Dull Worship Spurs Blacks to Leave Denomination

SELMA, Ala. — Dull worship has been a main reason for an exodus of black members from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, a black pastor told a conference sponsored by the denomination’s black ministry commission. Noting the denomination’s German roots, the Rev. Ulmer Marshall of Mobile said, “German music is just not attuned to what many of us are accustomed to and grew up with.”