So what does your Pastor think of all of this?? Did he start comtemporary because he wanted contemporary or because he wanted to please those who wanted contemporary? I believe that is an important question to answer.

The day I witness a “praise band” turn around and face the Cross (if their Church has one) to offer their praises to God is the day I start listening to how they might offer a “better way.” Noone I know offer praises to God by turning their back to Him.

My experience with praise bands and song leaders is that they are American Idol/Rock Star wannabe’s.

@Rev. Sterle – The contemporary service was started before I got there so I don’t know all the driving forces behind it. I have heard that part of the motivation was to create a service that was less foreign to those in our community, especially families of our pre-school children.

@Dennis – In fairness, the “praise band” is to the left of the sanctuary so they do not have their backs to the Cross and statue of Christ, but they are faced toward the congregation.

I have discussed some of this with my pastor, but I was hoping for feedback from others before discussing all of this with him to make sure my arguments seemed sound.

Brian – Where is the focus of the congregation during the singing of the praise band. Does the congregation focus on the band, on large screen with scrolling words or do they focus on the cross? This is the main point of disagreement I have with praise bands. People are either concentrating on the screen or checking out the drummer in the band. I’ve yet to see a member contemplating the cross. In our church, noone turns to watch the organist when the hymns begin – we all face the cross for therein is where our salvation lies.

And for a simplier exposition of the difference, write out the words to the praise songs. Read them – study them. Are they like our hymnal where we sing Christ for you or is their wording more to the world’s “we do; we praise; we do?”

I don’t have a problem with amplification. I think it’s fine to mic a choir in a building that has poor acoustics. I also think it’s fine to mic a soloist for special music. But, they should be in the back or in a choir loft – heard and not seen.

I’d suggest working on the margins. If you do a “jerry maguire” and send your manifesto to the entire congregation, you’ll marginalize yourself and nobody will pay attention. Try to offer constructive criiticism instead. For example, suggest that the contemporary service add a kyrie, and point out the many examples in the nt in which Jesus was approached by asking for mercy and his favorable response. Or if a particularly arminian praise song is sung, point it out and suggest a more lutheran alternative.

Also, I would suggest asking your pastor to lead a bible study on the divine service, or to lead one yourself.

Dennis – I completely agree with you on where people are focused (I have focused on the 2 things you mentioned when I’ve gone to the “contemporary” service) and where they should be focused [22]. I hope that came across in the analysis.

As for the praise song evaluation, I did some of that when I originally sat down to right the analysis. I summarized it in [20] of this document. A full analysis of hymnity could be a whole other document.

Please substitute ‘hymnody’ for ‘hymnity’.

Hi Brian,

I like what you have written. As a suggestion consider dropping “I reject” from your statements. I think it offers the reader who may disagree with you a chance to dismiss the entire document as merely something you believe.

Jim Pierce

Just a quick comment re: facing the cross or not. Does not the pastor, in facing the congregation at various points in the service, have his back to the cross? Especially during the sermon as well? Or am I missing something (it wouldn’t be the first time!)? I have only been in one church where the praise band/team was in the balcony. It was for a funeral, so, thankfully, the praise band wasn’t there.

Brian – You may want to heed the caution by Jim (post#10). I’m certain few remain who appreciate the difference of confess verses condemn. It just isn’t politically correct which is part of the problem you may be facing.

Boaz (post#7) had an excellent suggestion which I not only concur with but would suggest the Bible study of early Christian liturgy by Arthur Just (CTS) would be a easy starting point. We use only the LSB Divine Services and the parallels were readily grasped and appreciated by many of our members during the study. The study took about six to eight weeks. It is prepared in DVD format with discussion after each segment. This was made several years ago – but being Lutheran (in the historic sense) – could have been done yesterday. Let’s hear it for potlucks and preaching.

The contemporary worship I’ve witnessed seems to derive on what you said earlier, “to create a service that was less foreign to those in our community.” Yet I can think of nothing more foreign to the world than the proper preaching of the Gospel. It is foolishness to those outside the faith. Our primary focus should be based on Christ’s last words to the disciples before he ascended, “repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:47). This would be the benchmark I would suggest to evaluate the style of worship. Simply, is the Pastor and the Church doing what Christ commanded them to do?

Good observation by Johannes (post#11). For this, I offer my suggestion to Pastor Rossow for the speakers of the second annual BJS conference. Gather Pr. William Weedon, Pr. William Cwirla, Pr. David Peterson and Pr. Paul McCain together for a discussion of the Divine Service liturgy. And please, make a DVD recording if possible. That would truely be a Lutheran treasure (don’t forget the beer).

Regarding Point 21: I am a little lenient on this one in some circumstances. For instance, if the Gospel is read from the center of the congregation on a feast day, it would not be inappropriate for the sermon to be given there as well. Another option is for the pastor to start in the pulpit and work his way down at some point. With proper catechesis, this can be understood as a visual picture of the Word coming down to earth.

Johannes: In general, the pastor faces the congregation for “sacramental” acts: when he is offering to the congregation the things that are from God, such as the readings, sermon, absolution, etc., and when he is addressing the congregation directly, such as “Let us bless the Lord.” He faces the cross for “sacrificial” acts: when he is offering to God on behalf of the congregation, such as prayers, acclamations, etc.

There may be some exceptions, but that’s the general principal.

BTW, the song leader in the praise band is NOT called by the congregation to offer sacrificial acts, so he or she should not be calling the congregation to prayer or leading it.

Brian, Thank you for your post. I agree with most of what you (or others who have supplied commets) stated, especially about the front and center preminence (sp?) of even the voice choir or bell choir during the service. It has been a personal feeling of my own that special music of any sort should help enhance the feeling of closeness to the Lord – and not obscure the cross or other vestiges of the Lords house. Whether it be the choir or a solo, whether singing or insturmental, as someone previously stated: “they should be heard – not seen”. Placeing groups or individuals in ‘front and center position’ will always require focus of attention on them, which serves as another way to minimize the Lord and His coming to us in Divine Service. And yet I yield to the Choir processing just prior to begining of the service – if for no other reason then it is a sign the service is about to begin and we better break up our little coffee clutches in the narthex and get to our appointed pews (:)………

Thank you for your post, Brian. Something I witnessed this morning at VBS connected with articles 23-24 of your post. Our VBS children are going to sing from the chancel on Sunday, facing the congregation. This is the only group of people, other than our regular Sunday School children, that “performs” from the chancel, and always toward the congregation. Pictures and videos get taken, and everybody fawns over how cute they all are. What are your thoughts?

@Scott – the children performing up front is a tough one for me. I grew up in a Lutheran day school and there were special Sundays when we “performed” up front so I have a tough time coming down really hard on it, but I can’t honestly say that I’m comfortable with it. I think that we should keep discussing the practice and if we continue it, we should never get comfortable with it.

@boaz – Not planning to drop this on the congregation, but I won’t hide it. These are just points of discussion I want to have with my pastor.

@Jen – My point of amplification was with regard to the corporate singing. I’ve never been in a church where any of the singing between readings needed amplification, so I don’t have any feelings in this regard.

@Dennis – You ask, “is the Pastor and the Church doing what Christ commanded them to do?” Well, I would argue that the Word is purely preached and the Sacraments are properly administered in the “contemporary” service. However, I don’t believe it is the best we have to offer as there are elements and hymnody (thanks, Susan) that cloud the Gospel and that is where I’m coming from.

@Jim – Do you have a suggestion as to how I might start the “I reject …” statements. The Formula uses “We reject …” in many place, but I wasn’t presuming to speak for anyone but myself.

> Does not the pastor, in facing the congregation at various points in the service, have his back to the cross? <

At these points he is Christ’s representative to give His gifts to the people as a called and ordained servant of the Word. He has been given the authority, even the command to do so. The band has no such authority and does not represent Chrsit to the people.

And that is the whole problem with CW. It takes God’s authority and gifts and turns the worship service into what we do for God. True worship is God coming to earth instead to bestow His grace upon those He has called into His presencein the means of grace. In CW the band and such are calling God out and raising the people to meet God. Simply put, this is the definition of idolatry.

“Let me say that our “contemporary” service is much better at proclaiming the Gospel than any “3 songs and a ‘How-to’ sermon” from an Evangelical church.”

The ‘blended’ service as you describe is generally some sort of tortured attempt to either put a ‘generic Evangelical’ spin on the Divine Service or worse, to put a Lutheran spin on the ’3 songs/how-to sermon’ format. It is a transitional form. Once the stodgy old objectors are gone, or just not present at the mission start or satellite, the gloves come off and you get the full blown rock concert/generic evangelical format, complete with emotional lay testimonies and devoid of anything Lutheran. The blended service is not the intended endpoint. The CW/CG folks are as unhappy with it as anyone else. Too Lutheran.

Blended worship is simply a trojan horse. It’s an attempt to by-pass the Divine Service, and substitute a softened version of so-called contemporary worship. It’s almost always invented out of smoke and mirrors, and, like contemporary worship (or “contemptable” as one friend calls it) is all about ME. On another note, so-called contemporary music is usually 70′s, not what you hear on truly contemporary Christian radio these days.
Michaal Horton calls the music God/Boyfriend music. You can sing it to God or to your boyfriend (or girlfriend). The basic message is the same.
When you add the screens, the movie clips, the images, etc. it’s apparent that the medium has become the message. It’s no longer Christian. It’s a liturgical golden calf.

Dear Brian,

If your: “[3] The other side holds that worship styles are mandated neither in the Scriptures nor the confessions and as such we have the freedom to worship as appropriate for our local context.” is a reference to the FOC’s: “4] 2. We believe, teach, and confess that the congregation of God of every place and every time has the power, according to its circumstances, to change such ceremonies in such manner as may be most useful and edifying to the congregation of God.” it might be worth pointing out that “the congregation of God of every place and every time” originally refered to territorial churches rather than individual congregations.

The CW folk tend to troop this lonely sentence out to make it appear that the Confessions have an “anything goes” approach to liturgy, but it’s pretty obvious from early Lutheran church visitation reports etc. that liturgical standardization was required w/in the congregations of a given principality. This refers to the freedom of these territorial churches to set their own (Evangelical Lutheran) liturgies. It is not a license to trump AC XV’s “1] Of Usages in the Church they teach that those ought to be observed which may be observed without sin, and which are profitable unto tranquility and good order in the Church, as particular holy days, festivals, and the like.” or the Apology’s “52] And in this very assembly we have shown sufficiently that for love’s sake we do not refuse to observe adiaphora with others, even though they should have some disadvantage; but we have judged that such public harmony as could indeed be produced without offense to consciences ought to be preferred to all other advantages [all other less important matters].”

Your paper is a cool idea, but if you’ve got a more unashamedly Lutheran church w/in driving distance, shake the dust off your sandals.

Pax Christi+,
Matt Mills

I reject the projection of images of “Buddy-Christ” on the power point screen as the background slides containing the words to the praise music.

Let me say that we are not a CG congregation. We had a TCN consultant give us the pitch and we rejected it, and we have nothing to do with Ablaze!

From what I know of my pastor, I believe that he honestly thinks that there is a way to do a “contemporary” service that is faithful to the Lutheran confessions. In the discussions we have had on my problems with the service, he has always said it is a work in progress.

@Matt – I’ve had fleeting thoughts of leaving for a more boldly Lutheran congregation, but there are no perfect congregations and I would feel uncomfortable leaving unless there were false doctrine being preached and taught, which there is not. I’m also comforted, as always, by vocation. God has placed me in this congregation and I can serve my neighbor by pointing out these kinds of problems.

Although the style, etc. of worship may be an adiaphoran, it does not mean that we are free to do whatever we want. I recently heard a guest on Issues say words to that effect (It may have been Cantor Magness). At any rate, whatever form worship may take, we are not free to subvert the Gospel, or ignore it, and we are not free to say such things as “We offer you our worship” as occurred at a recent district convention worship, or “May the Lord bless and keep you, etc.” (Same worship service). We are not free to sing Twila Paris’ “Lamb of God” in lieu of the Agnus Dei–there is a universe of difference between the two. Now, the “heresy”: I don’t think it’s helpful to use music in the liturgy that is un-melodic, un-chantlike, and almost atonal in character. Divine Service IV (LSB), for instance, employs very singable tunes, for the historic liturgy.
Unfortunately, the term “adiaphora” is understood to imply an a-liturgical free-for-all, both in language and music. It has come to mean license, in the name of Christian freedom. There is a weighty responsibility connected with adiaphora, just as freedom itself is not devoid of responsibility.

“From what I know of my pastor, I believe that he honestly thinks that there is a way to do a “contemporary” service that is faithful to the Lutheran confessions.”

I also believe that it is technically possible, but that it would look very different from anything currently taking place, certainly not like the current “Frankenstein” blended services cobbled together out of varying percentages of two opposing views of worship. If someone were to come up with this properly vetted comtemporary form it would interest me, but I assure you that you could count on one hand the number of people who say they want contemporary worship that would be satisfied with it.

True worship *is* contemporary, for true worship confesses God’s call to repent and receive the forgiveness of sins from the present-in-the-flesh-Son-of-God.

Thus, the liturgy **is** contemporary.

The premise of CW is that the liturgy is not contemporary, i.e. relevant. It goes hand in hand with accusations of cold or dead orthodoxy. Of course, if something or someone is truly orthodox it is impossible for him to be either cold or dead.

Shame on anyone who would either implicitly or explicitly stand on such a point. Repentance and further instruction are indicated.

Hi Brian, @#17

My suggestion is to write in your introduction something to the effect that you will be expressing negative and affirmative statements regarding traditional worship, and then drop both “I believe” and “I reject” from the underlying statements. Here are a couple examples:

“[22] I reject the use of screens and projectors as they pull our attention from the altar, pulpit, and baptismal font, the symbols of the sacraments around which we are gathered and should be focused.”

Could be rewritten to something like this,

[22] The use of screens and projectors pull our attention from the altar, pulpit, baptismal font, and the symbols of the sacraments around which we are gathered and should be focused.

Likewise…

“[15] I believe the prominence of the altar, pulpit, and baptismal font in our church architecture enhances the sacramental focus brought out in the historic liturgy.”

might look like this…

[15] The prominence of the altar, pulpit, and baptismal font in our church architecture enhances the sacramental focus brought out in the historic liturgy.

I think the headings of “Affirmative Statements” and “Negative Statements” adequately convey what you believe and reject without the additions of “I believe” and “I reject”.

I hope that helps.

Jim Pierce

Brian says at #23:
‘In the discussions we have had on my problems with the service, he has always said it is a work in progress.’
Which seems to pretty much give proof to Johannes at #20:
‘Blended worship is simply a trojan horse. It’s an attempt to by-pass the Divine Service, and substitute a softened version of so-called contemporary worship.’
Also: why labor at a work in progress, when the work’s been done already, and can be joined ALREADY IN PROGRESS! Indeed, in continuous progress. Aren’t we, in Divine Service, just tapping in to what’s occurring in Heaven on a continuous basis? Don’t we confess our sins and receive the absolution, in order to join in fellowhip with the saints in Heaven for that brief bright hour?
Those who really really want CW do not really really want a Contemporary–or Contemporized–Liturgy, but accept it as a transition to what they really really want: a departure from liturgy. A divorce.
The compromise definitely works to the advantage of CW.
The idea of one church engaging in two styles of worship proves that it is indeed perceived to be ALL about style, and does nothing but divide that body into two rival parts. One attends where one’s preference is offered. It’s a house divided against itself.

Brian Yamabe,

So, you say:

The contemporary service was started before I got there so I don’t know all the driving forces behind it. I have heard that part of the motivation was to create a service that was less foreign to those in our community, especially families of our pre-school children.

And then you say:

I believe that the historic liturgy is the best vehicle for our understanding of worship which is the proclamation of the Gospel in Word and Sacraments, and our response to those gifts.

And then also:

I believe the historic liturgy is the best tool for catechesis in the context of worship.

=======

So, I don’t know why your own pastor started up the contemporary service.

But I do know that many use contempo worship in order to bring the Gospel message in a clear contextual way to those in their community.

You know exactly what Kyrie Eleison means. Many don’t. That’s why Contempo translates much of this.

And admittedly drops a lot of it as well. But this is done in order to proclaim the Gospel message in a clear way to those who are unfamiliar with a liturgical worship or who are turned off by it.

After all, the liturgical service was handed down to us, not by God Himself, but by men who were trying to proclaim the Gospel message in a clear way to their own community.

Isn’t that what your pastor is seeking to do as well?

So, with these statements, I do not hear you saying “The best way to proclaim the Gospel message so that people understand it is to use the traditional liturgical service.”

Is that your opinion? Because, at this point, you really have to see that it is simply an opinion. There is hardly a “fact” involved in this.

Does that make sense? Do you understand my point about this?

I myself encourage your speaking with your pastor about this issue.

(as an aside, I don’t understand what your issue with the children’s sermon. Is it simply that you don’t like the title “Children’s sermon”? But you don’t have an issue with the actual action (a specific message designed to bring the Gospel to kids in a simple clear way.)?)

This is an excellent discussion of our time-honored & Christ-centered liturgy vs. current American Evangelical “liturgy.” Thanks to Brian for bringing this to our attention. Like Brian, I’m sure many of us are struggling with these issues in our own LC-MS congregations.

Brian Yamabe,

I’m sorry, but in the light of another discussion, I would like to ask one more question: do you think your pastor is interested in saving souls?

Mark L,

Why it is obvious that he is not interested in saving souls because he is doing contemporary worship .

As I did above, I encourage you to understand that phrase as it was intended and not brandishing it as some sort axe with which you slay others.

The point inteneded is that when the Gospel gets watered down souls are at risk as Paul describes in Galatians 1 and all through his epistles.

Do contemporary worship and church growth advocates intentionally set out to decieve souls? No, but unintentionally by choosing the less important good of being relevant they water the Gospel down and that is what is being addressed on this site.

You don’t have to agree with the preceeding paragraph but you do have to quit being illogical by twisting a perfectly acceptable critique of CW and CG (which you do not agree with which is your right) into a wax nose for your own purposes.

TR

Lord have mercy!

Spare us more nonsense from Mark Louderback, who, knowing better, will insist that “traditional” means “latin” (but only to waste our time)!

Mark Louderback #31,

You ask, “do you think your pastor is interested in saving souls?”

I am sure all pastors are interested in saving souls, but that is out of their hands, isn’t it? If your main objective is saving souls than your practice will be proclaiming the Word of God in all of its truth and purity whenever you are given the opportunity.

Are you interested in saving souls? If so, you better get busy.

“But I do know that many use contempo worship in order to bring the Gospel message in a clear contextual way to those in their community.”

I would be interested to know how presenting worship as what we do and not what God does, or possibly worse, popping back and forth between forms and elements that do not agree on which it is, can be useful in bringing the Gospel message to anyone in a clear contextual way.

“…one more question: do you think your pastor is interested in saving souls?”

Let’s speak clearly on this so there is no confusion. Pastors don’t save souls. Pastors who understand this are not interested in it, since it is not possible. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t meant that way but imprecise language is being flung about by more than one here.

Mark L. @ 29,

“After all, the liturgical service was handed down to us, not by God Himself, but by men who were trying to proclaim the Gospel message in a clear way to their own community.”

When did the divine service become an evangelistic tool for outreach to the community? When Dwight Moody and Charles Fuller (19th century America) introduced “the altar call” and began to design church services as marketing tools. Contrary to “revivalism” the divine service is about Jesus our Lord coming to us with His gifts, for the forgiveness of sins and not about persuading people to come forward to an altar and make a decision for Christ.

FYI, Mark L: In LSB et al, such terms as Kyrie and Agnus Dei appear only as the titles. The texts are actually in English.
So no one needs to be intimidated by foreign terms.

Mark L @29 – I will address what I believe is your main point.
“So, with these statements, I do not hear you saying “The best way to proclaim the Gospel message so that people understand it is to use the traditional liturgical service.”

Is that your opinion? Because, at this point, you really have to see that it is simply an opinion. There is hardly a “fact” involved in this.”

Yes, I believe that the traditional liturgical service is the clearer of the two service in proclaiming the Gospel so that people understand it. It is a demonstrable fact that contemporary worship doesn’t do it. Look at the surveys out of Willow Creek and Saddleback. For all the changes they’ve made and as “relevant” as they are they don’t seem to be communicating salvation, by grace, through faith, for Christ’s sake alone. They’re producing works righteous universalists.

Mark, I hope you understand the point of my analysis. It was in the hopes that it would cause the proponents of contemporary worship to defend it in a more substantive way. I would like your analysis on how the contemporary worship better communicates the Gospel. Tell me why you’ve removed the Kyrie and what you’ve replaced it with and why. Explain how screens and amplifiers deepen our understanding of the faith. At least give me something like “hymnals are distracting too”. Something more than people don’t understand it, are unfamiliar with it, or don’t like it.

As for the “Children’s Message” my complaint is that it sets up a false distinction. The message for children is the same as it is for adults. Additionally, the children become the focus of this message. When they are brought to the front of the congregation are people focusing on Christ or the kids? Are the parents concerned about what their child will do or say while they’re up there (I know it has crossed my mind)?

Mark @31 – I know the discussion you’re talking about and if you want to infer things that obviously weren’t meant just to be inflammatory that is you’re business. I won’t dignify the question with an actual answer.

Jim @27 – Thanks for the suggestions. I’ll try to work on it over the next week.

Susan @37 – lol!

Brian Yamabe,

You say: “Mark, I hope you understand the point of my analysis. It was in the hopes that it would cause the proponents of contemporary worship to defend it in a more substantive way.”

====

I think this is a great thing to do. I commend you for it. first of all for being open to hearing an answer to the question. I think that those of us who have contemporary worship services do indeed have serious, substantive reasons for why we do this. After all, people are not fools. You are not an idiot. We all deserve to have good reasons for the actions that we take.

Especially when we are looking to change behavior. I understand what Lutheran worship used to be and that some are saying to move away from that. So, we had better be able to defend why.

Uh, I’m not entirely sure that this board is the place for it. It is not really designed to be a forum for my own personal opinion.

So, as long as I’m welcomed (sorta) I’ll share.

