Worship Anew (previously called, “Worship for Shut-Ins” or "WFSI") is a 30 minute Lutheran television worship service. It includes the readings for the day, prayers, and a Lutheran pastor delivering a message that is one-on-one to the viewer. Also included are up to four choir selections. Each program is closed captioned for the hearing impaired.
Since 1965, WFSI television broadcasts have been bringing church to the shut-in and many others. The program was conceived and produced by the Rev. Oswald Bertram at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Toledo, Ohio. It continued after his death in 1979 under the leadership of Pastor's Jim Stalder and Pastor John Westra, at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The program director was Ray Huebschmann. WFSI continues to provide a unique link between the church, its shut-in members, and many others.
For 30 years, Holy Cross served as the production site for the creation of each WFSI program. The Luepke Chapel inside of Holy Cross served as the preaching station and the sanctuary offered musical groups the perfect setting for the recording of the traditional church hymns heard on each broadcast.
In August 2010, those operations were moved to the newly constructed Elsie Rossman Media Center. The center sits on the campus of Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. For the first time in its history, all WFSI production offices and volunteer functions are housed in the same building. The Wolf Chapel, as the studio has been named, offers a state of the art facility for the production of quality TV programming. In recent years, WFSI has received a number of local, regional, and national production awards. Continuing with that level of excellence is essential for this ministry.
Weekly programs are distributed in three different ways: first, through the purchase of airtime on almost 100 local TV stations; the second is through the Total Christian Television (TCT) network satellite broadcast; and third, through webcasts that can be found on the Programming tab on the website, Worship Anew