New director for Commission on Worship

Rev. Paul Prange has accepted the call to serve as director of the Commission on Worship. He replaces Rev. Bryan Gerlach, who retired in August 2024.  

Though Prange has been serving for the past 30 years in ministerial education—first as president at Michigan Lutheran Seminary, Saginaw, Mich., and then as administrator of the Board for Ministerial Education (BME)—he has had a passion for worship since early on. 

“I grew up in a home that cared about Lutheran worship. We talked about it, and we lived it,” he says. “That was my identity.”  

His dad, Rev. Victor Prange, was the chairman of the 1993 Hymnal Project, and Paul recently served as the chairman of the Psalter Committee for the WELS Hymnal Project that resulted in the release of Christian Worship: Hymnal and Christian Worship: Psalter in 2021. “I learned many more details about how the whole Christian church sings psalms in worship,” says Prange. “That made me even more interested than I had been before in worship planning and helping people do their best in worship.” 

The Commission on Worship is part of WELS Congregational Services, which exists to encourage and equip congregations for faithful and fruitful gospel ministry. Part of Prange’s new role as director will be supporting congregations in worship and worship planning. This includes helping congregations and worship planners understand what resources are available from the 2021 WELS Hymnal Project and how to use them as well as discovering what resources may still need to be developed. “I think I can be helpful to any willing participant in the church who asks how to improve worship, no matter what their circumstance,” he says.  

He also will be instrumental in creating future worship planning material for The Foundation, a suite of weekly ministry worship resources produced by WELS Congregational Services, including expanding the options available to meet the needs of any congregation. 

“Every church in WELS has worship at least once a week. It’s a terrifically important thing that we do because the gospel is at the center of it,” says Prange, a member at St. Paul, Ixonia, Wis. “Whatever I can do to help people improve it helps the health of the whole church.” 

Prange taking this call opens up a vacancy in the position of administrator for the Board for Ministerial Education. The board will be looking to call to fill that position in the near future.