Once upon a time, my mom gave me a bulletin from a congregation that she attended on the day of the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession. I looked at the bulletin and there was nothing in the order of service that made it different from any other day.

Sure, the sermon would bring out the distinction of that day. But that’s it?

When I was using Creative Communication, they had great confessions for the time of Epiphany that were based upon the idea of light. I thought this was a tremendous teaching opportunity and a great connection of the theme to the actual confession that we use.

So, the (abbreviated) upshot is, contemporary worship allows a service to be focused on a theme and allows the integration of all parts of the worship service to touch upon the subject at hand–the topic, the theme that is being covered.

People don’t have the same depth of knowledge of Scripture. I live in the south, where Christianity still permeates the culture, but still there is great Biblical illiteracy, people don’t understand why we do what we do in worship services, and plus, there is so much dis-information out there.

So: my contemporary service is designed to reach out to those who are not attending services. Who once were, but now are not. Who perhaps have a sour taste in their mouth from previous churches.

The “relaxed” aspect of the service allows me to explain every part that we do (and since it is simplified, that is easier as well). I can speak about communion and what exactly it means–why we are eating the very body and blood of Christ and what this brings to us.

(As an aside we celebrate communion every Sunday and I quite understand the issue with close communion. More on that later.)

But I can speak directly about our confession of sins, communion, our confession of faith (and here, I do not use the creeds, but rather I have been reading from Scripture to teach once again why we hold to what we hold to–that is b/c the Word teaches it.)

Now, the church has always used visual elements for instruction. Luther designed a seal after all, he did not just write. Churches have stained glass windows and we wear stoles with different colors for different seasons. Using a big screen is just one more way to use visual elements to teach.

Children’s sermon is the same thing–but I grew up with one, so this is more a matter of doing what has been passed on to me. The regular sermon is not for kids. They don’t understand it. My child is a bright PK and she doesn’t follow my sermons. We teach confirmation–why not have a time for kids? They get so little Bible time as it is.

That is why I do what I do. I think that my service conveys the Word of God, the Gospel, in a clear simple way for the people coming to the service. We explain what is going on and why we are doing it. We don’t use jargon or expect them to know our language. Rather, we bring the Word in a simple contextual way.

That is why I do what I do.

Tim Rossow,

Yes! It is obvious!

You know, you say that I have an axe, but Pr Kavouras wrote with a chain saw. I mean, at some point, words have meaning. The essay was put up on the website as a fine example.

So, you know, ought I not to bring out the issue and question whether what he writes is indeed true–no, forget that. Fair. That is my point. He is being unfair to pastors.

Including Briam Yamabe’s pastor. I mean, that is why I ask him the question. He doesn’t want to answer it–and I can appreciate that–but it illustrates my point. It is easy to make wide cuts with your saw–but when you come across an individual tree, all of the sudden you have to ask yourself if your chain saw is indeed cutting the right things.

Brian Yamabe’s pastor is described by him on his website as a pretty confessional guy. He has a contemporary service. Pr Kavouras has said that those who promote contemporary worship are not interested in saving souls.

Is it really that wrong of me to connect these dots?

Now, you say: No, but unintentionally by choosing the less important good of being relevant they water the Gospel down and that is what is being addressed on this site.

But this is entirely inaccurate: being relevant is EXTREMELY important to the work of the church. Jesus was very relevant, speaking to people where they were and teaching them in such a way as they understood what he meant (not always, but mostly). That is why people were amazed at His teaching with authority.

Luther was very focused on being relevant. He wrong the catechisms because of his concern and disgust with what the common peasant knew about the faith. And he wrote the catechism in a simple manner for them.

So being relevant is a synonym for “explaining the Gospel clearly to people.” (at least to me) This is exactly what we strive for.

So, no, I don’t agree with the Pr Kavouras’ statement or yours and if you do agree with it, then you won’t have any difficulty with coming to the obvious conclusions: pastor Yamabe’s pastor has CW; ergo he does not care about saving the lost.

Now, you can indeed gussy up the statement and talk about reading it in context–but does it mean something or not?

(BTW, Paul is not concerned about the Gospel being watered down in Galatians; he is concerned about it being rejected. If you want to say that Brian Yamabe’s pastor is rejecting the Gospel, that is fine with me too. Well, no not really. But you get the context of what I say.

Helen,

Mmmm… And I am the one accused of having an axe….

Susan R,

No one NEEDS to be, sure. But some indeed are. For some, going to church is one of the most intimidating actions in the world.

I’m comfortable with the jargon we use, because I grew up with it and I know the language. I’m just saying that maybe we could drop it nowadays some for those who are not as comfortable with it.

Don’t get me wrong: I think liturgical worship is a wonderful blessings. We’re doing p. 15 tomorrow. Lots of people like it, young and old, understand it, and it is a wonderful blessing. I would never say that we ought to not do it.

But it is not the only way to worship.

Jim Pierce,

Per Hansa, a book about Norwegians settling in America speaks about a pastor coming to a small community and kicking off a service. Plenty of those there don’t have a grasp of the Gospel.

Right now, Sunday morning is a good time to reach out to heathens with the Good News of Christ. I think we should take advantage of this.

James Sarver,

The work that I would recommend on this is the most awesome essay on Newtonian vs Einsteinian world views by James Voelz in (I think a 97) Concordia Journal.

Yes, ultimately salvation is from Christ and Him alone. But saying that I am concerned about saving the lost is in this instance the same thing as saying I am concerned about others not taking the name of the Lord in vain.

God is concerned about the lost and so am I. You read Paul and you see his concern and his action as well. We act in the same way.

You say “I would be interested to know how presenting worship as what we do and not what God does…”

Even the Confessions speak fairly clearly about the actions of the individual in worship, even in terms of sacrifice.

I mean, I have to wake up tomorrow and drive to church. Alone the way, plenty of people will not be doing that at all. Maybe some of them do it because they have been to church and don’t understand it or think that it has any value or relevance in their everyday life.

But it does, wouldn’t you agree?

This website is not for my personal thoughts on worship, contemporary and otherwise. I appreciate the opportunity to engage in dialog because I think it is sorely needed. It is my opinion that there are beliefs held concerning contemporary worship that have no connection to reality. Or straw-men are set up and burned down.

Brian Yamabe said that he wanted me to defend CW in a substantive way. In the same way, I think that those who reject CW ought to be forced to do the same. It is not enough to hold forth and spout opinions to those who agree with you. We need to come together and honestly discuss and speak about our differences and be able to understand the reasons why others are different from ourselves.

Isn’t this exactly what Pr Harrison recommends? Isn’t this what he calls for?

So, I hope that my words are simply the beginning of a dialog. And I hope that we approach this dialog with some open minds, willing to listen to other opinions and actually engage the arguments that they make, rather than being snide, dismissive, arrogant, or deceiving.

That’s my say. I’ve used this website as a soapbox, I appreciate the opportunity, and I thank everyone for listening. I’ll explain my thoughts as needed, but once again, I don’t feel appropriate using this forum to advance my own pious, Godly opinions.

But nor will I let just anything pass unchallenged.

Mark L. @40 – Since contemporary worship works so well on themes, I was wondering how the contemporary service highlighted the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession that kind of sparked your desire to accommodate themes? I’d also be interested to know if the theme of Trinity Sunday focused on the Athanasian Creed or how the theme of that day focused on the Trinity. I was also wondering what themes your using during Pentecost. I went to your website but it seems to be under construction.

I don’t doubt that your service conveys the Gospel in a clear and simple way. I would ask how you are discipling your members to a deeper understanding of the faith as expressed in the Lutheran confessions. If you aren’t using the creeds in the service, how will they know them and understand the gifts that have been handed down through them. I praise God that your members know that Christ died for their sins, but if they don’t stand by the Lutheran confessions they shouldn’t call themselves Lutherans or commune at Lutheran rails, not because Christ did not die for them, because they don’t confess the same faith.

I must also respond to your statement, “Using a big screen is just one more way to use visual elements to teach.” You compare big screens to the Lutheran seal and stained glass neither of which was ever used in the divine service to my knowledge. If a crucifix isn’t a strong enough visual device, I don’t know what is.

One think you forgot to address was your communion practice. You mentioned you would address it, but I think it got lost.

Mark,

One of the points I gathered from your posts is that you use contemporary worship as an outreach tool, to encourage those not comfortable with a “traditional” service to come to church. I think that is a point with which there is disagreement. While outreach is very important and often neglected in more traditional congregations I think that mixing it with a worship service can lead to more and more changes for the sake of attracting people at the expense of proper doctrine. I have seen it happen and I know many others have as well so I hope you can understand that when people are apprehensive about the subject. I do not think that service can never be changed but I think that any changes must be carefully studied to see how it would affect the service and any teachings. I am glad to hear that you have communion every week and it sounds like you practice closed communion. I have seen such things sacrificed to make a service more appealing to visitors. The purpose and role of worship seems to get fuzzier the more it is used for other things.

You mentioned that there is significant biblical illiteracy in your region and that having a contemporary service can bring people in so that there is an opportunity to explain practices and misconceptions. I think an educated laity is extremely important, and sadly something I find more in congregations with contemporary services than traditional ones. Not that there aren’t plenty of uneducated laity attending “traditional” services but it is just a general trend I’ve noticed in the churches I have had a chance to attend, when there are well educated laity it tends to not have CW. Do you find that after many people attend the contemporary service that they eventually attend the traditional service? If so, I hope that many other churches with CW can do so as well.

I still think however that such instruction would be better done outside of a worship service. Attractive events like concerts could provide similar opportunities to explain why we do what we do in a service. I think the best way though is to have a well educated laity that is prepared to answer questions when someone else asks them about their weekend or when they console a friend after after their friend goes through something difficult. If their friend shows an interest in attending worship they could explain things to their friend or ask a pastor about things they are not sure about. Pure doctrine is important, as is the spreading of the Gospel as understood by that pure doctrine. Not sharing our understanding of Scripture robs our neighbors of the Good News. Sharing a poor understanding of Scripture can cause confusion and the dis-information you mentioned.

I have been to churches that use CW as a way to attract people in order to make a difference in their neighborhood rather than educating their members to make a difference in their neighborhoods in their daily lives. If the Word and Sacraments are properly administered it doesn’t matter how large a church you are blessed with. All those that are reached by members in their daily lives may not become members of their church. Such results are not as easy to tabulate as attendance counts but it is the Work of the Spirit and not ourselves that really counts.

Not being a pastor I do not know what it may be like to look at low attendance counts and wonder if I am doing something wrong. Paul McCain recently had a blog post on this subject with the example of Elijah. I do not know if this is a factor in the promotion of CW but I could understand how making changes to increase attendance may help a pastor to have something he can see and believe that what he does really does reach people. I don’t think it is right, but I see how a temptation could be there and affect worship style. Not being privy to the thoughts of every LCMS pastor with CW I do not know how much of a factor this is. Perhaps some of the pastors here could share if they have or have not struggled with this or if their congregations have or have not followed such a train of thought in wanting CW.

I think that when outreach and worship get intertwined then the focus can get split between Christ and bringing people in. Visual elements can certainly be useful for instruction. A concern someone mentioned earlier about projection screens was that during a service it draws your gaze away from the cross. Projection screens are certainly helpful to teach, but I think there is some debate on whether or not a worship service is the best setting for such instruction. I understood a service to be time for God to come to me through His means, Word and Sacrament. I could see a case to be made for using a projection screen only during the sermon, but it seems that even during that instruction within the service our attention is more toward the cross when there is no screen used. One would hope that the cross is the focus of any sermon, screen or no screen, but does the visual element of the cross front and center enhance this focus more or less than the visual element of the screens? I think a projection screen would be excellent during a Bible study or confirmation or Adult education classes. From previous posts it seems that the focus of attention during a service being directed toward a praise team, projector, or children can distract people from where their attention should be directed, Christ. Certainly stained glass is present in many churches but I usually see it to the side or if it is in the front of the church it is done to enhance ones attention on the cross. Above the altar at St. Peter and Paul Church in Weimar, Germany there is a beautiful painting, very visual. The focus of the painting is Christ on the cross. It is also very useful for instruction. Information about it can be found here and a few months ago Mollie mentioned that her pastor took a few weeks to discuss the painting when it was on the cover of a book they were going through. Visual elements can certainly enhance a service and aid instruction outside of service but I think it is a problem when they detract from a service.

It seems like if congregations, both with and without CW, educated their current members about the doctrine and practices of the church, especially regarding vocation, then perhaps the need you see for contemporary worship, at least with regards to instruction and outreach, would be less. It sounds like you strive to educate your members about such things and I wish more pastors would do the same. Sorry for the long post.

Mark,

When you wrote: “Sunday morning is a good time to reach out to heathens with the Good News of Christ. I think we should take advantage of this.” you put your finger directly on the difference between the Liturgical Divine Service and American Protestant contempoary worship. If there’s going to be a dialogue, that’s a better place to start than overcranium projectors, or drum sets.

The question is: when we gather on Sunday is it a recruiting rally, or the things of God for the people of God? I don’t think I’m over reaching to say that most Confessionals see a consistent unambiguous Scriptural mandate for the latter, and regard the former as recent, anthopocentric, antiscriptural, and basically heretical. What do you see in the Scriptures and Confessions that allowed you write: “Sunday morning is a good time to reach out to heathens with the Good News of Christ”?

Pax Christi+,
Matt Mills

Matt @45 – Thanks, I meant to address this, but you worded the question better than I could have.

Faith comes by hearing; not by seeing.
Visual elements, such as extravagant productions and large screens, act more as distractions from the spoken word, and eventually become substitutes, not complements, for it.
The ‘lost’ would do well to accept that they are lost, not only in their sins, but lost in their seeking and quite possibly even in what they find, if what they find is simply something that captures their attentions or imaginations, and not the truth of Christ crucified. They will never know they’re lost if they don’t hear it.
It’s spoken of ‘the lost’ as if they have no responsibility to seek the truth, but only to show up in the most appealing place. It’s also spoken of the church as if its primary function is to appeal to those who don’t know Christ crucified. But its function is to preach Him crucified; not to present Him through more appealing or palatable means.
That Word has not changed, no matter how much our psyches and proclivities have changed. To believe we must treat Word of Christ as if all that has changed, simply because of the age and manner in which we live, is as great a self-deception as believing one is not lost at all. It attributes absolutely no power to the spoken Word of God, which is exactly the place wherein God has promised to put His power to save, in these latter days.

Mark @ #42,

“Right now, Sunday morning is a good time to reach out to heathens with the Good News of Christ. I think we should take advantage of this. “

I think Pr. Mills and Alex have pretty much touched upon the points I wanted, so I won’t belabor their points other to say that the divine service proclaims the gospel because Jesus our Lord is there giving us the forgiveness of sins. The divine service can’t provide a proclamation of the gospel in its sweetness if it is centered on what we do in outreach to the community at large. Those who over focus on mission and try to make the divine service an outreach “revival meeting” miss out on Jesus coming to us as we receive His means of grace. What better proclamation of the gospel could there be but in the traditional liturgy?

Pastor Louderback,

“God is concerned about the lost and so am I.”

I don’t doubt it, in either case. The difference is that God can do something about it and does, often despite our best efforts to assist. One hears a certain amount of “hand-wringing” these days about the plight of the lost, as if God were not really up to the task. The doctrine of election should be a Gospel comfort to the faithful, not a hammer of the Law to convict us of not doing enough.

By the way, I’m looking for that Voelz essay. Sounds interesting, though I’m fairly sure from references I’ve seen that I come down squarely on the Einsteinian side.

“I mean, I have to wake up tomorrow and drive to church. Alone the way, plenty of people will not be doing that at all. Maybe some of them do it because they have been to church and don’t understand it or think that it has any value or relevance in their everyday life.”

Sure, if this is all just an intellectual exercise. Then bring on the relevance! Or maybe God has spoken to them by the Holy Spirit and their hearts were hard. So all that relevance is going to break through where the Holy Spirit has not?

If this relevance stuff is all so good why did it not speak to me? Did my intellect fail?

Matt Mills

The question is: when we gather on Sunday is it a recruiting rally, or the things of God for the people of God?

=====

Oh my goodness, I read this and a part of me died.

I’m going to try to put the best construction on this–but even then I don’t see anything here that is just not wrong.

So: evangelism is not recruiting. To compare bringing salvation to a person with what I do for Rotary is just wrong. Just plain wrong on so many levels.

I don’t want to belabor the point and so I’m just going to stop. This post just profoundly saddens me.

To answer the question about outreach on Sunday mornings–bringing Christ who saves people, whose name means “he saves” not “he recruits”, the answer is that Jesus spoke at synagogues. So did Paul.

Unchurched people show up to church on Sundays.

Yes, Sunday is indeed for the people of God. But even then, the people of God also need the Gospel brought to them clearly.

I still am dismayed at the belief that evangelism is tantamount to recruitment. Richard Dawkins would say this; Christians ought not to.

James Sarver,

By the way, I’m looking for that Voelz essay. Sounds interesting, though I’m fairly sure from references I’ve seen that I come down squarely on the Einsteinian side.

===

Oh, it is awesome. And most Lutherans indeed do tend towards the Einsteinian.

I just rotated to my left and BAM, there it is: July 1999 Concordia Journal. Newton and Einsten at the Foot of the Cross. They don’t have it archived, so if you can’t lay a hand on it, e-mail me and I’ll scan a copy for you.

You say “If this relevance stuff is all so good why did it not speak to me? Did my intellect fail?”
but I’m not quite sure what you mean by this.

Let me ask it this way: why do you give to your church? That obviously involves your effort and actions and even your sacrifice. I would say you give because you know that this is what God wants you to do. So, in other words, it is relevant to you. God does not tell people of yesteryear to give–but you, today.

That is relevance.

Does that make sense? We connect Scripture to people of today–for many people the thought is “I’m fine on my own–exactly why do I need Christianity?”

Jim Pierce,

The divine service can’t provide a proclamation of the gospel in its sweetness if it is centered on what we do in outreach to the community at large.

====

Yes. True.

I thought that was the point of why I do contemporary worship: to center on the Gospel.

Mark,
Although I could, I’m not going to get into a “who’s more outraged” contest. This is a simple exegetical question, what do you see in the Scriptures and Confessions that allowed you write: “Sunday morning is a good time to reach out to heathens with the Good News of Christ”?
The Bride of Christ is clearly required to “Evangelize” (to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to those who don’t know it) but you wrote “Sunday morning is a good time to reach out to heathens with the Good News of Christ. I think we should take advantage of this.” what do you see in the Scriptures and Confessions that makes you think that “Evangelism” should drive the form of congregational worship?
Pax Christi+,
-Matt Mills

Susan R,

Um, Paul’s words do not mean what you state them to mean. Faith can indeed come by seeing–Paul did not mean to damn all the deaf with his words.

I mean, if visual elements are distracting, why do we use different colors on our stoles? Or decorate our sanctuaries?

No: if I can communicate then a video can communicate. If it is good for people to read the Bible, it is good to show a verse on a screen. I can try and describe something or I can show a picture of it.

A video screen is a tool, that’s all.

“But its function is to preach Him crucified; not to present Him through more appealing or palatable means.”

To a certain extent this is true, but to a certain extent it is not. If people don’t understand something, I don’t think it hurts to shift things to make it understood.

Or drop it.

Mark L,

We have had a generation of relevance and CW for the sake of reaching the lost and the church has schrunk in this country.

Your argument is flawed on several levels but at the root of it all, it just does not work. I would be oppossed to CW for theological reasons even if it did work, but your argument is grounded in its effectiveness (we must do this in order to reach the lost that are not being reached) and so, taking you on your own rationale, CW should be given up and the church should return to a liturgical “style” that is respectful, reverent, based outside of the eomotions of the worshipers, etc. because when the church was doing that, it was reaching more of the lost.

The lost may be spirutally dead but they have the temporal sense to recognize what is lasting and meaningful vs. what is trendy and fleeting.

TR

Brian Yamabe,

Since contemporary worship works so well on themes, I was wondering how the contemporary service highlighted the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession that kind of sparked your desire to accommodate themes?

=======

I have not done one yet. But you can be assured, when I do, a casual observer would realize that this was not simply another service.

Same thing with Trinity Sunday. Of course, every time I do the Athanasian Creed in my traditional service, I have to take time to explain its language. “Those who do good…”

If your question is “Can a contemporary service reflect the church year?” the answer is “Sure.”

During this Pentecost, I’ve been doing character studies from the OT. David, Ahab, Ruth, Nehemiah. This Sunday will be Mannasseh.

And yes (sigh) my website is not quite there yet…

Not too contemporary eh?

+++
I don’t doubt that your service conveys the Gospel in a clear and simple way. I would ask how you are discipling your members to a deeper understanding of the faith as expressed in the Lutheran confessions.
+++

Bible study. I think that sort of growth is impossible to expect if a person just attends Sunday services.

Serious: if you only attended Sunday services, what sort of deeper understanding would you get? No podcasts, no reading, just Sundays.

+++
If you aren’t using the creeds in the service, how will they know them and understand the gifts that have been handed down through them.
+++

Classes outside of the worship service. We use the Apostle’s Creed for baptisms.

+++
I praise God that your members know that Christ died for their sins, but if they don’t stand by the Lutheran confessions they shouldn’t call themselves Lutherans or commune at Lutheran rails, not because Christ did not die for them, because they don’t confess the same faith.
+++

What exactly does it mean to be a Lutheran? If I am teaching people the truth of Scripture and showing them what the Word teaches in a simple, direct way, isn’t that exactly what being Lutheran is about?

Don’t we say that we hold to what Scripture teaches?

That is Lutheran to me.

+++You compare big screens to the Lutheran seal and stained glass neither of which was ever used in the divine service to my knowledge.+++

Wait–do you mean to tell me that pastors in the pre-literate days didn’t point to the stained glass windows and use the pictures to explain Biblical stories? Is that your contention?

Really?

I think there is a reason why stained glass windows were located in sanctuaries.

Alex,

I greatly appreciate your words, which are well thought out and reasoned. And I appreciate your tone. Thank you very much for this.

