2022 Christus Rex Award

The Institute of Liturgical Studies at Valparaiso University is pleased to announce Dr. Lorraine S. Brugh as recipient of its 2022 Christus Rex Award.

Established by the Institute’s advisory council in 2009, the Christus Rex Award annually recognizes an individual who has made significant contributions to liturgical scholarship and renewal.

From 2004 until 2017, Brugh served as director of the Institute of Liturgical Studies, guiding and shaping an intentional expansion of the Institute’s audience, presenters, mission, and offerings. Her example and leadership have continued to guide the Institute’s mission and vision—especially throughout the uncertainties posed by the pandemic.

Her 2017 Institute plenary, “Where Do We Go From Here?,” pointed to these unknowns by posing questions for new generations of leaders in ways that support local assemblies and celebrate the unity that arises in the diversity of practices, peoples, and pieties. At the conclusion of her tenure as director, the Institute’s Brugh Emerging Leader Award was established in recognition of Lorraine and Gary Brugh in order to honor and encourage individuals early in their vocation and acknowledge significant gifts already made by these individuals for the good of the whole church.

Brugh completed undergraduate and graduate degrees in organ performance at Northwestern University where she was also organ assistant at the Alice Millar Chapel. As recipient of a Fulbright-Hays award, she then studied organ with Gerd Zacher, improvisation with Gisbert Schneider at the Folkwangschule für Musik-Ruhr in Essen-Werden, and performed throughout Germany and Holland. She then completed a PhD in religious studies at Garrett–Evangelical Theological Seminary with a dissertation that examined the contextualization of music and worship in local assemblies through the lens of systematic theology.

In 1998, she joined the faculty of Valparaiso University where, across 22 years, she served as University Organist, Director of Chapel Music and conductor of the Kantorei, Kruse Organ Fellow, Professor of Music, and as Resident Director of the University’s Study Center in Cambridge. She taught courses in organ, musicianship, and church music both at Valparaiso University and as a faculty member at the Lutheran Summer Music Academy and Festival where she developed a three-year church music curriculum based on the cycles of the Revised Common Lectionary.

Her career has also included service to a number of organizations including the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians (charter member, president), the American Guild of Organists (chapter dean), the Lutheran World Federation, the North American Academy of Liturgy, and the World Council of Churches. As part of the Renewing Worship project of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Brugh served on the editorial, liturgical music, and writing teams and assisted throughout the planning, development, and introduction of Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELW). With the Valparaiso University Kantorei, she helped teach basic techniques for the book’s expanded range of musical styles in a number of local settings. Soon after, she was invited to co-author The Sunday Assembly, one of three ELW companion volumes, and has also contributed in numerous ways to journals and other worship-related resources such as CrossAccent, Psalm Settings for the Church Year, Sundays and Seasons, and Word & World.

In retirement, she has continued to serve as Senior Research Professor of Music and Adjunct Professor of Theology, teaching in the area of contemporary systematic theology. She presently serves Pinnacle Presbyterian Church (Scottsdale, AZ) as Artist-in-Residence where she shares in choral directing, organist responsibilities, and other leadership in worship, music, and arts.

Dr. Brugh will be presented with the 2022 Christus Rex Award at the Institute’s closing banquet on Wednesday, April 27.

Selected Publications and Resources
  • Interview, Profiles in American Lutheran Church Music (Concordia University Chicago: Center for Church Music, 2021)
  • “Asia” in Leading the Church’s Song, ed. Robert Buckley Farlee (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1998)
  • “Children’s Choirs as Proclaimers” in Liturgy 11, no. 1 (1993)
  • “Communal Formation at the Chapel of the Resurrection at Valparaiso University” in Liturgy 33, no. 4 (2018)
  • “Communal Singing: More than Meets the Ear” in CrossAccent 25, no. 1 (2017)
  • “Renewing Worship: The Beginning or the End?” in Word & World 26, no. 2 (2006)
  • “Responsive Contextualization: A Liturgical Theology for Multicultural Congregational Worship” (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University and Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, 1998)
  • “The Child’s Voice: Uncovering the Treasure” in CrossAccent 2, no. 1 (1994)
  • The Sunday Assembly: Using Evangelical Lutheran Worship, Volume 1 (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2008)
  • “Where Do We Go From Here? Liturgical Ponderings” in Fully Conscious, Fully Active: Essays in Honor of Gabe Huck (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2020)
  • “Whose Context is it Anyway?” in CrossAccent 12, no. 2 (2004)