church, Faith Lutheran in Roanoke, Indiana. The words of “O Come, All Ye Faithful” appear muted in the background, with the final line of the fourth stanza boldly proclaiming, “Word of the Father now in flesh appearing!” The greeting inside continues with the refrain, “O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!”
The second design (below) is a beautiful nativity scene pictured on a Russian triptych from our own collection. A triptych has artwork divided into three panels which are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. The angels in the side panels are identified in Russian as 
Michael and Gabriel, while the text in the middle declares “the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (This is also noted on the back of the card.) The greeting inside simply states, “Glory to the newborn King,” which comes from the refrain of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”
Visit our Christmas Cards page to view all of our cards and their inside greetings. Can’t decide on one design? We now offer variety with a new assortment set.
Now available: 8″ x 10″ print of Six Chief Parts Artwork
The artwork on our Six Chief Parts greeting card is now available in an 8″ x 10″ print. Priced at only $10.00, this is the perfect gift for your pastor, those receiving first communion or confirmation, new members, or as a unique gift for your favorite Lutheran.
Description: Symbols for each of the six chief parts are arranged in a cruciform shape: tablets of the Law represent the Ten Commandments; chalice and host, the Lord’s Supper; scallop shell with three water drops, Holy Baptism; thurible with incense rising to heaven, the Lord’s Prayer; and crossed keys, the Office of the Keys. Central to all is a triangle interwoven with a circle, symbolizing the Holy Trinity confessed in the Apostle’s Creed. These symbols are charged on a red Latin cross pointing to Christ’s all-atoning sacrifice, which in turn gives life and produces fruit in the life of the Church and her saints.
Free Download: Large Catechism Reading as Bulletin Inserts — Trinitytide IV
Find the next set of bulletin inserts for Trinitytide (19th – 23rd Sunday after Trinity) by clicking on the Downloads tab above.
Now Available! God With Us: Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany Sermons by David H. Petersen
In 2012, we published Thy Kingdom Come: Lent and Easter Sermons by David H. Petersen. We are pleased to announce his next volume, God With Us, which includes fifty-nine sermons spanning Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany up to Transfiguration. These sermons – which were preached at Redeemer Lutheran Church, Fort Wayne, during Sunday Divine Services as well as daily Advent Divine Services – are now gathered together in one volume, serving as an excellent daily devotion.
“There is perhaps no other season in the church year that better embodies what we experience as Christians than the season of Advent. Observing Advent means learning to wait. . . .The sermons in God With Us will help you learn to wait and to wait for the right things. You will hear not only that Christ has come in the flesh to save us from sin and death, but also that He comes still in Word and Sacrament, and that He is coming again to take us from this vale of tears to Himself. You will be reminded not just of what God in Christ has done, but what He promises to do now and in the future. You will learn to wait for Christ and the fulfillment of His promises. For if we are shaped by what we wait for, then waiting for the right things will form us and thus prepare us to receive them when they come. It will mold us into those who wait and watch for Christ: the one who came, who comes, and who is coming again.”
-an excerpt from the Foreword by Rev. Jason Braaten
“Almost no one I know of has the ability that Fr. Petersen has to simply speak God’s truth to us – both in its devastating exposure of the darkest secrets of our hearts and in its intense comfort to the troubled conscience.” -Rev. William Weedon
Rev. David H. Petersen has been pastor at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana, since 2000. In addition to his pastoral duties, he is also a frequent speaker, prolific writer, and magazine editor, serving as editor of the Lutheran journal Gottesdienst, for which he writes on the life and liturgy of the Church. Rev. Petersen graduated from Concordia Theological Seminary with a Master of Divinity in 1996 and received a Master of Sacred Theology in 2012, having written his thesis on Law and Gospel and the preaching of Norman Nagel.
Free Download: Large Catechism Reading as Bulletin Inserts — Trinitytide III
Find the next set of bulletin inserts for Trinitytide (12th – 18th Sunday after Trinity) by clicking on the Downloads tab above.