Mark,
You answered Susan “If people don’t understand something, I don’t think it hurts to shift things to make it understood.” With things of God, this is only ever possible when we are speaking of Christians. If you are “shifting things” as part of your attempt to “reach out to heathens” during the Church’s foretaste of the marriage feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom however, you are missing the point that “the things that come from the Spirit of God” will always be “foolishness” to the aforementioned “heathens.”
Any attempt to sculpt a worship service that will have meaning and relevance to non-Christians will only succeed to the extent that it strips “the things that come from the Spirit of God” out of the service. You’ve got 6.75 perfectly fine days for evangelism to the lost per week. Let the Divine Service be the things of God for the people of God, we sinners need it.
Pax Christi+,
-Matt Mills

Alex,

Okay. You say:

While outreach is very important and often neglected in more traditional congregations I think that mixing it with a worship service can lead to more and more changes for the sake of attracting people at the expense of proper doctrine.

You know, I believe the world was created a few thousand years ago in six(seven) days. That makes me pretty much an idiot in the eyes of the world. I don’t think homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle. This too puts me outside the mainstream.

So…I don’t think there is much of an issue with me making changes at the expense of doctrine. I mean, if I am not giving up the doctrines that much us stupid and bigoted, why would I drop anything else?

Plenty of churches that are very liturgical have open communion, you know?

You mentioned that there is significant biblical illiteracy in your region

And please note: I think my region (the south) is the most Biblically literate area of the US. But still, this is the movement of our nation.

Do you find that after many people attend the contemporary service that they eventually attend the traditional service?

We have just started our services, so I have no data on the subject.

I do think that music though is fairly important. Some like hymns; some like praise songs sung by rock bands. I mean, it really is a lot of fun to sing out like that.

(People object to the lyrics and my response is “Get more Lutherans working on it and soon we’ll have better praise song lyrics.”)

Besides, I think that the sermon can be proclaimed such as to give long-time Christians something important to ponder, while not losing newer Christians.

I still think however that such instruction would be better done outside of a worship service.

Sure, but would you really get that chance? Would that really happen? The average person deciding to go to church is going to go Sunday morning, not another day of the week, you know?

You gotta go where the people are.

But yes, I think that churches ought to be doing what they can to have other events as well that are inviting and give opportunities for sharing the Gospel.

I have been to churches that use CW as a way to attract people in order to make a difference in their neighborhood rather than educating their members to make a difference in their neighborhoods in their daily lives.

Yeeeahhh…I think there needs to be both. I mean, let’s be honest, if 50% of LCMS members invited a friend to worship once a year, we’d be growing like mad.

I mean, when my laity work in their vocation, they are making a difference in their community. No doubt. But if they never invite someone to church or hide their faith…well, Mormons live good lives. That is not all there is too it.

I’m not sure if that is what you mean exactly–but my point is that yes, I think it is very important to have members live lives of simple piety–that brings honor to Christ. But I don’t see why I can’t have a service looking to reach out as well. You know?

Not being a pastor I do not know what it may be like to look at low attendance counts and wonder if I am doing something wrong.

Admittedly, my attendance determines my mood on Mondays–I won’t lie about that. Of course, that was still true when we only had traditional services.

But I had an adult baptism come from someone who was not attending our traditional services, and then came to our contempo service. That one baptism makes up for a great deal of low attendances.

I think most pastors are not simply driven by mo numbers. They understand that sometimes you reap, sometimes you plant seeds.

I pray continually “Dear Lord, do not let me do things for my glory. Do not let this be about me.” And I think that this sort of dialog also keeps me honest.

I could see a case to be made for using a projection screen only during the sermon, but it seems that even during that instruction within the service our attention is more toward the cross when there is no screen used.

Yeah, to be honest, I don’t buy this argument at all. First, I think that if you have a cross in your church that it is not the constant attention drawer that people want it to be. In a sermon, people look at the pastor. Or at the bulletin. Or at the back of their eyelids. They are not gazing at the cross, reveling in its glory. You know?

Second, having a screen means that you can show different crosses. The variety will give touch different people.

For example, should a cross have a dead Jesus or an alive Jesus? Crucifix or Christus victor? A screen allows both to be seen. Not having a screen means that only one or the other, depending on what you have.

I am unconvinced that screens detract from communicating the Gospel. I need a different argument.

It seems like if congregations, both with and without CW, educated their current members about the doctrine and practices of the church, especially regarding vocation, then perhaps the need you see for contemporary worship, at least with regards to instruction and outreach, would be less.

Yes, but you understand that there is a steady stream of new visitors who come to church. So there still would be the need to have a CW service.

We have a school after school chapel a parent asked me about genuflecting before the altar. Isn’t that breaking the second commandment? (a question that requires work on several layers). In the CW service, I’m looking to have a service that does not need to be explained like this (although the average unchurched probably would not ask that question). But nevertheless, in telling people why we do what we do, CW is a better service.

Make sense?

Once again, I greatly appreciate your response. I hope I have explained my position better.

Matt Millis

Although I could, I’m not going to get into a “who’s more outraged” contest.

No, I give you permission. Please go for it. Exactly what outrages you about my comments? Fly off the handle. You have my permission.

You did not simply ask an exegetical question. You equated evangelism with recruitment.

I’m stunned by this. Either you meant it, because to you think I see church like Rotary–a good place to go and let’s get some more there. Or you didn’t mean it.

I think we should take advantage of this.” what do you see in the Scriptures and Confessions that makes you think that “Evangelism” should drive the form of congregational worship?

Once again, I see Paul using the synagogue. Seems reasonable.

In addition, remember, that even if there are no visitors in a service, the proclamation of the Gospel serves Christians just as well as non-Christians. You know?

With things of God, this is only ever possible when we are speaking of Christians. If you are “shifting things” as part of your attempt to “reach out to heathens” during the Church’s foretaste of the marriage feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom however, you are missing the point that “the things that come from the Spirit of God” will always be “foolishness” to the aforementioned “heathens.”

Yeah, I think this too is a misuse of what Paul means. he is not saying “Listen, don’t try to do a good job explaining something.” Paul himself in his letters alters his vocabulary and approach topics differently. Look at his words in Athens.

A person can indeed reject the gospel as foolishness. But we ought to be sure it is the Gospel they are rejecting and not a misunderstood Gospel.

Any attempt to sculpt a worship service that will have meaning and relevance to non-Christians will only succeed to the extent that it strips “the things that come from the Spirit of God” out of the service.

I don’t buy this. My service has confession, absolution, songs, prayer, communion, baptisms, the Word, proclamation–these are all of God.

You’ve got 6.75 perfectly fine days for evangelism to the lost per week.

Wouldn’t you lead a non-Christian to the living water to let it drink that 0.25 day?

Let the Divine Service be the things of God for the people of God, we sinners need it.

I think all sinners need it.

Tim Rossow,

First, once again, i realize I am your guest here and when i overstay my welcome, let me know.

We have had a generation of relevance and CW for the sake of reaching the lost and the church has schrunk in this country.

Yes, and if we had had growth, you would have said “Well, cancer cells grow faster than any other cell in the body!”

I think most growing churches in the LCMS have contemporary worship services. I’m fairly sure that the fastest growing churches do.

Does any of this mean anything?

I would be oppossed to CW for theological reasons even if it did work, but your argument is grounded in its effectiveness…

If you have heard that, I am sorry, because that it not what I intend. My service might not ever have one additional adult baptism. It is not an issue of being effective. To me it is an issue of wanting to have a nice, clear proclamation of the Gospel.

Does a traditional service have the Gospel! Absolutely. But it is connected with jargon and ritual that needs explanation.

Some get that explanation and love it. We have young couples attending the trad service–it is not an age issue.

But some don’t. For them, we have CoWo.

But even if they reject the Gospel message, the offering is there. Contemporary worship is no more or less “effective” than traditional.

based outside of the eomotions of the worshipers

I also don’t think that is true. I think that plenty of worshipers have quite an emotional attachment to traditional worship.

Doesn’t traditional worship move you? Haven’t you been in a service where you have been moved to tears?

I mean, sure, traditional is not solely based on emotions–but nor is good contemporary.

The lost may be spirutally dead but they have the temporal sense to recognize what is lasting and meaningful vs. what is trendy and fleeting.

I truly believe that you can have authentic, reverential, meaningful contemporary worship. Contemporary worship does not have to be a synonym for fluff.

Pastor Louderback,
I can’t say I’m not tempted to “Fly off the handle,” but no thankyou, for now I’d rather focus on the question of the Scriptural basis of Christian worship, and outreach.
I am puzzled by your bringing forward Paul’s preaching in the synagogue as an example of reaching out to heathens with the Good News of Christ in the context of a Christian Worship service. I guess you could say that prior to the temple coming down, synagogue worship was an “old testament Christian” worship service, but if that’s what you mean, the faithful OT Jews in attendence can’t be called “heathens.” In that case Paul is preaching the Gospel to those in a covenential relationship w/ our God, he is in fact giving the things of God to the People of God. This is probabably the side on which I’d come down in the very early days of the Church.
If on the other hand you see his synagogue preaching as exangelizing the heathen, you are stuck saying that the synagogue worship is already separated from the Church. In this case Paul has just gone to a group of unbelievers where he finds them, more like the Areopagus than the Divine Service. Either the Jews are heathens and their service isn’t Christian, or they are children of God and it is.
Can you find me a convert made in an Apostolic Church Service? Or a non-believer invited to church? Or the Apostolic injunction to a pastor to moderate his service to meet the perceived needs of “seekers?” I can’t.
Here’s what I see in Scripture: God uses Word and Sacrament to make new Christians in the streets, the jails, the market place etc. Apostolic worship consists in the teaching of the Apostles, the breaking of bread and THE prayers. Those who come together should be of one mind. The purpose of coming together is the “strengthing of the Church.” (That particular section of 1 Cor ends w/ “Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord’s command. If he ignores this, he himself will be ignored.”)
Again, what you are advocating is recent, anthopocentric, antiscriptural, and basically heretical.
Pax Christi+,
-Matt Mills

THANK YOU, MATTHEW!!! Those who vehemently defend CW should take their opinions and no longer call themselves Lutheran. Being Lutheran is not just about Bible and Confessions but about what you DO with both.

Pr. Louderback @#57,

“What exactly does it mean to be a Lutheran? If I am teaching people the truth of Scripture and showing them what the Word teaches in a simple, direct way, isn’t that exactly what being Lutheran is about?

That is Lutheran to me. “

No. That is not solely what being Lutheran is about. If that were the case, then any and all groups claiming to teach people the truth of the scriptures could be identified as “Lutheran”. The Methodist church down the road from me could be “Lutheran” because they lay claim to “teaching people the truth of Scripture and showing them what the Word teaches”.

What distinguishes Lutherans from all others is our confession of faith. Our adherence to the solas and what it means to be a Lutheran is expressed in the Book of Concord. We are set apart by our scriptural teaching on salvation through God’s grace alone through justification by faith alone; as revealed to us through the Holy Scriptures.

What you describe Pr. Louderback, is not a Lutheran per se, but a generic evangelical. And, I must confess that your short description worries me, since I see evidence of this same sort of thinking about what it means to be a Lutheran coming out of other congregations practicing CW. This really isn’t a problem of being relevant to the culture; instead it is a problem of abandonment. Our Lutheran confession is being left on the book shelf collecting dust because some don’t think the culture can “get it”. Indeed, I see that at the heart of CW—proponents of CW don’t think the culture at large can get the traditional liturgy. Traditional liturgy sets “stumbling blocks” in the path of “seekers” coming to the divine service, according to the CW crowd. So, we have to update the music, rearrange the seating, put the choir and “worship leaders” up front, remove the crosses from the church to make room for projection screens, and while we are busy gutting out the sanctuary, let’s go ahead and gut out what it means to be a Lutheran, too. In fact, I have heard leaders of CW in the LC-MS “talking up” dumping our Lutheran heritage and even the name “Lutheran” because the culture can no longer identify with our German roots.

No Pr. Louderback. What it means to be a Lutheran is far more than just saying we hold to what the scriptures teach.

Thanks for the encouragement Steven Bobb,
But I’m not ready to concede either the Bible or the Confessions to the rev Mark L. yet. Until he shows me otherwise, I don’t believe he can use either to support what he’s doing.
From my perspective he’s acting like the groom, and not the best man, and the owner rather than the steward. He’s exceeding the authority of his call as a steward of the mysteries of God.
Pax Christi+,
-Matt Mills

Pr. Pierce,
The judgement of our culture on the irrelevance of liturgical worship though is exactly what we’d expect Scripturally. Focused as it is on Jesus Christ and Him crucified, the Western Liturgy is by definition a “stumbling block” and “foolishness.” The unspiritual man cannot understand “the things that come from the Spirit of God.” When we’re told by the culture that we’re irrelevant to them we shouldn’t fuss, and start changing things around, we should thank them for their encouragement and press on.
Again, where in the Scriptures or Confessions do we see the Schwarmer “Worship as Evangelism paradigm?” It’s just not there.
Pax Christi+,
-Matt Mills

St. Paul says it so clearly and completely, in Ephesians:
>11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood,4 to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Isn’t that a description of the church, plain and simple?
What can the contemporary worshipper be, but carried by a different wind that blows in favor of those who are not of the body of Christ? The church is Christ’s church, not the congregation’s, not the pastor’s, and certainly not the lost’s church. It is given for the lost to come to understanding, not for the church to seek the level of understanding of the lost.
Christ says in the Gospel of John:
29…This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom he has sent.
And:
44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. …45 It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me<
What cultural relevance does He give his disciples to master? How does He make it easy on His listeners, or even worry about what His listeners comprehend? Does He even hint to His disciples, when He sends them out, that they must choose their words carefully, so as not to confound or offend anyone? Does He outline points they’re to stress, and points to abandon for the time being, so that the listeners will be persuaded to listen more?
At the heart of the argument of contemporary worship is an accusation of the historic church, of being less-than-zealous, less-than-effective members of the body of Christ. But, in the end, their finger points at the words of Christ Himself, who proclaims only Himself, and not method or means.
Since Christ is at the heart of the liturgy, and all that Christ encompasses, including being scorned, rejected, misunderstood, misjudged, humiliated, but being nonetheless true and the only means of reconciliation with God, and offering a victory that the world–the lost–not only doesn’t see but also despises, then it follows that the church ‘service’–the divine service–is God’s to give, to His own people and against the world, and it’s the world’s burden to come to it, not vice versa.

If genuine Lutheran/Scriptural worship isn’t genuine evangelism, I don’t know what is. I have had to learn and re-learn that evangelism is simply “Telling the Good News About Jesus.” No matter to whom–saved and unsaved, alike. In the Divine Servie we receive the good news–in Word and Sacrament–do we not? Our members need to be evangelized, as do the non-members, those outside the church, not among the faithful. That happens in the Divine Service.

The problem with C.W. is that the medium becomes the message. Movies, film clips, sound bites, etc., lean toward entertainment, and the good news (and bad news) is lost in the experience-centered me-focused so-called contemporary worship. My counsel to those experimentng with CW is to be very very careful–CW wants to get a life of its own and become an end in itself. If you have to do something with the music, but retain the words exactly, that’s one thing, but in my considerable experience with CW everything gets dumbed down–especially the message. I’d also be very careful about equating contemporary and/or blended worship with growth. That’s a theological and ecclesiastical mine field.

Pr. Mills @ 67,

I am not pastor. I also hope you don’t think I was arguing in support of CW, because I certainly do not.

Layman Jim Pierce.

Pr. Mills,

I see what you were saying in response to my points… you were providing support and additions. Please disregard my last point in #70… but, I am still not a pastor. LOL

And neither am I. (I’m never quite sure on this site w/ so many sharp folks writing in, so before I wrote to you I did a quick search of the LC-MS directory and there is a Pastor James R. Pierce in SC so I assumed it was you.) We are definitely on the same side on this one, I’m sorry if I didn’t make that clear enough.
Pax Christi+,
-Maj. Matt Mills, Layman, Baghdad, Iraq

Major Mills @72

“there is a Pastor James R. Pierce in SC”

Yet another James R Pierce! I know of at least eight with my name.

I see you are stationed in Baghdad. Thank you for your military service to the USA, Major Mills.

Matt Mills,

Again, what you are advocating is recent, anthopocentric, antiscriptural, and basically heretical.

See? Not holding back is helpful!

Seriously though: if you really do believe this, you have a bit more work to do in order to demonstrate this. Especially the antiscriptural part.

After all, even if I can’t demonstrate that people in Scripture behaved as I do, that does not mean that what I am doing is antiscriptural. No, you would have to show me in Scripture where what I am doing is declared to be wrong.

There is no example in Scripture of the use of an organ in worship services. But that does not make it antiscriptural. To show that you would have to demonstrate where Scripture said using an organ was wrong.

Does that make sense?

Now let’s go back to my example: the use of Paul in the synagogue is a perfect one actually, as it is the perfect parallel to our present state.

When John preaches to the Jews, his message is “Repent”–and this is not just a repent like we say to Christians–no, the term has a meaning of “Turn from your unbelief.” That is the message that John brings. (Indeed, the overall lack of faith demonstrates the truth of this message.)

Now, are all Israelites doomed at that point? Well no, we see several examples of true believers.

So, what would we expect in a synagogue? Believers and unbelievers alike. These unbelievers though are culturally Jews–just as those Teachers of the Law who came out to see John were also culturally Jewish.

When I speak about the heathen (or unchurched) who come to my service, I’m not talking about people who have never heard about Jesus. I live in the south–everyone has heard about Jesus. Most people can speak about the Gospel message.

So just as Paul proclaimed Christ in the services of his time, I proclaim Christ in my services. Does this bring conversion?

(Notes: conversion. Not recruitment.)

Well, yeah it certainly does. The proclamation of Gospel creates faith.

Does the Gospel strengthen the faith of the believers? Sure does.

So: Paul went to the synagogues because that is where he knew he would find those who needed to hear about Jesus.

My service reaches out to those in our community who are coming to my service–do they have a general understanding of Christianity? Sure. They probably went to church at some point. My work is to bring a clear proclamation of the Gospel message.

Perhaps something they have not heard.

Now, even if this is not convincing, I do have one more passage I would appeal to and that is Paul’s words in Galatians: For freedom Christ has set you free. I do the service that I do because I am free to do so. Christ has indeed set me free, and I can act freely.

Since there is nothing in Scripture prohibiting a contemporary worship service, I am free to do so.

Now, you can argue about where it is the right thing to do or the loving thing and such–but your argument that my actions are heretical are simply off-base. Your arguments that my actions are antiscriptural are equally demonstratably false.

I’m not trying to be snippy. But seriously, if you are going to go for the jugular, you can’t be wrong about it. That is certainly not speaking the truth in love.

So, if you cannot demonstrate that Scripture condemns what I am doing, you can’t say it is wrong.

And I find it hard to believe that you can show me where proclaiming the Gospel is wrong. Does that make sense?

Mark,

You are missing the point. It is not the use of a guitar that is unscriptural. It is the unscriptural doctrine of contemporary music and the unscriptural emphasis on emotion, the self, and the ways of the world.

You may be above all this and not use unscriptural music, may not focus on the self, and may not succumb to the ways of the world. Good for you. Overall, however, the CW movement has done all of those and there are countless examples of this in the LCMS.

TR

I think it comes down to: If you want to WALK (worship) like a Baptist/Pentecostal/Meodist, If you want to TALK like a Baptist/Pentecostal/Meodist, Then BE a Baptist/Pentecostal/Meodist, leave us to BE Lutheran. Thank you.

Jim Pierce,

Don’t we say that we hold to what Scripture teaches?

Err…I think that some confessionals do not.

That is to say, some confessionals say that in order to be a Lutheran you MUST worship using the Western liturgy.

This is not found in Scripture.

Other examples: saying you must celebrate communion every week. I think that we can find examples of every Sunday Communion in Scripture. I don’t believe that one can say “You must practice communion every week in order to call yourself a Lutheran.”

Does that make sense?

No. That is not solely what being Lutheran is about. If that were the case, then any and all groups claiming to teach people the truth of the scriptures could be identified as “Lutheran”. The Methodist church down the road from me could be “Lutheran” because they lay claim to “teaching people the truth of Scripture and showing them what the Word teaches”.

Well…but they are wrong.

I mean, there are issues that the confessions don’t talk about that we teach concerning Scripture. Homosexuality for example. A person can say “Scripture condones homosexual relationships.” Do the confessions address that specifically? I don’t think so.

I mean, we hold to the confessions because they are an accurate restatement of Scripture. Or, to say it another way–which I did–holding to what Scripture teaches makes you a Lutheran.

Now if you want to say “Having liturgical worship makes you a Lutheran” that’s fine–but where does it say that in Scripture exactly?

Our Lutheran confession is being left on the book shelf collecting dust because some don’t think the culture can “get it”.

I agree. I don’t see me doing that though. Once again, if you read through the Confessions, you see a constant expression of the Gospel message–all sorts of teachings are connected to Christ. That is what I emulate.

My position is not “Let’s dumb things down!” My position is “Let’s teach this with clarity, without jargon, in a simple to understand way.”

I was reading a book yesterday at the library on quantum mechanics. This was a simple book that explained much of it easily and directly with illustrations. I found it helpful and easy to understand.

The topic is still complicated and intricate. I do not pretend to understand everything about the topic. But I have more understanding.

This is what I am looking for with my service.

Now, I would like to say that for some people, the music alone is enough to bring them to change. Some people like hymns; some don’t. They like the praise music–the style, the sound, the energy, etc.

People complain about the lyrics–once again, we can write better lyrics if we have the desire within our Synod.

What it means to be a Lutheran is far more than just saying we hold to what the scriptures teach.

Yes, but it is no more than simply holding to what Scripture does teach.

What else would there be?

Steven Bobb,

Well, what does it mean to worship in a Lutheran way? (or a Methodist way really?)

I mean, if I worship in-line with what the Word of God says, isn’t that Lutheran?

Pr Tim Rossow,

It is the unscriptural doctrine of contemporary music and the unscriptural emphasis on emotion, the self, and the ways of the world.

Okay. We get some Lutheran musicians together and we take some time to write better lyrics for CW songs. Would that solve the problem? Would you find CW acceptable then?

I mean, if that is the issue, it is a solvable issue.

Overall, however, the CW movement has done all of those and there are countless examples of this in the LCMS.

