Rev. Allison Werner Hoenen, LWF’s new Liturgical Studies Coordinator. Photo: LWF/A. Danielsson
Rev. Allison Werner Hoenen reflects on her journey from Houston in the United States to Leipzig in Germany
(LWI) - “As Christians, especially as evangelical Lutherans, singing is intrinsic to our faith [and] to our human story,” says Rev. Allison Werner Hoenen, the new Liturgical Studies Coordinator for the Lutheran World Federation (LWF).
For almost as long as she can remember, music and singing, worship and liturgy have been essential parts of her own life story. Growing up as a young child in Houston, Texas, in the southern United States, she began learning to play the flute. Before long, she was being asked to play at her local Lutheran church, accompanying the choir or even performing solo pieces during Holy Communion services on a Sunday morning.
As she grew older, this led to some serious reflections about how her own musical gifts and talents could contribute to the worship life of the congregation. But her studies also led her to dig deeper into the way music has shaped – and continues to shape - the liturgical life of the wider church. After doing a bachelor’s degree in music and German literature at Rice University in her home city, she moved to Connecticut to study liturgy as a Master of Arts student at Yale Divinity School and the Institute of Sacred Music.
Wider world of liturgical influences
There she encountered other musicians, organists and choir directors, but also poets and artists, all sharing their skills as they explored the history and development of Christian liturgy and the way it continues to influence the worship life of congregations to this day. “As a child, I was always amazed at the way we celebrated Mass every Sunday,” Werner Hoenen recalls, “but as I grew up, I wanted to understand more about what we are doing in worship, in the rituals, how we bring ourselves to God’s table and what this means for our daily lives. This is what led me to study liturgy as a Lutheran.”
After completing her Masters, she moved for the first time to Germany to spend a year doing research at the Insititute of Liturgical Studies in Leipzig. That experience, she says, opened her eyes to the wider world of liturgical influences, “not just learning about German history, liturgy or worship questions, but also looking into hymnology and how liturgy reaches into the whole world.”
During that year, Werner Hoenen also felt the calling to complete a Master of Divinity and seek ordination as a minister with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She spent two years in Philadelphia at the United Seminary (formerly the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia), followed by a return to Leipzig to work for a year at St Thomas Church where the composer Johann Sebastian Bach is buried. “Many people go there to visit his grave and to listen to the St Thomas Boys’ Choir. My internship coincided with the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death which was a big celebration, so I spent a lot of time doing tours or leading services for English tourists.”
Ordination and return to Germany
Following her ordination in Christ the King Lutheran Church in Houston, Werner Hoenen served for two years in the United States before moving back to Germany, together with her husband, whom she had met at the seminary in Philadelphia. Since 2002, she has served as a pastor in the Bavarian Lutheran Church, while also working for the past six years as a tutor to international scholarship recipients at Mission Eine Welt in Neuendettelsau.
Growing up “within the immigrant culture of the United States,” Werner Hoenen has always felt inspired to travel, “to meet other Lutherans and explore how they worship in their different contexts.” She reflects: “As an American, you always feel a bit international and I knew I had German, English and French roots. I started learning German in ninth grade, when I was 14, and I realized that speaking a foreign language opens the world to me.”
“When I first went to Germany, I saw that people have the same questions, the same longings, the same problems and the same faith,” she continues. “Now, I will be coming full circle and returning to the Leipzig Liturgical Studies Institute as director of the LWF worship desk. I am excited about this five-year call and look forward to reaching out to the global communion to celebrate what connects us in our Lutheran identity.”
Post-COVID, there are many questions about what it means to be a worshipping assembly.
LWF Assistant General Secretary for Ecumenical Relations, Prof. Dr Dirk Lange
“Across the LWF communion, we are recognized by our worship tradition,” says Prof. Dr Dirk Lange, LWF’s Assistant General Secretary for Ecumenical Relations. “But post-COVID, there are many questions about what it means to be a worshipping assembly. To have a liturgical desk again, to gather ideas, theological impulses and contextual questions, is a really important way of grounding our practices in our confessional writings. My great hope is that this will bring together our Lutheran confessional witness with our deep ecumenical impulses and worship practices.”
“There are so many treasures that we can discover in the traditions of our sisters and brothers worldwide,” says Pröpstin Astrid Kleist, General Secretary of the LWF’s German National Committee, which is supporting the new liturgical desk. “We all know that we have different Lutheran identities and we know that both our worship and our theologies are deeply connected with the context in which we live,” she reflects. “We are very proud to support this special project and I am really looking forward to praise God like our congregations in Tanzania, or cry to God with a Filippino song or pray to God in the way that our Polish brothers and sisters do.”