Sure. No doubt about that.

And indeed, we know of pastors who have left our Synod for other church bodies that worship in a liturgical manner. Do we stop worshiping that way then?

If something is abused, we correct the abuse. We don’t forbid it’s use.

I don’t think I am missing the point, Pr Rossow. I think you are mis-stating the point. Because even if the lyrics used were Lutheran ones, I still think that you would object to contemporary worship.

Am I wrong? Do you think that all Lutheran churches ought to follow the Western liturgical tradition?

Mark,

No, it really does not solve the problem. CW is a juvenile mindset not worthy of the church of Christ.

We have decent CW music in LSB. We use them on occasion at our church but that is far different than creating a CW hymnal for a CW service.

I used to be where you are about 20 years ago. I was deeply into CW. I do not despise it. I have just come to realize that it is trendy, lightweight, and prone to bad theology. I had to go through some serious tentatio before I was able to see the necessity of a historic, liturgical approach to worship.

TR

Pr. Louderback,

As a rostered LCMS pastor, were you not required to subscribe unconditionally to the following:

Our churches are falsely accused of abolishing the Mass. The Mass is held among us and celebrated with the highest reverence. (AC XXIV)

and . . .

At the outset, we must again make this preliminary statement: we do not abolish the Mass, but religiously keep and defend it. Masses are celebrated among us every Lord’s Day and on the other festivals. The Sacrament is offered to those who wish to use it, after they have been examined and absolved. And the usual public ceremonies are observed, the series of lessons, of prayers, vestments, and other such things. (Ap XXIV)

Are you keeping your oath? Is your practice consistent with your confessional subscription?

I mean, I find it very difficult to fathom how guys like you, who endorse and promote CW, can keep a straight face when you confess that you are “not abolishing the Mass.” That’s exactly what you’re doing, and you know it.

And, like Pr. Rossow, I have some experience in this area to back up my conclusions. I was a proponent of CW 20 years ago, too. I bought into it for a while, although I always knew something was missing. Then, I studied Scripture and our Confessions thoroughly and realized that the theology of worship I was adhering to didn’t jive with the theology of worship I found therein. It became pretty clear to me that I was following a theology of worship that was not Christ-centered, but man-centered; not God-pleasing, but people-pleasing; not substantive, but superficial. You can say all you want on the subject, but there’s one thing I am absolutely sure of, namely that the CW you advocate ain’t Lutheran. Fo’ sho’!

What amazes me (and I mean this – I am truly amazed by this!) is how Lutheran pastors can endorse and promote CW after they have studied and have been taught what a true theology of worship is. I mean, it is one thing to just not know what Scripture and our Confessions teach us about worship; it’s quite another to have learned what they teach and to reject it.

In any event, our Confessions are clear: Falsely are we accused of abolishing the Mass and of doing our own creative thing. No, we celebrate the Mass “with the highest reverence” and “religiously keep and defend it.” You can’t really claim to subscribe to this confession, can you? And, if not, why do you continue to call yourself a Lutheran?

It is a sad day, indeed, when those who call themselves Lutheran adopt, endorse, promote, and mimic the worship practices of those whom our Lutheran Confessions themselves condemn. “Condemned are the Anabaptists and Sacramentarians . . . but we’ll worship just like they do anyway.” This oxy-moronic sort of thinking is just simply mind-boggling.

Thank you Pr. Messer for saying what many of us have been thinking about this whole issue, even to groups like The Alley on another thread. Either you lied to God and before men when you took your oath at ordination or you are lying to yourself and your people that what you are espousing is true to the Confessions. Whatever these clergy are doing with CW isn’t truly worship and isn’t Lutheran. Again, thank you for making the point clearly from the Confessions.

Pr. Louderback @ 77,

“That is to say, some confessionals say that in order to be a Lutheran you MUST worship using the Western liturgy. “

I understand what you are getting at, although I might state it differently. For instance, using a pipe organ in the divine service shouldn’t be law and using one doesn’t make one a Lutheran.

“I mean, we hold to the confessions because they are an accurate restatement of Scripture. Or, to say it another way–which I did–holding to what Scripture teaches makes you a Lutheran.”

Yes, “holding to what Scripture teaches” is definitely part of what makes us Lutheran, but to stop with that description is to come up short of the full meaning of “Lutheran”. I would also say that we hold to the confessions because they fully agree with Holy Scripture: the Confessions are true.

“Now if you want to say “Having liturgical worship makes you a Lutheran” that’s fine–but where does it say that in Scripture exactly? “

Why not talk about the liturgy (worship) in terms of the visible marks of the Church? The place where we find Word and Sacraments faithfully delivered according to the Gospel? Don’t we have scriptures that tell us the Church comes together to hear the Apostle’s teachings, to receive the forgiveness of sins, and to partake at the table of our Lord? Indeed, those who are dead in sin will not understand Christian worship where the focus is on our Lord and Savior Jesus coming to us with His divine gifts. Those who are sinners in need of the forgiveness of sins know where to go. We are looking for a congregation that faithfully delivers Word and Sacrament. If you are focusing the divine service as an evangelism tool, then you have already switched the focus of the service away from Christ and you aren’t accomplishing what you think you set out to do to begin with. So, the issue isn’t “Lutheran” liturgy versus other forms of worship, but whether or not one can come to your congregation and find the marks of the Church. Is law and gospel being preached? Are the sacraments faithfully administered? Is Christ the center of the divine service coming to us with His means of grace? I can tell you my experience with CW (and as a former Pentecostal pastor I am quite familiar with CW) is that Jesus our Lord, coming to us with the forgiveness of sins, is not the center of the divine service, instead the law is the focus. I have yet to experience a CW service where the center is not focused on what people do.

“I was reading a book yesterday at the library on quantum mechanics. This was a simple book that explained much of it easily and directly with illustrations. I found it helpful and easy to understand.”

This example doesn’t make your case, since the book you’re reading did dumb down the language so you could understand the basic concepts involved. More to the point, you can’t hope to teach doctrine without the use of “jargon”. Indeed, how do you explain the Holy Trinity without reference to “persons”? I think what you want to do is commendable. I always try to use language that is easily accessible by others, but I also liberally use jargon where I can define it for the benefit of the “hearer”. We shouldn’t shrink back from jargon.

“Now, I would like to say that for some people, the music alone is enough to bring them to change. Some people like hymns; some don’t. They like the praise music–the style, the sound, the energy, etc. “

I’m not following you here. What “change”? Regarding “liking” I am sure you are right. I happen to like a full range of music from classical to country, reggae to pop, and oldies “doo wop” music to some of the hardest driving metal. But what does my musical tastes have anything to do with Jesus coming to me, with the forgiveness of sins? If I want entertainment on Sunday morning, then I will listen to my iTunes collection. I go to church to “see” Jesus and to joyously receive His gifts. I don’t go to listen to the tunes.

Pastor Lauderback,
I am not criticizing you for “Proclaiming the Gospel,” but for changing the proclamation of the Gospel to appeal to the cultural mindset of visitors whom you yourself referred to as “heathens.” (You can of course retract the “heathens” word, but that would make your foray into CW look like “sheep-stealing” rather than Evangelism.)
I hope I don’t need to prove “recent.” One obvious part of what you are doing that qualifies as anthropocentric, anti-scriptural and heretical is the implicit belief that Word, and Sacrament PLUS something else creates faith. The belief that; were you leading Worship in accordance with the Biblical and Christo-centric Western Liturgy (and your public Confessional subscription) there would somehow be fewer souls saved, because our historical Western Liturgy presents a cultural stumbling block that keeps the 21st century Southern Americans (elected by God Himself to be His sons and daughters) away from His life-giving Word and Sacraments. That is anthropocentric in itself even if your self-chosen style were not (and it certainly is.) Anti-scriptural and heretical follow any attempt to make God’s Salvation dependant on the proper style or cultural spin being added to Christ’s Grace in Word and Sacrament.
AC XV requires of you that you observe the usages in the Church “ which may be observed without sin, and which are profitable unto tranquility and good order in the Church, as particular holy days, festivals, and the like.” The Apology adds “in this very assembly we have shown sufficiently that for love’s sake we do not refuse to observe adiaphora with others, even though they should have some disadvantage; but we have judged that such public harmony as could indeed be produced without offense to consciences ought to be preferred to all other advantages.” What are you using to trump “the usages of the church,” and “public harmony” if not the apparent effectiveness of CW to fill pews in the South Pastor?
Pax Christi+,
-Matt Mills

Pr. Lauderback,

I am very familiar with the part of the country you are operating in. I have dear family members who live near there (Siloam Springs, to be exact) whos souls are in danger because they never hear the Gospel.

They are not “unchurched.” On the contrary they are extremely churched. There is a church on every corner and Christian radio and Christian bookstores. Some of my family works in a Christian business.

And yet they never hear the Gospel. All they get is law, law, law because the predominantly non-denominational churches have ministers who cannot preach, who despise any form of liturgy and chase after every evangelical fad that comes down the pipe. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. I’m also confident that you can, and do, preach law-and-Gospel in a competent way from your pulpit (or chancel).

So here’s the rub: Why are you trying so hard to imitate all those non-denoms around you with your video screens and contempo music, etc.? Why don’t you try to be different from your prevailing Bible-belt culture instead of conforming to it?

I think Pr. Beecroft in Tulsa sets a great example of how this can and should be done to rescue God’s people in the Bible Belt from their never-ending diet of Gospel-free Christian busyness.

Just finished forty-five minutes of reading through all that. Whew. Thought I’d post my two cents here:

Mark,

You write:*Using a big screen is just one more way to use visual elements to teach…. I am unconvinced that screens detract from communicating the Gospel. I need a different argument.*

Please take some time to carefully read Neil Postman’s mid-80s social commentary “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” There is the argument you have asked for. If it is true, as I believe it is, you’re efforts to teach “better” with screens only compounds the damage being done by our culture and the state of knowledge and education for the people in our pews. The end result will not be deeper faith in the objective Word, but deeper ambiguity in the meaning of words at all.

You also asked for one Scriptural reason not to practice CW. Here it is:

Romans 16:17 I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.

The Christian who has the Evangel at heart will not create division by asserting his own “adiaphoric” views at the expense of others’ consciences, super-especially in the midst of a time of controversy over those very views. Unless there is a Biblical mandate TO do it, if it’s causing division, there is a Biblical imperative that we NOT do it. Period. It will (ironcially) create obstacles to true doctrine.

This is one of the central Biblical proofs that CW ought to be avoided at all costs: since its introduction via Finney 200 years past, it has done nothing BUT cause divisions, dividing even those who ought to share the same confession and spend their time confessing it rather than wounding each other.

Finally, you also wrote that you pray often that “this would not be about you.” Yet, as I read through the exchange, I could not help by being disturbed by the great prominence of times you spoke about “MY worship service.” If you want your prayer to be answered, please reread all of your posts, and notice just how many of your answers are very much about you. Then, deeply ponder the fact that a great number of brothers here are telling you in all earnestness that the theology driving the wagon you’ve hitched yourself to *is* about you. That is what bothers them so very much.

+pax Christi+

Rev. Fisk,

You bring up an excellent point that is all too often overlooked in this ongoing debate, namely that those who choose to do their own thing are the ones causing division among us. So often, confessional Lutherans are accused of being unloving and uncharitable because of their desire to cling to what has been, as one pastor put it, “traditioned” to us, when, in reality, those who choose to abandon our traditions and adopt the traditions of those who don’t believe as we do, are the ones who are being unloving and uncharitable. The deep divide in our synod is caused not by those who continue in our traditions, but by those who abandon them. Of course, in our politically correct, postmodern worldview, those of us who point this fact out are easily turned into the bad guys, for people have been so influenced by the deception that truth is relative, they cannot abide hearing objective truth-claims any longer.

It is this worldview that dominates the philosophy of the Church Growth Movement, out of which flows all of the innovative worship practices employed to make worship more relevant, contemporary, and appealing to people. This worldview is all the more noticeable in those congregations that offer a variety of worship “styles,” for all the arguments to the contrary aside, what they’re actually doing is giving different people different options for different worship, all of which is said to be equally valid and true.

When people set the agenda for what happens in worship (i.e. when pastors or “worship leaders” design their worship services around the likes and dislikes, wants and desires of people, which is exactly what the Church Growth Movement amazingly advocates, by the way), we are seeing the fulfillment of what St. Paul prophesies playing itself out before our very eyes:

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Tim. 4:3-4).

All,

I am Brian Yamabe’s pastor and very happy to be so. I won’t even attempt to try to answer all of what has been said, but I would like to comment on a couple of things.

First, as to why we started a contemporary service at our church. I say “we” because this wasn’t just my decision and it certainly was not an impulsive or rash decision. We spent a year and a half in a study of worship, including Dr. Just’s “Lutheran Liturgy: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.” We prayed and studied the confessions and Scriptures. We as a congregation came to the conclusion that there was nothing in any of these prohibiting contemporary music. That being said we were equally dismayed at the poor quality and even poorer theology of much of the CW that was out there. So from the beginning we wanted to do it differently and “distinctly Lutheran”. Our goal was to worship in an appropriare way that was welcoming to our community families. I am not saying that traditional liturgy isn’t welcoming, but it is difficult. Language and unfamiliar singing became a constant response when I would do “exit” interviews with visitors. So if you wanted a quick hit on why we started the service, I would say to provide another vehicle through which the gospel could be proclaimed and our own members come to receive and respond.

Second, in regards to the placement of the praise team. I was very careful about this. They are off to the side and are not the focus of the service. They only lead us in singing, no praying or interpreting of songs for us. I as the pastor am the only interpreter and proclaimer of God’s Word in all the services of our church. We do not use lay readers and I have no intention of doing so. The focus from the beginning is on Christ. My sermon is pretty much identical. I only say pretty much because I preach from a memorized outline and not a word for word manuscript. But the most important thing is Christ proclaimed for the forgiveness of sins.

Third, I am also the only one who picks music for either one of our services, traditional and contemporary. I usually do a three month calendar for all the musicians of the church. For the contemporary service this is especially difficult as there aren’t alot of songs out there that I am willing to use. If it were legal I would take some of them and gut the poorly phrased words and the bad theology from them, but it isn’t legal so we don’t use them. The 3 month traditional schedule takes me about 1 day to prepare. The 3 month CW schedule takes 3 or 4 days. Some of that is because I am becoming more familiar with the music and some of it is finding good sound theological music that works.

Fourth, we practice close communion and have communion every Sunday alternating services. I would personally prefere an every service communion schedule and I am catechizing my elders to that point. I am not willing to change the close communion practice of the church simply because we have more visitors.

Finally, I am sure that there are more questions that some of you want to ask me, like am I interested in saving souls. Do I really need to answer that? I preach the Gospel and that is answer enough. Please feel free to ask the questions and I will attempt to answer them as best as I can. Our CW is truly a work in progress, but its basic shape includes the confession/absolution, creed, Lord’s prayer, and other elements of the more traditional setting.

Thanks to Brian for his thougtful paper and to you for your thoughtful and respectful responses.

Pastor Robert Weller

“Our goal was to worship in an appropriare way that was welcoming to our community families. I am not saying that traditional liturgy isn’t welcoming, but it is difficult. Language and unfamiliar singing became a constant response when I would do “exit” interviews with visitors…. I am not willing to change the close communion practice of the church simply because we have more visitors.

Pr. Weller,

Thank you for taking the time to write out your thoughtful explanation as to why your congregation has chosen to use a contemporary worship service.

However, the two statements I quote above raise some questions for me. I won’t ask all of them, and I hope you have time to answer those I do ask. My first question is why aren’t you interested in changing your closed communion practice, if changing it will make the worship service more “welcoming” to those who aren’t members of your congregation in your community? In other words, what is the rationale for drawing the line over closed communion? Secondly, and this question arises from the first, why can’t the same rationale used to draw the line at closed communion be used as a reason to have not implemented contemporary worship at your congregation? Finally, you mention that you found nothing in the scriptures and our confession of faith prohibiting the use of contemporary worship, but what do you think of Pr. Fisks point above (posting #87) regarding Romans 16:17 and causing division?

Jim Pierce

Jim,

It seems clear to me that closed communion is clearly taught in Scripture (1 Corinthians 11, etc.) It isn’t a doctrine that we are free to do away with since it is taught in Scripture. It has at times been an issue with visitors to both of our service, TW and CW, but when they are willing to listen they at least understand where our practice is coming from. In my experience there is no difference between those who are offended by our communion practice in the CW or TW.

In Romans 16, the divisions that Paul speaks of are specifically those that are against the “teaching you have learned.” I can say honestly, truthfully, and unapologetically there is nothing in our CW service that is contrary to Paul or any other part of Scripture. We do not put up obstacles and divisions to the Gospel. Probably alot of understanding needs to be gained about what Paul meant when he said “the teaching you have learned”. However, I don’t think anyone could with a straight face think that Paul meant pages 5 and 15.

I guess I don’t see how trying to offering a good, confessional albeit contemporary worship service would be an obstacle to any Christian. If the objection is that they will then have to face those questions in there own congregations, maybe they should. BTW, I communicated my intention of starting a new service to my entire circuit before I did it. I didn’t spring it on anyone for the sake of good order.

Thanks for your question and I hope this helps.

Pastor Robert Weller

Sorry for another post but I wanter to elaborate on one thing I said last. Good order means communicating with our brothers and sisters in Christ of other congregations, especially those that are geographically close. My intention is never to pull members from their churches into mine. In fact I encourage them to stay at their congregations even when those congregations are going through profound difficulties that have nothing to do with worship.
I am the circuit counselor and came into that position because I think the other pastors in my circuit trust me. they don’t all agree with everything I do, but they know I am not merely looking for numbers. I am seeking to preach Christ crucified and risen.

Peace in Christ,

Pastor Robert Weller

Pastor Weller,

Thanks for such a simple and clear description of your CW situation.

Here are my thoughts. I have a lot of experience in this matter. I launched a CW service nearly 20 years ago in one of the most traditional congregations in the synod at that time – they only allowed the KJV from the lectern and pulpit. I earned thier trust and we made it happen.

In the meantime I experienced many of the pitfalls that you are seeking to avoid – sermonettes by the musicians, poor theology in the music, etc.

Thanks to some patient pastor friends, I was slowly catechized out of CW. I was conservative like you obviously are, but I still thought there was someway to satisfy my desire to have a worship service that was cast in the form of the culture I grew up in.

Since then, I have actually learned what the liturgy is for and where it came from and that its counter-culture nature (of course it is not entirely counter culture) actually serves the most important truth of the faith – salvation by faith apart from works by taking us our of ourselves and bringing us the Gospel in a rich form that is above the silly McDonalds jingle approach of CW.

My pastor never taught me the reasons behind the liturgy and I really did not get that good of an education on it at St. Louis in the mid-80′s. (St. Louis was a real liturgical ghetto as far as I am concerned back then with some prominent exceptions.) So I was ripe for giving into the cultural pressures to do CW.

What you have described as reasons for doing CW are these same cultural pressures. It sounds like you are not as selfish personally as I was, seeking to start a service that satisfied me (BTW – I think most pastors who do CW are doing it primarily for this reason which is not a good reason). However, these people that you speak of who want to hear familiar music are driven by this selfish rationale.

Let’s take this argument that people do not want unfamiliar music, one of your prominent arguments. It just does not wash. Why is the hymnal music unfamiliar to them? It is beacuse they do not listen to it on the radio or thier CD players. That is no reason to change the music at church. Actually, it’s a good reason to get them to change what they listen to at home but even that is not the proper response to this argument. For 2,000 years the church has had its own music. Except for a a few rare exceptions (the brief era of Pietism for example) the church has not done what people are expecting of the church in this breif Romantic and anti-authoritarian age as they come through your line on Sunday morning and clamor for a different sound. Where does this desire come from? It is a selfish desire to have something they are familiar with. Why can’t the music of the church stand on its own as it has for 2,000 years? Having a separate church music actually preserves the Gospel instead of threatening it every generation with new music. Which brings up the notion of your time. Having to find this music every week takes up more time than using the great tools that we have to help us identify one of the 900 hymns in the hymnal to use in support of the pericopes. 900 hymns! Wow, that is a lot of variety and they represent several cultures and nearly every century for the last 2,000 years.

I hope you can see that people’s desire to have thier own music is really selfish in the end. Of course, they do not mean this intentionally, but in the end it is self-serving.

And why do you have your own simple little service? What if everyone did that? There would be no more consistency in the synod. There is a simple service of prayer and preaching in the hymnal that I recommend for you instead of creating your own ersatz liturgy. We use this service periodically and there are several other formats in the hymnal. We use morning prayer and matins for our day school chapel and I gotta tell ya, there is nothing more inspiring than hearing our day school kids lead thier parents in song on the Sunday mornings that we use Matins. We sing some goofy stuff out of “All God’s People Sing” (the kids hymnal from CPH) for day school chapel but the kids sing the liturgy of Matins better than they sing those songs.

I just do not know why you have to do this. There is plenty of contemporary music in the hymnal. We sing one or more of the CW songs that are in the hymnal on several weeks of the year. The members who have demanded CW of us have left and gone to other silly churches and those of us who like that sound are happy to hear it on occasion in the Divine Service.

For my money I say we keep the church liturgical culture that has matured like a fine wine for 2,000 years and see it as an advantage and not as an unfamiliar disadvantage. It is a powerful and unmeasurable tool for conserving the Gospel. Keep in mind that the church is inherently conservative. As Paul tells us – “I passed on to you what I received from Christ.” We do not invent, we pass on what we have received from Christ.

God bless you brother. I wish you could have the same journey that I have had that has brought me to such a simple, peaceful liturgical place.

Tim Rossow

“It seems clear to me that closed communion is clearly taught in Scripture (1 Corinthians 11, etc.) It isn’t a doctrine that we are free to do away with since it is taught in Scripture.”

Pr. Weller,

Thank you for your response. I am quoting the above so I can “spring board” into my next comment. I believe what is referred to as “Traditional Liturgy” is clearly taught in scripture. I am not saying that the scriptures tell us necessarily what musical genres we should use in the divine service, but the liturgy we are to use is found in the scriptures, in our Confession, and with the Lutheran fathers. I don’t have time or the space to flesh this all out, but if you don’t mind I want to recommend some reading that I believe makes the case for what I just stated.

“Readings in Luther on Worship” by Dr. Naomichi Masaki (available at CTS press)
“The Glory and the Service: Worship in the Old Testament” by John W. Kleinig (again, can be purchased through CTS press)
“Evangelicalism and the Liturgical Movement and their Effects on Lutheran Worship” (by Charles J. Evanson, avalable through CTS)
“Norman E. Nagel, “Whose Liturgy Is It?” (Logia 2 April 1993)
“Steven D. Paulson, “What Is Essential in Lutheran Worship?” (Word & World 26 Spring 2006)

The articles by Paulson and Nagel are available by download via Moogle through the Ft. Wayne seminary library.

I have found that the above materials together make the scriptural case for the “traditional” liturgy. I prefer “conservative liturgy”, because just like Luther we should be concerned not to remove any element out of worship given to us by God through the scriptures.

There are times when I read exchanges like these and just shake my head. Having nearly been ridden out of town on a rail for introducing “contemporary worship” in my congregation (we switched to LSB, which uses “you” instead of “thee/thou”), and having to deal with a groundswell to oust a neighboring pastor for introducing “contemporary worship” in his congregation (he had a trumpeter, standing next to the organist, play the melody line of “I Know that My Redeemer Lives” as the congregation sang on Easter Sunday), I am more and more convinced of Cantor Magness’ observations in his essay delivered at the national worship conference last summer – “traditional” is whatever the congregation was doing the Sunday before they started “contemporary” worship.

I have tried to expand my congregation’s understanding of the historic liturgies that have been handed down to us, e.g. Maundy Thursday a couple of years ago. On Maundy Thursday, we speak all of the liturgy as a reminder of the humiliation of our Lord. I had printed out the liturgy so that we could take advantage of some of the alternate responses that are hidden in the rubrics (e.g. post-communion thanksgiving – “As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup/Ye do show the Lord’s death til He come.”). I opted to use the form of confession from Compline instead of the confession on TLH p. 16. In the Passiontide, I thought it important for the congregation to know that absolution is something their pastor needs to hear spoken to him as well. (I realize that if I would better utilize my Father-Confessor I wouldn’t feel that need quite so deeply.) But I was soundly chastised for not “doing what was in the book.” When I pointed out where it WAS in the book, I was informed, “But that’s not the way WE use the book!”

There are many good, historical resources from which we can draw – too many to include in a single hymnal. I recall chuckling a few years ago when Creative Worship came out with their Easter Sunrise liturgy and I recognized it: it was the Vigil service verbatim out of the Agenda! Three years ago, using Luther’s Flood Prayer during a baptism would be a “contemporary worship” move of substituting a different prayer for the one that is in the Agenda.

I am starting to ramble now (from the late hour, I suspect) so I will close with this summary point: reclaiming many of the rich, historical elements of the liturgy that were not, for one reason or another, included in this iteration of our corporate hymnal does not, per se, brand a pastor/congregation/worship as CW. (And this is not pro/con any particular posters, but is offered by way of caveat – does our argument for historic liturgy (which I wholeheartedly support) preclude the reintroduction of “lost” treasures, such as Luther’s Flood Prayer?)

The PPPadre

Pastor Weller:
The practice of your church still divides your people into two congregations, each able to attend on the basis of which form they prefer.
Has this not turned the divine service into a means of self-satisfaction?
And does that in turn not diminish the liturgy, or demonstrate a poor regard for what liturgy is and does?

Susan,

I guess I have heard the argument about two camps or even congregations before and I don’t know why it is supposed to worry me. If a church has two traditional services don’t you get the same thing? I suppose when they have to issue a call for the next pastor it becomes a concern, but it really hasn’t divided our congregation in any measurably bad ways.

I went through Fort Wayne during the “join the resistance, support the liturgy” movement. I grew up on the liturgy and it certainly doesn’t need my defense. I would like to pose a question to all who write on here. Are the liturgy and the gospel one and the same? Is the liturgy a vehicle through which the gospel is delivered?

It seems to me we have to be very careful with these kind of equations. Peter and Paul were not singing the Agnus Dei as part of their communion practice. The liturgy grew up in the church but it grew and was fluid. The notion that it has remained stagnant simply isn’t historically true. There are base elements of the service that have been there from the beginning (Entry, word, Preparation, Sacrament, communion). These are present in our CW. I would even go so far as to say that our CW is a liturgical setting. (Please no one throw their computers!)

Ok, gotta go. But have at it!

In Peace,

Pastor Robert Weller

Pastor Weller,

The Gospel is the word of God’s salvation for us.

The liturgy is a vehicle that brings the Gospel to us.

They are two different things but they are indistinguishable as style is from substnace.

Traditional liturgy is lasting, historic, time-tested, reverent, Christ-centered, cross-focussed and is thus a fitting vehicle for the message.

CW is temporary, transitory, not time-tested, not reverent, faddish, by its very nature (as I described above) based on a selfish need, not so Christ-centered, and prone to allowing false doctrine into the Divine Service. It is not as fitting of a vehicle as the traditional liturgy.

Style and substance are not divorcable. Different things have differnet styles that are appropriate to each. Attending a hockey game calls for a certain style (clothes, behavior, attitude, etc.). Attending the Divine Service calls for a certain style. The hockey game itself has a certain fitting style as does the Divine Service. CW and the traditional liturgy are two different styles attached to the same thing, the worship of the Almighty and the administration of His word and sacraments. One is more fitting than the other.

TR

Tim,

Thanks for your response. I have been through this style versus substance thing so much and I agree that style impacts substance. SO that leaves me with the question of what changes are appropriate? How was it ok for the church to ever add anything? When it is appropriate for the church as a whole, not my individual congregation, to make changes to the liturgy?

I am not arguing for change for the sake of change, but for change that actually serves the gospel. A very easy example is the changes in language in the liturgy we have seen over the years. German to English, but also more recently changing of wording to make things clearer: “quick and the dead” to “living and the dead”. I don’t want to place barriers between myself and my brothers and sisters in Christ, which is why my circuit was kept informed and questioned at every step of this change. I firmly believe that the changes we have made serve God by proclaiming the gospel clearly so it is heard in this place.

Thanks for your comments.

Pastor Robert Weller

I would beg to differ with Pastor Weller’s reading of the text of Rom. 16:17. In the Greek, it is fairly apparent that Paul is exhorting the people to “look out” for two things to avoid:

1. Those who cause divisions AND
2. Those who “scandalize” the “teaching”.

1 Timothy 6′s warning against false teachers also unites these two realities: “If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.”

We can see that those who do not teach what Jesus taught also have a “passion” for stirring up division – we might call this a desire to be seen as unique and special, cutting edge, avant garde, etc. Either way, the warning of Scripture is quite clear: those who cause division and controversy should be numbered with those who teach falsely.

Please understand, I do not say this to accuse Pastor Weller of either causing division or teaching falsely – as I know next to nothing about him. I say this to maintain the point that the revivalist CW movement fits clearly into the pattern which Scripture teaches us to avoid in the Churches. Our confessions say as much as well in many places, Art. X of the FC not the least of them.

+pax Christi+

I agree that much of the CW revivalist camp falls into the categories put forth, causing division and stirring up the people. However, just because some who also use a similar worship service as I do also include under that umbrella false teaching and false doctrine doesn’t mean the false doctrine should be tied to the CW. They are two separate things.

I would argue that what drives false doctrine is the numbers game. For example many who have CW have given up closed communion for the sake of their visitors. It is possible to have CW and practice closed communion.

We have to be very careful that we don’t corollate realities that don’t need to be corollated. Though I appreciate the caution, I would be willing to have any pastor worship with me and my congregation and when they spotted false doctrine, point it out.

Simply because CW and sound Lutheran doctrine and practice haven’t been combined well before does not mean they can’t be. Arrogant? Perhaps, but I am trusting not just my theological abilities, but also those of the laity and my brothers and sisters in Christ.

thanks for your comments.

Pastor Robert Weller

Robert,

Thanks for patiently reading my comments.

To your question, can the church ever change anything or when can it. What I have learned is that yes, the church can and does change things. The LSB reflects this well.

The LSB has not ignored CW. I am not the best equipped to demonstrate this (as you can tell from my history I am not a really big hymnal fan by training as is my friend and fellow commenter above Dennis Peskey – it has become a learned behavior for me at around the age of 30 so I still depend on others to be my liturgical conscience – we have an incredible cantor who selects music for us and a great associate pastor who knows this stuff from youth) but here are four examples I know of off hand:

1. There is a Twila Paris song in LSB (#550). This of course is pure American contemporary music.
2. There are numerous Marty Haugen songs in LSB. He writes liturgical type stuff that has a more modern feel to it. It is not Dove Music awards type stuff but it is also not Gregorian chant.
3. There are also a few Taize community pieces in the LSB. Again, not Dove Awards stuff but different than chant and Lutheran chorales.
4. Our own Cantor Phillip Magness has some pieces in the LSB. He is Haugen like but with a little more of a jazz piano feel.

The liturgical tradition adds and subtracts all the time. Allowing our trained music people to lead for us on this is salutary.

Notice that the “contemporary” stuff added this go around is not limited to the Amy Grant type stuff but reflects a far broader range of musical style and is thus more catholic which is a good thing.

Hope this helps. Thanks for listening.

Tim

Pastor Weller,
I guess I have trouble getting past two things.
The first is a question I asked our last CW visitor: AC XV requires of you that you observe the usages in the Church “which may be observed without sin, and which are profitable unto tranquility and good order in the Church, as particular holy days, festivals, and the like.” The Apology adds “for love’s sake we do not refuse to observe adiaphora with others, even though they should have some disadvantage; but we have judged that such public harmony as could indeed be produced without offense to consciences ought to be preferred to all other advantages.” The Church is broader than your circuit, and you are definitely “refusing to observe adiophora with others.” What are you using to trump “the usages of the church,” and the “public harmony” to which you tied yourself in your ordination vows?
The second point flows out of the first. If this has something to do w/ reaching non-Christians for whom the Western Liturgy is a stumbling block (and what else would justify such a violent end to “public harmony?”) isn’t there in CW the implicit assertion that Word and Sacrament aren’t enough? Aren’t you left w/ cultural relevance as a means of grace, or at least a necessary precondition? If I can by a stylistic change turn an enemy of Christ into a disciple of Christ, what does that say about Art IV, and Luther’s explanation of the third article of the Creed?
Sorry for the long quote, but I think Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was right on target when he wrote: “Every attempt to impose the gospel by force, to run after people and proselytize them, to use our own resources to arrange the salvation of other people, is both futile and dangerous. It is futile, because the swine do not recognize the pearls that are cast before them, and dangerous, because it profanes the word of forgiveness, by causing those we fain would serve to sin against what is holy. … Our easy trafficking with the word of cheap grace simply bores the world to disgust, so that in the end it turns against those who try to force on it what it does not want. Thus a strict limit is placed upon the activities of the disciples, just as in Matt 10 they are told to shake the dust off their feet where the word of peace is refused a hearing. Their restless energy which refuses to recognize any limit to their activity, the zeal which refuses to take note of resistance, springs from a confusion of the gospel with a victorious ideology.”
Pax Christi+,
Matt Mills

Pastor Weller:
I appreciate your earlier response to my post.
But a church that maintains more than one *traditional* service is not dividing the congregation in the same way.
People choose which *traditional* service simply because of the preferred hour; but people choose which *style* of service simply because of the style.
If the hour of traditional service were for some reason not available to me, I’d have to think and pray long and hard, to consider attending something that would undeniably be completely unfamiliar to me. In that instance, I, a member of your congregation, would suddenly be as lost as the unchurched.

Pastor,
Thank you for joining in. It is quite surreal to be having this discussion in this forum when I actually meant for it to take place in person at some point. (Note: always remember who you’ve friended on Facebook

I agree that having 2 services whether of similar style or not has the potential to divide a congregation. And as you said, “… it really hasn’t divided our congregation in any measurably bad ways.” I would also agree that it hasn’t divided our congregation, but I would argue that we are living, at least to some extent, on borrowed capital. The core of the congregation was largely around when there was only one service and I believe those existing relationships are a large reason there is little division. If we look down the road a few years and the number of these existing relationships dwindle, so will our unity. As a newer member of the congregation, I only know a few members from the 2nd service. My interaction with regular attenders of 2nd service is largely through Bible study and men’s group, but the overlap represents a small percentage of the entire congregation. And as membership changes over time I don’t see this situation will improve.

My practical reason for writing this paper was concern for my daughters and the youth of our congregation. Without growing up in the distinctly Lutheran proclamation of the Gospel using all the gifts of the historic liturgy it will be easier for them to slide comfortably into a non-denominational church when they are left to their own devices. I am walking proof that our historical form of worship is a life preserver in the sea of American Evangelicalism. It’s certainly not a panacea, but I think there is something to be said for engraining in them the word of God and our entire theology as confessed in the historic liturgy.

I would like to thank all the commenters for their respectful treatment of Pastor Weller. My intent was never to put him in the spotlight like this and your gracious attitude toward him has lessened my remorse in putting him in this situation.

Brian,

As I stated I am happy to talk about these things and I am glad you brought it up. I don’t mean to say that I don’t think the congregation will end up being divided by services, only that it happens in any congregation with more than one service. you are probably right about our living more unified on borrowed time. Yet while we may have many members who don’t know people in the other service, I guess I don’t see how that should be detrimental to a congregation. If both services are represented by church leadership and all members are seen on equal footing, then the church should be able to move forward together. I know this may sound too “ideal” and not very real, but I have to operate on what I would like to see happen and strive for it rather than being pessimistic.

Additionally, while I certainly would never argue with the fact that liturgy teaches the faith, I don’t believe it is the only method and I probably would argue that it isn’t even the first and most important biblical method. I would say that the family should be, as biblically mandated, the primary teacher of the faith. You do a great job because you recognize your vocation as head of the family. Too many families turn over the teaching of the faith to the church. I don’t want to spend too much time on this, but one of the premises of my dissertation is exactly that families have turned over to the church responsibilities that God has given them.

Worship, traditional and contemporary, can be a place where faith is grown and even born, but the family should remain the primary dispenser as they use the church and the means of grace provided their to teach the faith to their children.

Hope this helps and probably sparks some more discussion. I thank all of you for your respectful, but frank responses. To my brothers in the ministry I thank you for wrestling with these issues on a daily basis.

Pastor Robert Weller

I would only hope that heads of household have a church that faithfully teaches them what to teach their children.
Pastor Weller says:
>…while I certainly would never argue with the fact that liturgy teaches the faith,I don’t believe it is the only method and I probably would argue that it isn’t even the first and most important biblical method.<
But it’s perhaps the best and most consistently available method within the the walls of the church.
Would it not be better for a pastor to spend his time preparing to teach his flock about liturgy, than to spend it cobbling together an alternative?

Robert,

First of all, I appreciate your willingness to dialogue on this forum and your desire to defend what you believe.

With that said, I believe you have started down a very dangerous path. I have been involved in three different LCMS congregations that introduced CW. What you have stated thus far sounds so eerily familiar. All three pastors (actually, five, since one of the congregations had two associate pastors) in these congregations said the exact same things I hear you saying: I will always choose the songs; I will keep our Lutheran doctrine in place; Things won’t get out of hand, etc. In all three instances, they were unable to stop the beast from taking over. There is nothing distinctively Lutheran about their CW anymore, and, while two of the three congregations still offer what they label TW, even those Services have been widely taken over by CW.

I know, I know, you’re not going to let this happen. I guess only time will tell.

What I do know from experience is that when you begin to shape the way you do things in church based upon what people want, you are opening yourself up for all kinds of abuses to enter in. We sinful human beings always want more. Give us an inch; we want a mile.

So, what happens when it’s not enough for the praise band on the side to lead the congregation in a few praise ditties you’ve determined are not too awfully bad? What will you say to those people who want to dabble a little deeper into the pool of CW? It will be very difficult for you to convince them that it is not right to dive in deeper, for you’ve already set the precedent for catering to their wants and desires.

But, all that aside, I am curious as to how you would respond to my earlier post to Mark Louderback (#82). Granted, Mark has dove in to the CW pool much deeper than you have at this point, but the same questions I asked of him are worthy of an answer from you. How does what you’re doing jive with your confessional subscription?

I think your parishioner, Brian’s, concerns about his daughters, and the youth in general, are spot on. We Lutherans have already been dabbling in CW long enough to see what affects it has had on a generation raised on it. I know lots (and I mean – lots!) of former Lutherans (many family and friends) who have left Lutheran congregations for congregations of other denominations (or non-denoms) where the entertainment is “bigger and better.” Having been raised on CW, when you ask them why they would leave Lutheranism for Americanized evangelicalism, they look at you like you’re crazy, for they really don’t see a difference – well, except that the praise band at the Church of How Are Ya is much better than the one at So and So Lutheran.

Certainly, you are right in noting that much of the issues we face today has a lot to do with Christian parents not taking their vocation as seriously as they should. But, isn’t that all the more reason for the Church to remain faithful to her traditional doctrine and practice? I’m really not following your argumentation on this one. In a day and age when everything is fast-paced, superficial, and marketed to appeal to, and satisfy, our own wants and desires, I believe it is important for the Church to buck that trend and remain a constant place, and source, of eternal substance, as un-stained by the world as it can be.

Thanks again for the dialogue.

Pax,
Tom

Tom,

I would be curious as to what things started to show up at those churches that allowed the “beast to take over”. Were there warning signs that the services were drifting seriously astray? I guess my hope, and I say hope simply because as you correctly stated we are all sinners, is that I will continue to dedicate myself to faithful teaching and preaching. I pray for parishoners like Brian who are willing to question me and find out my reasons. Where there is an issue I hope it will be brought to the forefront.

I don’t deny that what I am attempting had been attempted before, but I still believe there is truly a way to be faithful, Lutheran, confessional and offer something other than a hymnal only service.

Thanks for the comments.

Pastor Weller

The nut of it, though, Pastor Weller and others, is that an alternative is offered simply because people want it. Not because it’s better or even good. Granted, you’ve expressed your determination to make and keep it good; but ‘good’ wasn’t what people wanted, and it’s being ‘good’ wasn’t what brought it about. What brought it about was that people wanted it. Why do they want it? Simply because they do.
Well, really, it’s a little more complicated than that. But only a little more…

Pr. Weller,

Out of interest, why do you keep the “praise band” to the side? Is there a particular scripture that forbids you from having them at the front of the congregation? Was your choir (and/or organ), prior to your move to a CW service, located at the back? Or was it located at the side of the church? If the choir has been in the back, can you explain why the “praise band” can’t be located there, too? The point with my questions is that I suspect your “praise band” is already creeping up to front and center, where most “praise bands” are located in CW services. Just as the temptation to start CW at your church was based on the premise that you didn’t find any clear scriptural mandate against CW, the same point may eventually be made that there is no clear scriptural mandate forbidding the praise band to be at the front of the church.

I also wonder what music genre you are accommodating in your CW? Is it 70s to 80s pop? I can guess that it is, since baby boomers typically don’t like hip-hop, rap, and the various rock sounds of today.

If you are trying to be relevant to those in your community, have you studied what their musical tastes are? For example, if you found that the community favored Rap music, would you and your elders consider weighting the songs in your service towards “Christian Rap”? What music genres would you consider “off limits” for the divine service?

It continues to puzzle me that many CW services cater to the sounds the baby boomers of the congregation want. Or, for that matter the congregations who adopt CW play popular Christian radio tunes as if the “unChurched” in their community really care for such music. When I was an atheist the last thing I wanted to listen to was somebody crooning out “Jesus songs”. Nevertheless, it is puzzling that a congregation would adopt CW, in the name of being missional and wanting to make the divine service more accessible to non-Lutherans, and then they don’t play the sounds the demographics of their community might suggest would be more palatable to the “unChurced”.

I can’t help believing that CW is basically us having gotten way too comfortable in our own skin.

In the particular congregation which I witnessed “just start” a CW service yet with the intent to keep it under control, as described above, “what happened” before the band moved from the balcony to the front (and yes, it started behind and finished in front), was that the Pastor’s theology began to be changed by the new liturgies and songs he was singing.

It’s as simple as the ancient rule: lex orandi, lex credendi. It took years. But it happened. When I left, he was writing his own creeds and letting his members teach the PDRivenLife in their home groups. This from the man who said to me, “As long we keep it about the Word, it must be useful.” One must then be patient with me for not trusting the intentions of men who say, “Yes, but we’ll do it right,” to have much bearing on the debate. They are not the first to look at the ring and think, “But I will use it for good.”

Interestingly, at the time I entered that parish, I was ambivilant to CW, but my experience and observations there taught me much about the very real theological, philosophical and historic reasons for avoiding it. “What you draw them with, you will have to keep them with.”

It has been said, “We have to be very careful that we don’t corollate realities that don’t need to be corollated.” Yes. Equally, we must not to ignore the correlation of realities that, when studied carefully, are quickly proven to be correlated, even by secular philosohical standards.

Finally, I agree profoundly that the home is the primary *location* for teaching the faith. As the father of three daughters, I am ever amazed at the adequacy of our primary *method* for teaching the faith in our home: the liturgy of the Church. In this way, it is important to recognize that the distinction drawn above between “home” and “liturgy” is not really valid. Home is a place/people, liturgy is a method. It’s where AND how. In the home, the greatest gift we as a family have is the variated liturgies which keep us daily in and around our dear Lord’s revealed Words about Jesus, what he did for us, and what he’s coming again to do.

To my four year old, there is no more relevant/contemporary song in the entire world.

+pax Christi+

Or else it’s one giant step down the road to simply BECOMING the other churches.
It’s like apologizing for being Lutheran. Instead of confessing it, some Lutherans apparently repent it.

Susan R. writes, “Or else it’s one giant step down the road to simply BECOMING the other churches. ”

That reminds me of the following citation from Marquart’s “Liturgical Commonplaces”.

(2) The worship of God is not a means to an end (e. g., “‘evangelism’”), but is an end in itself. It is in fact the ultimate purpose of the church (Eph. 1:12,14; Phil. 1:11; 2:10,11; I Peter 2:5), and must give meaning, direction, and impetus to all particular functions and activities of the church, including the great missionary task (Matt. 28:19,20). This means that the church’s public liturgy, that is, the Service of Word and Sacrament, dare not be treated as a public relations exercise, as these words are usually understood: The idea, for instance, that the Service should be “meaningful,” that is, clear and obvious to any casual visitor who might pop in from the street, is shortsightedly pragmatic. A “service” tailored to such a misguided ideal would comprise a melange of threadbare banalities, which even the casual visitor is likely to find unbearable after the third time-not to speak of the faithful who attend regularly for threescore years and ten. People who come to the church seeking divine truth do not expect it to be huckstered like soap or soft drinks, with mindless jingles. Indeed, they respect the church’s uncompromising celebration of mysteries which are not at once transparent to the uninstructed. A few years ago, for instance, an American lady walked into a Russian Orthodox monastery in New York State, and was so impressed by the service in church Slavonic, of which she did not understand a word, that she promptly willed all her wealth to that monastery, saying that here alone had she found people who really prayed!”

“This concentration on ritual alienates most modern readers in the Western world. We have little appreciation for the function and significance of ritual, even though our daily life is, to a large extent, governed by unconscious rituals and ritualized forms of behavior. We, rather curiously, think that ritual robs us of freedom and spontaneity. Since it imposes conventional patterns of behavior on us, we scorn it as impersonal and mechanical, empty and cold, lifeless and meaningless. At best, ritual may show what we have in common with each other and so be used to express how we feel in a conventional way. At worst, we fancy that it alienates, dehumanizes, and enslaves us; it robs us of our subjectivity and individuality.”

Care to take a guess who originated this quote? After reading through one hundred, eighteen responses and meditating on all that has been written, I remembered what a wise professor once taught me, “When reading Scripture, ask why?” I applied the same advice to this ongoing (and enlightening) discussion. In conclusion, I found myself returning to the above quote which speaks directly to what has been written.

Words such as impersonal, mechanical, empty, cold, lifeless or meaningless are used in describing traditional, liturgical worship. Words such as freedom, spontaneity or individuality have been associated with contemporary worship. Throughout, the claim is made that the Scriptures do not establish a particular hymnal, form or style which dictate how we should (or must) worship.

I will conclude with two sentences from the paragraph which preceeded the above quote. For the meaning, you be the judge of the value of its content. I quote:

“The book of Leviticus consists, by and large, of ritual legislation. By his Word God institutes the essential parts of the divine service for his interaction with his people at the sanctuary.”

Concordia Commentary – Leviticus by John W. Kleinig pg. 20

Good stuff Dennis!

TR

We have our praise team off to the side to keep Christ at the center of our worship. In our traditional service the choir and organ are in the balcony, but space simply doesn’t permit for the praise team to also occupy that space.

In reference to what genre we use for our music, I think it stands on its own. It is a new church music genre that doesn’t easily fit into the categories typically offered : rap, hip-hop, etc. I guess I take issue with the idea that we are trying to appeal to what people listen to on the radio. I believe that CW music is actually its own genre that happens to have some radio stations that play it. Most of you probably have a radio station that offers Christian contemporary music. As I listen to our local station there is a ton of stuff that I simply wouldn’t use for worship for a variety of reasons: bad theology, too hard to sing, or it is simply poorly written. For those same reasons I reject the use of some hymns in our hymnal, “Earth and all Stars” comes to mind.

Finally, for now, I don’t believe we are trying to be like the church down the street. We aren’t looking for “butts in the seats”. We are seeking to use all First Article gifts to the glory of God and the proclamation of the gospel. No cutting corners theologically, no simply doing what works!

Thanks for the dialogue.

Pastor Robert Weller

With respect, Pastor Weller, in your last post, you’ve nearly completely ignored all the argument to the contrary, and simply restated your original case, with the added statement that you’re not trying to be the church down the street.
Yes, we have radio stations that play CW. I don’t listen to them. I won’t eat in an area restaurant on Sundays because that’s wheat they play. They might as well be playing plain pop or pop-country music, because, except for the occasional mention of God or Jesus or The Lamb, I wouldn’t know it was ‘Christian’ and not straight pop.
You haven’t answered what prompted your adding a contemp. service, though you’ve claimed to be using all the gifts of God, etc. But, frankly, I’m not buying that. If those musical gifts are so worthy, then why not add them into a liturgical service? Why depart form liturgical form?
Who attends these services? Do only the people who like each style attend each service? Will people not attend an alternative? Is that why it’s being done in your church, to accommodate those who must have CW or they’ll go elsewhere? Are they not being gifted enough by the Divine Service, that they must–and I stress the word MUST–have a different form?
If it’s just a genre, and a worthy enough proclamation of the Gospel, why do you have to spend so much time vetting it and tweaking it, to make it fit within Lutheran theology? How can you say it stands on its own, when its only standing is its popularity–its appeal, and, by your own admission, not its depth or grounding in the Gospel?
Is it not a sound you’re after? Is it not the appeal of the genre itself, that has won it a place at the table?
Did I become Lutheran because I *like* the liturgy, or because I believe what it says?
Will some of your people only remain ‘Lutheran’ if they can do so on their own terms?

A brief P.S.:
I’d like to commend and applaud the pastors within the Missouri Synod who just say ‘No’: ‘No’ to splitting their congregations in this way, and ‘No’ to such a rejection of the plain Gospel proclamation in the liturgy, and ‘No’ to those within their congregations, and among their brother pastors, who so relentlessly seek it.

Wow – this was a chat room, not a posting

And before I say anything else, let me add that I think an extended devisive dialogue like this – while maybe good in spirit (even loving Christian-spirit at that) – is too much simply the devil enjoying our daggers.

Hardly can I add much that has not been said in one form or another already… As a lifelong Evangelical LC-MS member, I can at least add my support for holding to liturgical worship.

On that note, let me add that when I grew up at our Lutheran school, we closed each week with Friday afternoon hymn sing. As I recall, sometimes we gathered in the gymnasium. I think it was after the school outgrew being able to sit in the bleachers with everyone able to see the overhead projector screen, we moved to the sanctuary. In my opinion, this was a great time for CW – not Sunday AM. We sang both TLH as well as “campfire” songs. (As an aside, I see it as unfortunate that since then – some 25 yrs ago – the congregation has added a form of CW on Sunday AM – probably some 10 yrs ago. By the way, we also held Wed AM chapel service in school.)

Pertaining to some of the comments throughout this post…

With all respect to those pastors who delve (or dabble) into CW (and certainly not for me to be judgemental), but how can one think that one is not being devisive (to the church at large), let alone not self-serving/proclaiming in saying, thinking, or practicing that some congregations have certainly fouled up doing CW, but we can do it right? There have been reminders throughout, as in I Corinthians 4.

And I understand the statement against dividing a congregation with an early/late service, but restating, this is not changing style. It’s often maybe a matter of preference (or laziness), but certainly as well may be a matter of availability. I know some CW congregations that will also add to their argument in that they intentionally don’t hold their CW time simultaneous with Sunday School hour to encourage their CW goers to participate in SS. Bah!

Pertaining to a few specific comments. Somewhere way back it was mentioned about our culture at large just does not get our liturgy. And that’s correct. We as a church and as Christians are different. We are alien. We are marked. We are chosen. From the early church to the last. From Hebrews 11:13 to I Peter 2:11. It’s good to be different.

And Pr Louderback, you mentioned you thought it might be meaningful to even show a different cross for different meanings/effects. I’m sure it could be. You could show a different one each week. Each day. Each minute. And then the church down the street would project one (or more) moving around the room… and then the church down from them would have holograms of crosses… and then down from them holograms that danced in and amongst members…

As for the 6.75 vs .25 and convert vs recruit discussions… I don’t think I’d be the first to suggest giving the Holy Spirit a little credit for knowing how and when to grow a person’s faith. I think our pastors are safe to stick to the Christ-centered cross-focused Gospel.

And Pr Weller, from your “exit” interviews, did you ever suggest that those members (or visitors, or whoever) attend a Lutheran and/or Liturgical study with you? We will encourage (or at least offer the opportunity for) existing members to attend our new member classes with these studies. Studies to explain the heritage, tradition, and theology behind our liturgy. Often in our youth board and/or on youth events, we’ve discussed how wonderful and enlightening it might be if we could extend some of our cathechism and other studies and youth teachings to our entire congregation.

And 2 verses to close – 1 as was mentioned before – don’t be discouraged, dust your feet off and move on. And 2, to always be taken to heart, Phillipians 4:7 The peace of God, which trancends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

My family and I have left two LCMS congregations primarily because of the issues of CW and what it means to be a practicing Lutheran. We left the first congregation because we weekly attended the late service and, as Norm has pointed out, the late service became the time for the new contemporary service. When we moved to town and joined this LCMS congregation it used the red hymnal so I figured it was a solidly Lutheran congregation. We didn’t realize the church was planning to switch one of its services to a contemporary service. We could have tried to get up for the traditional 8:00 service, but we didn’t really want to because we had lost some of our trust in the pastor and members of the congregation. The more we had gotten to know this congregation the more we realized they weren’t really Lutheran in the sense of the word we were used to. Lutheran doctrine was secondary to most of what they were about.

The second congregation was a totally different experience. It was a larger congregation and it had more members who were well catechized even if their percentage was still low. They had what I guess you would call an abbreviated Divine Service. It followed the Lutheran liturgy to a certain extent, but was all printed out in the bulletin and left parts of the historic liturgy out. As time went on projection screens were added, more and more of the liturgy was written by the pastor, his sermons became less and less about the Gospel of Christ, and we knew it was time for us to move on. The praise band and CW came shortly after we left.

I left both of these congregations for several reasons. I considered myself the weaker brother who was offended by the new contemporary worship which I couldn’t stand. I was actually angry while being served by God in worship with my brothers and sisters in Christ. I didn’t fit in with these Christians and for the first time I felt like an outsider in an LCMS congregation. My angry response to this new kind of Lutheran Christian gave be a great deal of guilt. I knew it was not in their or my family’s best interest for us to be joined together as a congregation and now I am wondering if we belong together even in the same synod. I also believed that staying in these congregations would be harmful to the faith of the members of my family.

My family came from a beautiful little confessional congregation where we had been taught in many ways to lead a liturgical life. I would be working at my job and at the same time going through the chief parts of the catechism or singing the Lutheran liturgy and hymns in my mind. My two year old daughter was becoming familiar with parts of the liturgy from the worship service and was actually starting to sing along. After we moved from this congregation these things were being lost. Now my daughter could no longer follow along with the new and ever changing forms of worship. My liturgical rhythm of life became a thing of the past. I know I alone was to blame for this, but at the same time I believe I need the help of my local congregation and pastor to back this practice up by what we do in worship and Bible study.

I’m just a simple guy and I am sure I have oversimplified many things I have written here, but I know Jesus has constantly revealed Himself to me and my family through historic liturgical worship services where His Word and Sacraments are always found. This kind of worship service was all I ever knew before I was 30 years old. Maybe it is my week sinful self getting in the way, but I can not say that the Gospel of Jesus has always been proclaimed as clearly in my limited experience with CW or the other innovative worship services I have been a part of.

125-You are NOT alone. I am currently in a very similar point in my life. It ain’t easy being Lutheran but it sure beats the altenatives.

Pr. Weller (@ 121),

Thank you for answering some of my questions. I want to clarify that I wasn’t stating your congregation is intentionally trying to appeal to what people in your community listen to on local radio. Instead, my questions where asked to hopefully turn the wheels of thought around reasons why you have chosen one genre of music over another, if your intent is to make those in your community more comfortable with liturgy. In other words, what criteria did you actually use to choose “Christian pop” over, say, “Christian Rap”? You answer that question with some good answers—”bad theology, too hard to sing, or it is simply poorly written.” Interestingly enough, the answers you provide as to why you wouldn’t use some music in the divine service are the very same reasons many here have offered you as to why CW shouldn’t be used at all.

I don’t have really anything more to add other than the above clarification which I hope is helpful.

I appreciate the time you have taken to address my questions and comments, and of those of others, too. Thank you.

Jim Pierce

I’ve shared this before, but it’s an apt occasion for sharing it again.

Attached to all of my pastor’s emails is this little tag:

A lady said to her pastor, ‘Pastor, the liturgy doesn’t say what I mean.’

The pastor responded, ‘Dear lady, you must learn to mean what the liturgy says.’

All,

Thanks for your continued dicussion. I guess I would like to pose another question regarding how a practice or worship pattern becomes acceptable in a church. This is really an ecclesiology question. When is something accepted by the church and what voices in the church make that decision? I am not talking about individual congregations. As I stated previously I don’t think individual congregations should do anything in a vacuum. But how does a worship song or pattern become accepted by the church at large?

This isn’t as easy a question as you may think. As a Lutheran synod we have to maintain an ecclesiology that isn’t completely congregational, “Everyone do your own thing”, on the other hand we all know the historical danger of having a top down authority structure, Rome-like. I have been operating in what I believe to be an appropriate tension. I have sought input from my brothers and sisters in Christ, near and far. Though I know some on here would disagree with me, I don’t believe I have violated the confessions or my ordination vows. So the end question is how does a practice become “codified” in the church?

Thanks for your responses.

Pastor Robert Weller

Rev. Weller,

You ask, “how does a practice become “codified” in the church?”

It seems to me that in Protestant church bodies people vote for practices with their feet and church leaders decide based on the number of feet and their own ideas.

Lutherans are different in that we hold to the order handed down through the one catholic or universal Church by our Lord. Errors which have crept in, foreign languages, and small stylistic practices have been changed, but at its heart our order of worship is like that which has been handed down in Christ’s Church through the centuries. I wasn’t around 1500 years ago, but I imagine people chanted and sang the Psalms and Scripture much like we do today. If our ancient ancestors and church fathers came back today they would be comfortable in a traditional liturgical worship service, but I am not sure they would recognize some CW as Christian worship.

Hi Pastor Weller,

You’ve asked some excellent questions in this thread, and I hope you and I might have opporutnity to discuss how best to deliver God’s blessings and promises in worship that is meaningful to the hearers in your particular situation.

As far as your question about codification goes, you describe well our desire to avoid letting everyone “do their own thing” while at the same time eschewing a popish hierarchy. We walk together motivated by the Gospel, and in the love that Christ gives us by faith we make decisions together and agree to walk together by those decisions – even when that means that we must decline to do things that are permissible for us for the sake of preserving the unity we highly prize.

This process manifests itself in our synod via our constitution and via various convention resolutions – such as the 1995 resolution exhorting congregations to confess only the three ecumenical Creeds. Where pastors and congregations walk according to the parameters our synod has agreed upon, unity is preserved even as much diversity is allowed.

I would welcome the chance to explore with you in detail how these ideals might manifest themselves successfully and convincingly in your particular situation. Dr. Nagel has taught wisely that in discussing worship, “It is best to be specific.” Feel free to contact me off-list or at Bethany if you would like to share ideas as to how the musciains in your congregation might best serve the Gospel.

In Christ,

Phillip Magness

Dear Pastor Weller,
Historically for Lutheranism (and I believe I could say Confessionally) worship has been “codified” through the acceptance and promulgation of set church orders. That was done through the Consistory process in Reformation era territorial churches, and in the LC-MS through the very well regulated process of collecting, vetting, accepting and publishing hymnals. The “codification of worship” is precisely what was just accomplished through the publication of the LSB. It was an example of “the Church in this place and time” exercising its Confessional latitude and “according to its circumstances, to change such ceremonies in such manner as may be most useful and edifying to the congregation of God.”
By rejecting the liturgies that the Church has “in this place and time” set up as “most useful and edifying to the congregation of God” it appears that you have become schismatic, and have broken your ordination vows.
Again, ACXV requires of you that you observe the usages in the Church “which may be observed without sin, and which are profitable unto tranquility and good order in the Church, as particular holy days, festivals, and the like.” The Apology adds “for love’s sake we do not refuse to observe adiaphora with others, even though they should have some disadvantage; but we have judged that such public harmony as could indeed be produced without offense to consciences ought to be preferred to all other advantages.” The Church is broader than your circuit, and you are definitely “refusing to observe adiophora with others.” What are you using to trump “the usages of the church,” and the “public harmony” to which you tied yourself in your ordination vows?
Pax Christi+,
-Matt Mills

Pastor Weller, it seems to me a non-argument argument, and a great convenience to you personally, to simply state you ‘don’t believe’ you have violated the confessions or your ordination vows.
And then there are those likewise convenient words and phrases, as your having sought input with this not-so-easy question, and the ominous ‘top down authority structure, Rome-like’, and ‘operating in…an appropriate tension.’ Then the deflection of the argument with a new question, that’s really not been part of the discussion, or any answer to any previous question to you, or a clarification of any position.
These statements, and the follow-up question, merely seek to justify that which you’ve already done. But, in your seeking counsel, what cautions did anyone give you against going contemporary? Did anyone suggest it was a tension you could easily avoid for yourself, and how much weight did you give such cautions?
Meanwhile, you still have yet to state what was your purpose or motivation for the shift in practice. What–and whose–need or needs did you seek to fulfill, that historic liturgy wasn’t already fulfilling? What were people missing beforehand, that now they receive, because, in a post-modern move, you’ve given them options?
What would they be lacking, if you’d have just said, ‘No’?

Susan,

I ma sorry if you feel I have been evasive, though I don’t believe I have. So I will answer the questions you asked as succinctly as possible. We started the CW service to offer the Gospel to a people who would not come to worship in the traditional setting. We chose to offer them a worship setting that would still deliver the unaltered gospel to them and would be comfortable for them. In no way did we compromise any of the church’s teachings. I know many will go back to my ordination vows and the Book of Concord about not changing the “mass”. I would argue we didn’t change the “mass” just put it into new music.

If you want to argue about the music I would caution against the equally dangerous presumption that the liturgy as we have it in the Lutheran hymnal is the only way that the gospel may be appropriately delivered. Now we have really subjected the gospel to the liturgy.

I know people do not like the CW services they have seen, but I would invite you to come to ours. Come and listen and tell me what is in violation of the Word of God, the Book of Concord, or my walking together with my brothers and sisters in Christ.

Thank you for your passion, we need it in our beloved Synod.

Peace in Christ,

Pastor Robert Weller

pastor Weller writes:
We started the CW service to offer the Gospel to a people who would not come to worship in the traditional setting.
Which answers a question I asked days ago:
Will some of your people only remain ‘Lutheran’ if they can do so on their own terms?
Here we go–again!–designing the gift, before we’ll accept it.
Like I said: cheers for the pastors who stand athwart people’s felt needs, just saying ‘No.’

Robert,

Regarding your comments about music, I commend to you an excellent article written by Kantor Richard Resch titled, “Music: Gift of God or Tool of the Devil.” You can find it here:

http://www.mtio.com/articles/bissar19.htm

As for your contention that your contemporary service is not abolishing the Mass, per our Confessions, all I can say is that I have yet to attend a contemporary service in a Lutheran congregation that has not been guilty of abolishing the Mass, to one degree or another. I suppose there’s a first time for everything, although I really cannot fathom how you can celebrate the Mass “with the highest reverence” and how you can claim to be keeping all the usual ceremonies and such when you are, in fact, using praise songs outside of our tradition.

Will some of your people only remain ‘Lutheran’ if they can do so on their own terms?

Susan R.,

Bingo! No matter how well intentioned pastors may be, when they abandon those things which have been traditioned to us and replace them with what people want, they have established a “people-pleasing” precedent that will be nearly impossible to ever overcome. Plus, as I noted earlier in this thread, the results are already in on this whole game: People who have been raised up on the candy of contemporary worship have little to zero problem leaving Lutheranism for Americanized “evangelical” denominations. It’s happening as we speak.

But, all pragmatics aside, the real problem here is theological, for when the Church begins to design her worship on the basis of what people want, she has already lost and fallen prey to the temptations of the father of lies. Satan is really good at what he does. He’s been perfecting his craft for over six millenia. He sticks with what he knows and continues to seduce the children of God into abandoning the Word with the original question of temptation: Did God really say?

Having been involved in this tiresome debate for nearly twenty years now, I am convinced that Satan is having a field day in the Church. When leaders of church bodies and trained pastors cannot see the flaw in the methodology of giving the people what they want in worship, they have bought into Satan’s deception hook, line, and sinker.

Satan puts before them the seductive fruit of relevant, people-pleasing, entertaining worship and it looks pleasing to the eyes and good for food, so they bite. And the wily serpent of old slithers away in glee!

Pastor Messer, and Susan,
I wonder if there might be something else behind Pr. Weller’s “We started the CW service to offer the Gospel to a people who would not come to worship in the traditional setting. We chose to offer them a worship setting that would still deliver the unaltered gospel to them and would be comfortable for them.”
Why we are actively attempting to induce people who prefer an American Neo-Evangelical style of worship to our Churches? (Especially when Pastor Weller himself acknowledges this style to be incompatible w/ our theology to the extent that he needs to spend hours of extra time that could go to the cure of souls, or playing w/ his kids hand-crafting his CW to avoid promulgating the theological errors of its creators.) As counterintuitive as it sounds, it might be that despite all our Confessions say to the contrary, the CW folks see the LC-MS as “the only saving church.”
If they deny that this is a “market share” or “numbers” driven program, what’s left? This might be absolutely off base, but I’m running out of alternatives. It might be that they fear that God is unable to save sinners in the churches that invented CW; that God’s life-giving Word returns to Him void when spoken in the churches whose decision-based anthropocentric theology is perfectly consistent w/ CW’s style.
At the risk of fighting a straw-man of my own construction, I for one disagree w/ that belief. That’s why I am perfectly content to allow those “people who would not come to worship in the traditional setting” to find worship that “would be comfortable for them” in one of the roughly gazillion Neo-Evangelical storefront conventicles available to their itching ears. God has used many such heterodox communions to create saving faith, and He has even used them to produce faithful Lutherans like Dr Veith, and Gottesdienst editor Rev. Fr. Burnell F. Eckardt Jr. and where His word goes out, He will continue to do so.

Pr. Weller,
Your question about the “codification” of Lutheran worship has an historical answer, and I gave it. If you doubt the degree of liturgical unity required by Luther, and the other reformers, read the reports of Luther’s visitation of the Saxon Churches, or his letter to the Bohemian Christians, or his correspondence on writing liturgies for other territorial churches (e.g. Dr. John Bugenhagen for Pommerania if memory serves.) Why did you ask the question if you didn’t want the answer?

Pax Christi+,
-Matt Mills

WOW! Look at the comments. This has taken on a life of its own.

Which is no surprise is it? After all, CW is indeed the topic of our Synod right? Something that the co-called “Confessional” crowd needs to address. Especially when one of their own is having the service.

If we would, I’d like to address a few larger issues and then answer a few questions that I was asked, oh, 50 messages ago. I am sorry about my delay, but I am a busy pastor–oh, who am I kidding! My wife and I got popstar for the Wii (it is like Guitar Hero) and I’ve been rocking out. It’s awesome.

Inevitability

Much of what is written follows this logic: what you are doing might seem good now–but it will lead to legalism, Baptist theology, etc.

Why is this? Why?

Let me put this another way: there is anecdotal evidence that the liturgy leads to a denial of justification.

Look at the Eastern Orthodox Church–they have the liturgy and rejection justification. Look at the Roman Catholic Church–the liturgy did not keep them from denying justification.

Look at our own Synod: who leaves for the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church? Those who support the liturgy.

So, is it legit to say that the liturgy pushes one to reject Justification? No, that’s silly.

And it is just as silly to say that CW pushes one to be any of the various things that are expressed in this thread.

Oh, sure, people can state opinions and come up with vignettes to “demonstrate” their point–but that is hardly convincing. It is mere opinion.

Brian Yamabe wrote his initial paper in order to promote substantive discussion on the subject.

Why will CW lead a church to do anything that is not Lutheran?

Thomas Messer,

re you keeping your oath? Is your practice consistent with your confessional subscription?

I mean, I find it very difficult to fathom how guys like you, who endorse and promote CW, can keep a straight face when you confess that you are “not abolishing the Mass.” That’s exactly what you’re doing, and you know it.

I find it interesting that this is the tact that you (and others) are taking. Having failed to convince others–and we must include Pr Weller in this–that liturgical is really the only right way to proclaim the Gospel, we now get this position, a blatant rejection of Sola Scriptura in an attempt to bind consciences to human tradition.

Let me repeat: your position is stating that human tradition needs to be held to in order for a person to be a Lutheran.

Now, in answer to your question: your question is a legalistic one, therefore I will give it a legalistic answer:

I have not abolished the Mass–

and if I may, you want to talk about an issue that brings offense, that is the use of the English word “Mass” in connection with Lutheran worship. The English word “Mass” refers to the false theology and teaching of the Roman Catholic Church regarding worship. We ought not to use the term.

But I will speak your language and use the term–because that is what I do. That is why I do CW, eh?

I have not abolished the Mass–we have traditional worship each and every Sunday. Each and every Sunday we use the Western liturgy. I don’t have LSB in the pews, but we have the digital files and rights and use them for our bulletin.

So, my contemporary service is something I do in addition to my “Mass”. Therefore, I find myself in compliance to the demands of human tradition that you place upon me in order to call myself a Lutheran.

No, doubtless my response might not seem adequate–but then legalistic responses seldom are.

Now, as for your amazement: I hope that you have caught on that both Pastor Waller and I were raised in liturgical worship. We understand what Gottesdienst is (even if I can’t spell it). I see my CW service as one of giving the gifts of God to His people. (But then, the gifts that strengthen faith are the gifts that create faith as well.)

I think it is because we are trained in this that we feel pretty comfortable to do contemporary worship.

Pastor Louderback,
Welcome back! I can’t claim to have digested this entire train, but I don’t think it’s at all accurate to synopsize the Confessional opinion as “what you are doing might seem good now–but it will lead to legalism, Baptist theology, etc.”
And, if one side bears the burden of answering the big “why?” questions it is certainly the side advocating change, not the side striving for continuity. So I’ll recycle my unanswered questions from #85 and #103:

As AC XV requires of you that you observe the usages in the Church “ which may be observed without sin, and which are profitable unto tranquility and good order in the Church, as particular holy days, festivals, and the like.” And as the Apology adds “in this very assembly we have shown sufficiently that for love’s sake we do not refuse to observe adiaphora with others, even though they should have some disadvantage; but we have judged that such public harmony as could indeed be produced without offense to consciences ought to be preferred to all other advantages.” What are you using to trump “the usages of the church,” and “public harmony” if not the apparent effectiveness of CW to fill pews?
If this has something to do w/ reaching non-Christians for whom the Western Liturgy is a stumbling block (and what else would justify such a violent end to “public harmony?”) isn’t there in CW the implicit assertion that Word and Sacrament aren’t enough? Aren’t you left w/ cultural relevance as a means of grace, or at least a necessary precondition of grace? If I can by a stylistic change turn an enemy of Christ into a disciple of Christ, what does that say about Art IV, and Luther’s explanation of the third article of the Creed?

Pax Christi+,
-Matt Mills

Matt Mills,

My name, is LOuderback. O. Not A. I mean, if I am going to be called a heretic, at least call me by my proper baptized name.

I am not criticizing you for “Proclaiming the Gospel,” but for changing the proclamation of the Gospel to appeal to the cultural mindset of visitors whom you yourself referred to as “heathens.” (You can of course retract the “heathens” word, but that would make your foray into CW look like “sheep-stealing” rather than Evangelism.)

Re: heathen. I used to use the terms un-churched and de-churched to reflect the fact that most of the people that I run into came from the church. I don’t have people who don’t know who Jesus is. I don’t have to explain “Back in those days, they used a cross to kill people.” You know?

I myself would be much more happy to use the term “heathen” to refer to say, those in India who have never heard the Word. But then, a confessional said “Why do we use the term un-churched?” So I quit using it, because once again, the distinction (those who grew up in the church and left vs those who didn’t grow up in the church to begin with) is in some ways not as important a distinction as the fact that they are without Christ.

But getting back to the point: why not take on their cultural mindset? Why not speak in a language that they are familiar with, that they understand? Why don’t we use music that they listen to?

I mean, we have a partnership with a Spanish congregation. They speak in Spanish. The preacher preaches in Spanish.

I see it as the same thing.

Two final comments, and then I have to go:

I find it amusing that people say “Oh, it is selfish for people to want to sing how they want to sing,” since I have little doubt that most people who sing hymns LIKE to sing hymns.

I mean, they are worshiping in a style that they like.

For them to say “Well, it is selfish for you to want to worship in another style,” is hardly credible.

If people were saying “Ugh! I hate hymns. I hate liturgical worship. I hate worshiping this way. But I also hate grapefruit–nevertheless it is good for me.” then I could buy the argument more.

They are not: they are saying “We like this worship and it is selfish of you to like another type.” I don’t buy that.

Finally, in terms of division: some of the pastors here were doing CW twenty years ago. Twenty years! I mean, really can it honestly be said to cause division now?

That is to say: is it legitimate for people to limit other’s freedoms by insisting that their actions are divisive? Our Synod has approved the use of CW, we’ve songs approved, we’ve got many congregations doing CW–I mean, what else does the Synod need to do in order to demonstrate that this is within mainstream Lutheran behavior?

At what point is the divisive behavior from those who place human tradition on the level of Scripture and insist that to be Lutheran, the western liturgy must be followed?

Okay. Sorry to be brief in sharing my thoughts. More later on.

Matt Mills,

What are you using to trump “the usages of the church,” and “public harmony” if not the apparent effectiveness of CW to fill pews?

Once again, you mis-state what CW is about. You can continue to try and have this be about some sort of coarse “WE want people!” thing, but it will not take.

I care about proclaiming the Gospel message to people. I am free to try and experiment with different ways to do this–as I have said, we see the example of Paul and he himself states that we are free.

So I am free to try and proclaim the Gospel in such a way that is contextual to the people of my community. In fact, I think it is a gosh-darn good idea.

If this has something to do w/ reaching non-Christians for whom the Western Liturgy is a stumbling block (and what else would justify such a violent end to “public harmony?”) isn’t there in CW the implicit assertion that Word and Sacrament aren’t enough?

No. That would imply that they only proper way to bring the Gospel is by liturgical worship. Word and Sacrament are indeed enough. They are distinguished from the liturgy, which is a form of worship–a human invented form of worship–that brings Word and Sacrament to people.

I am saying that CW is another way to bring the Word and Sacraments to people.

Aren’t you left w/ cultural relevance as a means of grace, or at least a necessary precondition of grace?

If a person does not understand the words that you use, can they understand the Gospel?

Do you watch Mad Men? The TV show takes place in the early sixties, and there is a woman who works as a copy writer. Her priest is reaching out to her and asks for advice on the sermon. “Make it clear” she says, “The sermon is the only part of the service that isn’t in Latin. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.”

For some people, you can see that the liturgy is a fine proclamation of the Gospel. That is why I do not discard it at my church. For other people, CW is a fine proclamation of the Gospel. That is why I have it at my church.

What unifies us–indeed, what it is that truly makes a Lutheran (certainly not whether one uses the western liturgy or not) is the Gospel. Justification is the foundation of our faith.

And this is why CW is acceptable under AC 15 (and please–I find the use of foreign numbering system to be quite unnecessary in America. Let’s use Roman numerals for watches and the superbowl.) Because we ought not to be burden people’s consciences. The proclamation of the Gospel message in Word and Sacrament is what makes a Lutheran.

And it most certainly can be done in CW. The fact that I had an adult baptism is clear indication of that.

Pr. Louderback,
I’m sorry for misspelling your name, but if you can use Schwärmer songs, why can’t I use Roman numerals?
If you can’t see that the Apology XV’s “for love’s sake we do not refuse to observe adiaphora with others, even though they should have some disadvantage; but we have judged that such public harmony as could indeed be produced without offense to consciences ought to be preferred to all other advantages” is fundamentally incompatible w/ your “I am free to try and experiment with different ways;” and if you can’t hear the sense of community, and the brotherly love in the first statement, and the self centeredness in the second, it’s time to send the dust from my sandals to Springdale, AR.

Pax Christi+,
-Matt Mills

Matt Mills,

I’m sorry for misspelling your name, but if you can use Schwärmer songs, why can’t I use Roman numeral?

Well, because we are IN Schwärmerland, not in Rome.

Sorry, can’t help it.

Uh, Jesus was refering to people rejecting Him as the Christ–this did not give anyone permission to walk away from their arguments when they don’t convince others.

Remember: if you want to restrict someone else on their actions, you are the one who needs to have a high standard to demonstrate the need to do so.

Community? You called me a heretic. What “community” exactly do we share? Please, there is no community here. All I see is people trying to quote the law at me to get me to change my actions.

But my actions are motivated by the Gospel. Even if you don’t listen to me, you can still see this clearly in Pr Weller’s comments

(And for this note, I actually don’t know Pr Weller, I’m not saying that he agrees with or supports my positions–I’m just saying “Read what he wrote and this is what you see.)

My position is to spread the Gospel message. That hardly is a “self centered” position.

Look at it from this way: do you see the work that Pr Weller puts into his service? If you were being self-centered, why do the extra work?

No: you mis-understand my position. To state again: CW has been around for many years, many churches practice it, our Synod has stated it is okay–what more needs to be done to say that this is not an offense?

I really try to promote dialogue on this site and have more patience than any other blog host I know but once in a while the time comes to retire from a string.

Matt Mills has the right idea here. It is time to shake the dust.

It appears to my judgment, and I could very well be wrong, that Pastor Louderback appreciates the fight more than what is being fought for. There is just too much poor logic to have a decent dialogue.

For example, when he says the justification for CW is that he just wants to proclaim the Gospel, this is clear foolishness. The historic liturgy proclaims the Gospel so there is no need to go to CW, unless of course that need is one of the dozen reasonable critiques that have been offfered above that are simply trumped by “the desire to proclaim the Gospel.”

As another example, claiming Paul’s theology of freedom as a defense of CW is such a worn out, simplistic, old as my tie-dyed T-shirt 1960′s anti-authoritarian ploy, that is just not worth trying to debate. Once the freedom card is played there are no rationales that can top it. Personal freedom trumps all reason; it’s just that it is not what Paul or Christ are about.

Until Pastor Louderbeck reads a few books on basic logic we will be flailing away aimlessly. If others want to continue boxing at shadows you are welcome to and even encouraged to do so. For me, I am with Matt. I am ready to go on to another village.

TR

Dear Pastor Louderback,
Your position on the liturgy is a symptom, not the disease. This is at heart an Art IV issue, an so it is a Gospel issue. If one can by a stylistic change turn an enemy of Christ into a disciple of Christ, Art IV, and Luther’s explanation of the third article of the Creed are just plain wrong.
Pax Christi+,
-Matt Mills

I find it interesting that this is the tact that you (and others) are taking. Having failed to convince others–and we must include Pr Weller in this–that liturgical is really the only right way to proclaim the Gospel, we now get this position, a blatant rejection of Sola Scriptura in an attempt to bind consciences to human tradition.

That others have not been convinced by the plethora of theological arguments, based on Scripture and our Confessions (as well as the history of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church) by me and many others in no way makes our efforts a failure, but rather is a failure on their part to listen.

Why don’t you do us a favor, Mark, and provide us all with your definition of Sola Scriptura? That’d be a neat place to start, I think. For I am quite sure that it is guys like you, not guys like me, who have blatantly rejected that principle. Your understanding of Sola Scriptura, which you have provided in other forums, is nothing more than the generic Protestant understanding of “Me and My Bible.” That’s not even remotely close to what we Lutherans mean by this. But, you know that, don’t you?

What you, and others like you, want is your own brand of Lutheranism that you can make up as you go along, cherry-picking this and that practice from those whom our Confessions themselves condemn. You think you have the “spirit” of Lutheranism down, while we confessional types remain bogged down in the mire of the “letter” of Lutheranism. Can you say Samuel Simon Schmucker? I knew that you could.

Let me repeat: your position is stating that human tradition needs to be held to in order for a person to be a Lutheran.

Yes, my position is that human tradition needs to be held to in order for a person to be a Lutheran. That’s why I read and studied our Lutheran Confessions and was willing to pledge my loyalty, and subscribe unconditionally, to them. I know such a thing sounds odd to your new-age brand of pseudo-Lutheranism, but hey, call me a radical traditionalist if you will, I still believe that our Lutheran Confessions are a correct exposition of Holy Scripture and define what it means to be Lutheran. I know, that’s crazy talk these days, isn’t it?

Now, in answer to your question: your question is a legalistic one, therefore I will give it a legalistic answer:

Yes, Mark, I’m a legalist for asking you how your practice jives with the unconditional subscription to our Lutheran Confessions you were required to make to become ordained in the LCMS. How legalistic of our synod to require such things, eh?

I have not abolished the Mass–
and if I may, you want to talk about an issue that brings offense, that is the use of the English word “Mass” in connection with Lutheran worship. The English word “Mass” refers to the false theology and teaching of the Roman Catholic Church regarding worship. We ought not to use the term.

I am sorry that you are offended by the term “Mass,” although not surprised, given the fact that you are obviously offended by having to adhere to our Confessions.

But I will speak your language and use the term–because that is what I do. That is why I do CW, eh?

Thank you for condescending to the level of our worn out Confessions – that’s awfully kind of you.

I have not abolished the Mass–we have traditional worship each and every Sunday. Each and every Sunday we use the Western liturgy. I don’t have LSB in the pews, but we have the digital files and rights and use them for our bulletin. So, my contemporary service is something I do in addition to my “Mass”. Therefore, I find myself in compliance to the demands of human tradition that you place upon me in order to call myself a Lutheran.

Oh, I see: You have not abolished the Mass at one of your Services, but you have at your CW service. Yeah, that makes sense. You’re living up to your confession and appeasing my “legalistic” demands of you by keeping “human tradition” at your traditional service, so it’s okey-dokey for you to abandon that “human tradition” and do your own thing at the other service. Yeah, ’cause that’s how we Lutherans roll – as long as you do the Lutheran thing a little bit here and there, you can go ahead and to the methabapticostal thing, too.

Do I even need to argue further? ‘Cause I’m thinkin’ that I could just go ahead and say, “The defense rests, your honor,” at this point.

No, doubtless my response might not seem adequate–but then legalistic responses seldom are.

Yes, definitely doubtless. Your response is supremely absurd. But, I suppose that’s to be expected since it’s a legalistic response to my silly legalistic question.

Now, as for your amazement: I hope that you have caught on that both Pastor Waller and I were raised in liturgical worship. We understand what Gottesdienst is (even if I can’t spell it). I see my CW service as one of giving the gifts of God to His people. (But then, the gifts that strengthen faith are the gifts that create faith as well.)

If you truly understood Gottesdienst, you wouldn’t dream of abandoning it for your people-centered CW “style” of “worship.” Different theologies of worship, dude! But, you know that. You’re not fooling me one bit, here!

I think it is because we are trained in this that we feel pretty comfortable to do contemporary worship.

Here’s the question, Mark: Who trained you to do CW? Answer that one and you might be onto the reason we stodgy confessional types are so opposed to it.

Thomas Messer,

If you truly understood Gottesdienst, you wouldn’t dream of abandoning it for your people-centered CW “style” of “worship.” Different theologies of worship, dude! But, you know that. You’re not fooling me one bit, here!

All joking aside, all kidding aside, all snarky comments put away, everything flat on the table, the brass tacks and any other comment.

I don’t see any difference in what I do with CW and Traditional.

Both are all about bringing the Gospel — Word and Sacrament — to people. Lutheran, Christian, Pagan–the Gospel comes as the gift of God and creates and sustains faith.

I do not see CW as “man centered” any more than Western liturgy is “man centered.” I don’t see CW as “entertainment” any more than Western liturgy is entertainment.

I’m not being obtuse. I understand what people think. But I simply do not buy the arguments made. They have not been convincing to me.

CW is Divine Service. Period.

I mean…I guess this is in fact the Shibboleth. But this is where I am.

I’ll answer your other thoughts later on. Right now, it is time for Harry Potter.

It’s the ‘why’ of it that is man-centered and completely non-Lutheran: the ‘why’ being simply because you want it, and because you hope to reach those who refuse to understand the gifts inherent in our traditions.
When you’re only able to reach them with what they want, or with what they’ll tolerate, then you haven’t reached them with anything. You’ve only tickled their ears.
There’s the rub; there’s where you are; there’s the compromising position you’ve given your church.
And ‘I don’t see’, after having it pointed out to you, clearly and ad infinitum, is not an argument, but is certainly the bottom-line basis for CW, according to the preeminent justifications of its practioners and boosters.
But ‘I don’t see the harm’ usually leads to immeasurable damage.
The most offensive part of this departure, however, is the venom that’s encouraged against the traditional liturgists. It seems that a big part of the justification of it is outright accusation, and that’s a sign of a weak case, even though the case is making inroads. But, take heart: soon, you’ll be able to give up the accusations, to simply gloat over the numbers.
That’s what hollow victories are made of: dying, but with the most toys.

Pastor Messer and Susan,
Just a friendly word of encouragement and advice: when we use the “scattergun technique” and try to answer all the red herring excursions and accusations the rev Mark L. has in his posts, our posts lose their focus. This gives him the option to pick a trivial statement over which to quibble rather than deal with the main point. One man’s opinion, but ignore the nits, and stay on the Gospel. We have it, and he doesn’t.
Use nice tight, well edited single point posts, and as he’s the “change agent” he needs to be answering the “why?” questions not you.
I think that at this point we’re trying to teach a pig to fly, it’s not going to work, and it only irritates the pig. But, if irritating the pig is the goal, Good Luck, and Good Hunting!
Pax Christi+,
-Matt Mills

Matt,

I love it when good, insightful theological analysis makes me laugh out loud. Thanks for getting my day started with an LOL.

TR

Ditto, Pastor Rossow, and well spoken, Matt Mills.
I think I’m ready to shake my sandals as well, in this particular town.
But it’s been very helpful to me personally, to read all the good and thoughtful prose from the ‘liturgicals’ (read that: Lutherans!) Who knows how soon my own congregation might be facing such a threat? Who knows how I and others at my church, might have to work to convince our own brothers and sisters to resist this false answer to low attendance and zero growth? One day, there will likely be the temptation among us, to go that CW route, and the battle will have the extra bite of being among people who know and love one another, with those whose motives are thoughtful and heartfelt, just not completely thought out nor made with heart *and* mind.
One thing is clearer after all this (and after many many many such confrontations in many forums and even person-to-person): sooner or later, the CW folk will expose that the first and the ultimate justifications for changing our ways (while protesting that nothing’s really changed) is that it’s what they want. Period. All the other arguments made–and there really aren’t any, that don’t involve Holy Scripture- and BOC-Twister–are just attempts at fear-soothing; of making the bad seem good. But, ’twas ever thus.
Another thing clearer is that, no matter how cleverly or minutely (insidiously) it inserts itself into a confessional church, all CW accomplishes is division. Division is its mother AND its child.
Anyway, I thank the good gentlemen for their good tempers, their good words, and their good service, as soldiers, Christian and otherwise. I’d love to have you all to tea. (You can have beer–I’m just not a fan. Nevertheless: I AM LUTHERAN!)

All joking aside, all kidding aside, all snarky comments put away, everything flat on the table, the brass tacks and any other comment.

Who was joking, kidding, or being snarky?

I don’t see any difference in what I do with CW and Traditional.

In your previous post, you made it clear that there was a difference – your TW is non-Mass-abolishing, but your CW is an addition to your “Mass,” which means that it must be something else, and hence, that there most certainly must be a difference between the two. You need to make up your mind dude.

Both are all about bringing the Gospel — Word and Sacrament — to people. Lutheran, Christian, Pagan–the Gospel comes as the gift of God and creates and sustains faith.

Except that, in CW (or, CoWo, as you prefer), the Gospel is repackaged in a way that makes it more marketable and appealing to the “consumer,” which begs the question: Is it the same Gospel?

I do not see CW as “man centered” any more than Western liturgy is “man centered.” I don’t see CW as “entertainment” any more than Western liturgy is entertainment.

The Western liturgy is “man-centered”? Really? How so? Which parts of the liturgy are people-pleasing and entertaining? Please, do tell.

On the other hand, it is very easy to see how CoWo is man-centered, people-pleasing, and entertainment-focused.

If you can’t see the difference, it’s only because you’re not looking properly. But, as I said before, I’m not buying that. I know full well that you can see the difference. I mean, even a seven-year-old can see the difference.

I’m not being obtuse. I understand what people think. But I simply do not buy the arguments made. They have not been convincing to me.

Yes, we know, Mark. You don’t buy our arguments, which, to you, means that we must have failed to argue convincingly. And, well, since you and a bunch of others in our synod have decided that worshipping like the methabapticostals is okey-dokey, it must be so. After all, we all know that majority rules when it comes to doctrine and practice. Yeah, that’s right, we see that throughout Holy Scripture, don’t we? God says, “Y’all take a vote and let me know how you want to worship Me. Oh, and keep in mind that I think it would be wise for y’all to design your worship around what people want. Remember to take into consideration the desires of the pagans. Figure out what they want and then design your worship accordingly.” Yeah, that’s what we read, isn’t it? NOT!

CW is Divine Service. Period.

Well, I guess since you added your arbitrary “Period” to this statement, it must be so. You win, then.

But, wait, what if I say: “CW is NOT Divine Service. Period”? Does that mean it must be so and I win?

I mean…I guess this is in fact the Shibboleth. But this is where I am.

Here, again, you argue against yourself. You claim, on the one hand, that there’s no difference between TW and CW, but, on the other hand, you invoke “the Shibboleth,” making it clear that there is a difference. In any event, your usage of “Shibboleth” here is most certainly inappropriate, since you are claiming that adhering to a different theology of worship is nothing more than changing the language and practice to fit your cultural circumstances. A common argument among CW advocates, which holds no water. I’d explain why, but what good would that do?

I’ll answer your other thoughts later on. Right now, it is time for Harry Potter.

After you’re done with Harry Potter, the only questions I think it would be just nifty for you to answer are:

1) What is your definition of Sola Scriptura?

2) Who trained you to do CW?

All,

Wow did this discussion go bad quick. I’m sorry that it is so because I was enjoying the dialogue. Like many of you I’m not sure this would be productive anymore.

I do invite you to email me if you would like to continue the dialogue or even give me suggestions. Thanks for the posts and the responses. I have really gained some things to think over.

Peace in Christ,

Pastor Weller

It’s easy to say discussions simply ‘go bad’ when people continue to express disagreement.
But disagreement itself perhaps isn’t as bad as not fully communicating. Those who advocate or have chosen CW have yet to fully communicate, that is, to justify, through anything other than personal opinion their reasons for their actions and positions. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is, from my side, to see a man’s final word on the subject be his own understanding of what he’s done or doing, usually coupled with an accusation against those who ‘disagree’.
It’s not a discussion of disagreements at all, but a futile exercise between those who justify tradition from outside themselves, and those who remain curved inward, seeking to use worship to satisfy themselves.
In short, it’s theology against politics masquerading as theology.
While the synod may doom itself in its toleration of this apparently incurable divide, we know the Word of God and the unity of the Holy Spirit will not die. The church lives on, but the living church is an un-fractured church, not the church that departs from unity, to appeal to and appease its members’, or its pastor’s, tastes.

Jim Pierce,

Hey–I want to get caught up bit by bit here.

You said:

Yes, “holding to what Scripture teaches” is definitely part of what makes us Lutheran, but to stop with that description is to come up short of the full meaning of “Lutheran”.

Once again, I’m sorta amazed at this movement away from sola scriptura. I mean, I’m amazed by how comfortable some of us are to say “Well, you can’t be Lutheran and hold to just what the Bible teaches–you need to hold to man-made traditions as well.”

Did you see Paul McCain’s blog where he posts Walther’s comments about the Lutheran Church before the Confessions? (Check it out here) (I hope that works)

I would also say that we hold to the confessions because they fully agree with Holy Scripture: the Confessions are true.

Yes. Where I have difficulty is when we begin seeking to bind others to what the confessions say that is apart from Scripture.

Take for example the perpetual virginity of Mary. This is not taught in Scripture. I mean, really, we can all be honest and say that there is as much in Scripture concerning purgatory as there is the perpetual virginity of Mary. I have no doubt that pious gentlemen held to the position and they doubtless read this into Scripture–but once again, the data is just not there.

So when someone in the Confessions refers to Mary as the perpetual virgin, does that really mean that we need to bind others to that? That we must insist that to be a Lutheran you have to hold to this?

No: we can say “This was a pious opinion at the time; it lacks Scriptural proof, and it is not the point of anything.”

Does that make sense?

Why not talk about the liturgy (worship) in terms of the visible marks of the Church? The place where we find Word and Sacraments faithfully delivered according to the Gospel? Don’t we have scriptures that tell us the Church comes together to hear the Apostle’s teachings, to receive the forgiveness of sins, and to partake at the table of our Lord?

Well, sure, but this is not in any distinction from contemporary worship, which is exactly the same thing: CW has the marks of the church, Word and Sacrament, just as liturgical does.

If you are focusing the divine service as an evangelism tool, then you have already switched the focus of the service away from Christ and you aren’t accomplishing what you think you set out to do to begin with.

I disagree completely, entirely, totally with this. Because it is evangelical, it is focused entirely on Christ and the Gospel. Otherwise, how will faith be created?

I can tell you my experience with CW (and as a former Pentecostal pastor I am quite familiar with CW) is that Jesus our Lord, coming to us with the forgiveness of sins, is not the center of the divine service, instead the law is the focus. I have yet to experience a CW service where the center is not focused on what people do.

I spoke about this earlier with the whole board–I don’t see why this would necessarily be true. I’ve been to plenty of CW services as Lutheran Churches that point to Christ and not to the Law.

You know, Lutherans do tend to point to Christ. It is in our blood, you know? (Because of the blood we drink…)

This example doesn’t make your case, since the book you’re reading did dumb down the language so you could understand the basic concepts involved.

Well, you know, is the Small Catechism a dumbing down of Lutheranism? I mean, surely we can distinguish between dumbing something down (that is, ignoring complexities) and teaching complexities by breaking down the concepts into understandable bites.

The Small Catechism does this; I’d like to think my CW does this as well.

More to the point, you can’t hope to teach doctrine without the use of “jargon”. Indeed, how do you explain the Holy Trinity without reference to “persons”?

My first year at my church I tried to avoid the word “sin” in my sermons. How do you teach the Trinity without “person”? “We believe that the Father is God, that Jesus is God and the Holy Spirit are all God–not three different Gods, but one united God. How is this so? It is a mystery.” And so on.

I always try to use language that is easily accessible by others, but I also liberally use jargon where I can define it for the benefit of the “hearer”. We shouldn’t shrink back from jargon.

I appreciate your compliment–I understand your point, but if you are defining it, why use it you know?

I mean, obviously we should define and explain words, and we can’t help but use jargon–but I think we should keep it minimal.

I’m not following you here. What “change”?

Sorry. I am trying to write quickly (I do have CW services to plan and videos to show, you know) so not always am I clear. I meant that for many people, they simply like the style of praise music more than that of hymns.

But what does my musical tastes have anything to do with Jesus coming to me, with the forgiveness of sins?

Nothing. Which is why we can use unlimited musical styles by which to sing, eh?

If I want entertainment on Sunday morning, then I will listen to my iTunes collection. I go to church to “see” Jesus and to joyously receive His gifts. I don’t go to listen to the tunes.

Sure…but you do sing as well, don’t you? People have different tastes when it comes to singing.

Are you with me on this?

Thomas Messer,

I’m doing something old, something new.

Who was joking, kidding, or being snarky?

Me.

In your previous post, you made it clear that there was a difference – your TW is non-Mass-abolishing, but your CW is an addition to your “Mass,” which means that it must be something else, and hence, that there most certainly must be a difference between the two. You need to make up your mind dude.

Well, there is a difference between you and me. But at the same time, we are both the same. When it comes to what is most important, we are identical (both are baptized children of God).

So, I don’t see any distinction theologically in what the services do. Certainly they are different though.

Except that, in CW (or, CoWo, as you prefer), the Gospel is repackaged in a way that makes it more marketable and appealing to the “consumer,” which begs the question: Is it the same Gospel?

There is a distinction between making something clear and making something more palatable.

So, I simply see CW as doing the former.

I do not see it as making the Gospel more marketable or appealing.

The Western liturgy is “man-centered”? Really? How so? Which parts of the liturgy are people-pleasing and entertaining? Please, do tell.

Ummm… You mis-understand my position. Either I did not explain it clearly or you are being obtuse.

If you are being obtuse, please stop. If you don’t understand, let me try again: I do not see CW as “man centered” any more than Western liturgy is “man centered”. Neither one is focused on the individual, but rather are developed to bring Christ to the individual.

If you can’t see the difference, it’s only because you’re not looking properly. But, as I said before, I’m not buying that. I know full well that you can see the difference. I mean, even a seven-year-old can see the difference.

Okay: please explain then. Once again, I’m being completely honest. I don’t see that CW is man centered any more than the liturgy is man centered.

eans that we must have failed to argue convincingly. And, well, since you and a bunch of others in our synod have decided that worshipping like the methabapticostals is okey-dokey, it must be so. After all, we all know that majority rules when it comes to doctrine and practice. Yeah, that’s right, we see that throughout Holy Scripture, don’t we? God says, “Y’all take a vote and let me know how you want to worship Me. Oh, and keep in mind that I think it would be wise for y’all to design your worship around what people want. Remember to take into consideration the desires of the pagans. Figure out what they want and then design your worship accordingly.” Yeah, that’s what we read, isn’t it? NOT!

At some point, if you want to say “This is what the Word says,” you have to convince people that it is true.

No, theology is not run by democracy–but Luther himself asked to be convinced of error of his position by sound reasoning.

This is not just me, but some of our top theologians. Guys at our seminaries. At some point, you have to be able to back up your claims in a manner that convinces others.

What is your argument that CW (or CoWo) is inherently man centered?

Well, I guess since you added your arbitrary “Period” to this statement, it must be so. You win, then.

But, wait, what if I say: “CW is NOT Divine Service. Period”? Does that mean it must be so and I win?

I’m telling you my opinion here. This is what I honesty believe. This is exactly where I am.

So, in our discussions, I just want you to remember that. I’m not faking a position. I’m not ignoring an inconvenient truth.

I believe that CW is Divine Service. That is the where I stand.

You disagree? Fine. I’m open to (as Brian Yamabe stated from the outset) a substantive argument that makes your case.

Here, again, you argue against yourself. You claim, on the one hand, that there’s no difference between TW and CW, but, on the other hand, you invoke “the Shibboleth,” making it clear that there is a difference.

You misunderstand: the distinction is between “CW is Divine Service” and “CW is not divine service.” That is the Shibboleth that I refer to.

In any event, your usage of “Shibboleth” here is most certainly inappropriate, since you are claiming that adhering to a different theology of worship is nothing more than changing the language and practice to fit your cultural circumstances.

This is not an accurate statement of what I believe.

I believe that CW is not a different theology of worship. That is why we can change the language in order to proclaim the Gospel in a contextual way.

I’d explain why, but what good would that do?

I’d like to hear it. Even it does no good, at least I will understand your position that much better.

1) What is your definition of Sola Scriptura?

Sola Scriptura is the teaching that the source, the sole source, of all of our teaching, doctrine, beliefs, etc, is the Word of God. The Word of God acts as the one and only judge, rule and the ultimate norm for all that we hold to.

Now, given that, it is certainly true that we read Scripture through the lens of the book of Romans–and that we read Scripture through the Confessions as well. We hold to the Confessions, because they are an accurate statement of what Scripture teaches.

But still, the Word is the sole source of doctrine. So, even if the church has held to a teaching for years (like perpetual virginity of Mary) if it is not taught in Scripture, it is not doctrine. We can’t bind people’s consciences.

Now, Christians come together on all sorts of things and say “This is not taught in Scripture, but this is how we are going to do things–if you don’t like it, then, you don’t have to be a part of our church.” So, we elect a President every three years. Nothing in Scripture about that. But a person could not say “Well, I’m going to run for President even when there is not an election, because nothing in Scripture speaks to it.”

That is my def.

2) Who trained you to do CW?

Concordia Seminary. Is that what you are asking? I didn’t go to some other school or something like that. I have seen CW at other LCMS churches and I can’t say where those pastors have been trained.

Look, Pr Messer, I’m just trying to be clear and understood about my position on CW. I don’t see it as you see it.

So, you know, that is where we are. You can say that I am wrong–and I’d love some to hear why. You can ignore this–but then we’ll talk past each other.

But it is not as though I really know better but am pretending differently. That is not the case.

Me thinks though dost protest too much. Pity the poor lay person who has been taught that what happens in church on Sunday is Lutheran. If it looks like something else then how will they know? If it sounds like something else then how will they know? If you don’t even use the hymnal for the “traditional” service what do you do when the power goes out?

Sorry for coming late to the party. I thought this Issues, Etc. program on Christian Worship featuring Pr. Cwirla would be worth the listen. He addresses much of what is being discussed here:

http://www.issuesetc.org/podcast/219043009H2S2.mp3

Thanks, Michael Ritzman.
More often than not, if there’s a Lutheran question, it’s been answered on Issues, Etc.
If only more Lutherans would listen and learn.

‘The Divine Service is really the care and feeding of the baptized who’ve come together.’
Rev. Wm. Cwirla, in that very Issues, Etc. broadcast.
Thanks again, Mr. Ritzman.

As I have been reading this thread, I found myself quoting Hamlet in my mind when reading Pastor Louderback’s comments, “Sir, Me thinks thou doth protest too much?”

The problem of this debate are the terms – traditional and contemporary. This is the framework for the debate over worship which was put forward by those advocating contemporary worship. The debate rightfully needs to reframed and when it is, it ends rather quickly – when these other terms are introduced historical, biblical, and confessional.

Traditional worship is always contemporary, because it is happening now, but more importantly it is historical and thoroughly biblical and can be defended from our confessions.

Contemporary worship obviously is about the here and now which is why it is trendy and fleeting, but it too is also historical, traditional, and confessional.

The questions then are, “What history?”; What Biblical interpretation?”; and “What Confession is this compatible?”

Lutheran worship as we have received it is certainly historical, biblical, and confessional.

Our worship in fact brings forth temple, synogogue, and passover worship richly unified together. All of which Jesus, Himself, participated in, and fulfilled. Lutheran worship brings forth this biblical reality. At its center is the doctrine of justification by Grace through Faith. This is why “traditionalists” so staunchly defend it, because over the centuries our worship has not radically differed in its form from the beginning of the church but has been refined like gold, has aged well like a fine wine, and now shines and sparkles like a well cut diamond.

Contemporary worship has its roots not in Lutheranism, but in fact its history, tradition, and biblical basis is a conglomeration of Methodist, Baptist, and Pentecostal theology and practice, which makes it sectarian and heterodox. Justification is not central but these are for each individually – methods for holiness, decision theology, and emotional feeling of the ‘spirit’. These doctrinal foci are not the focus of the bride of on her husband, but rather the focus of the bride on herself. She marvels at how white her dress is and proud she is of her decision to buy that dress and how wonderful and beautiful everyone will see and that makes her feel good about herself. When placed in the refiners fire, the Word of God, it burns like chaff, is sour wine, and shatters like glass.

Proponents will say that there worship is more effective and makes more Christians, therefore better than traditional worship. But does it really? Does it make Biblical disciples of Christ who here about sin, repent, trust in their Baptism, hear and believe what the Word of God says about them in both Law and Gospel, confess the faith that has always been believed and receive the salvation accomplished for them on the Cross when Christ really and truly comes to them in His Body and Blood, and finally receive the blessings of God in the Aaronic Benediction?

Or are you creating Sectarians whose focus is not on Christ, but themselves? Are you creating people who come to church so they can be uplifted emotionally. Who come for a pep talk or self help on how to be a better person. Are you creating people in your church whose roots in the faith are so shallow that when something terrible happens in their lives they fall away? Are you succumbing to the culture rather than changing the culture?

In almost all cases the richness that we have received and are to share from the Gospel is reduced in contemporary worship, which is in fact, the root of contemporary worship in Missouri. The Gospel Reductionism that began in the mid-twentieth century has brought upon us this blight. Sin is rarely addressed, therefore Law rarely preached. Christ is not on the cross, and so the Gospel lacks power. The means of grace are reduced in importance in favor of testimony and feelings of the heart. The Office of the Ministry is changed to reflect this. Pastors are inspirational speakers who are professional friends who make you feel good about yourself.

I am not even going to deal with the adiaphora issue because that is just childish the way that is used.

Contemporary worship is heterodox and sectarian. Period.

Pastors who think that they can somehow keep the substance of Lutheran doctrine and have a different style are at best naive, and at worst completely dishonest.

One last thing, you cannot as a member of the Missouri Synod practice such things confessionally or constitutionally. It is not compatible with either the Book of Concord and the Constitution of our Church Body. And because of this it is not compatible with ordination vows made to God.

One big word – Repent.

Also we need to consider that Lutherans did advocate the same things in the early 1800s. Samuel Simon Schmucher advocated the Definite Platform which essentially was the American recension of the Augsburg Confession. American Lutherans’ worship in America had blended in with that of the indigenous denominations – the Methodists, Baptists, and Revivalists. The New Measures of Charles Finney were being advocated. Highly subjective emotional hymns and songs leading up to the inspirational speaker who would convert the masses, who had likely already been converted but it didn’t stick so to speak.

Lutherans are doing the same things today. The New Measures of today is the Church Growth Movement. Many would rather give lip service to the confessions and do something else. Our worship is blending in with the “cultural Christianity” around us.

When speaking with a DP recently, he confessed that CW was on the way out. He confessed that the main group interested in it was Baby Boomers, and that for the most part the younger generations were not interested in it.

CW is fleeting and fleeting fast, and just like in the 1800s, God’s people are waking up. Lutherans will return to their roots. May God grant this quickly.

Another way of thinking about worship removes time and culture altogether.

Worship should be timeless and reflect the worship of Heaven.

The Divine Service is the Eternal Triune God meeting His Temporal Church on Earth with His gifts.

The eternal swallows up the temporal in the foretaste of the feast to come. Heaven descends as the Son of God makes Himself present for us to eat and drink and we worship Him with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.

This is not something that is German in culture, it is in fact, supercultural. The western rite developed in many countries and has come to us from the culture of the Church.

This reality should be considered as the God of the Bible, the whole Bible, comes to us. We cannot worship Him in some Marcionite way disregarding His Almighty power.

This reality is not rightly considered when we sing shallow repetitive praise songs that tell God how awesome He is or repeatedly tell Him to Shine over and over again.

He does not need your praise but He desires it. What is required is repentance and faith.
These are better expressed in the timeless and super-cultural worship that has come down to us through centuries from the Church.

The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod at its 2001 convention adopted Resolution 2–05A, “To Continue to Foster Discussion on Worship,” that stated:

That congregations and their pastors, musicians, and other worship planners be reminded that worship practices in their local setting have broader implications which affect other congregations throughout the Synod and the church-at-large.

Synod at its 1998 convention adopted Resolution 2–10, “To Build Consensus in Worship,” that stated:

That we remind one another of the promise we have made to use “doctrinally pure agenda, hymnbooks, and catechisms,” both to preserve the truth and for the sake of good order.

That everyone heed the advice of Dr. Martin Luther who, in writing to the Christians in Livonia, penned words that speak directly to our time and place:

I pray all of you, my dear sirs, let each one surrender his own opinions and get together in a friendly way and come to a common decision about these external matters, so that there will be one uniform practice throughout your district instead of disorder. (Luther’s Works, 53, 47)

Dr. Martin Luther, in the above quoted letter to the Livonian Christians, also states:

Now when your people are confused and offended by your lack of uniform order, you cannot plead, “Externals are free. Here in my own place I am going to do as I please.” But you are bound to consider the effect of your attitude on others. By faith be free in your conscience toward God, but by love be bound to serve your neighbor’s edification, as also St. Paul says, Romans [15:2], “Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to edify him.” For we should not please ourselves, since Christ also pleased not Himself, but us all.

But at the same time a preacher must watch and diligently instruct the people lest they take such uniform practices as divinely appointed and absolutely binding laws. He must explain that this is done for their own good so that the unity of Christian people may also find expression in externals which in themselves are irrelevant. Since the ceremonies or rites are not needed for the conscience or for salvation and yet are useful and necessary to govern the people externally, one must not enforce or have them accepted for any other reason except to maintain peace and unity between men. For between God and men it is faith that procures peace and unity.

Nevertheless, both you and your preachers should diligently seek to promote unity and to hinder this work of the devil, because God appoints the devil to do this in order to give us occasion to prove our unity and in order to reveal those that have stood the test. For in spite of all our efforts, enough factions and disunity will remain. St. Paul also points this out when he says, II Timothy 2 [:20], that there are both noble and ignoble vessels in the same house, and immediately adds, “If a man purge himself of such people, he shall be a vessel sanctified for noble use, useful to his master and ready for every good work” [v. 21]. (Luther’s Works: Liturgy and Hymns, J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed., vol. 53, pp 47–50. Fortress Press: Philadelphia)

Synod’s first constitution stated:

Synod holds in accordance with the seventh article of the Augsburg Confession that uniformity in ceremonies is not essential; yet on the other hand Synod deems such a uniformity wholesome and useful, namely for the following reasons:

a. because a total difference in outward ceremonies would cause those who are weak in the unity of doctrine to stumble;

b. because in dropping heretofore preserved usages the Church is to avoid the appearance of and desire for innovations;

Furthermore, Synod deems it necessary for the purification of the Lutheran Church in America, that the emptiness and the poverty in the externals of the service be opposed, which, having been introduced here by the false spirit of the Reformed, is now rampant.

All pastors and congregations that wish to be recognized as orthodox by Synod are prohibited from adopting or retaining any ceremony which might weaken the confession of the truth or condone or strengthen a heresy, especially if heretics insist upon the continuation or the abolishing of such ceremonies. The desired uniformity in the ceremonies is to be brought about especially by the adoption of sound Lutheran agendas (church books). (emphasis added)