Gottesdienst Online has some commentary about an article regarding a church who is introducing a worship service sans ceremony in order to fit it into 30 minutes to make it more palatable to the culture.

This kind of thing is a capitulation to our facebook-twitter immediate-gratification drive-thru-window entertain-me-and-quick-or-I-will-be-bored culture. Worship is seen as, at best, a duty, something to be endured. It’s funny how other things in modern life are seen in a radically different light, and if they go longer than usual, it is considered a blessing and a joy, a thing to be treasured: such as when the football game goes into overtime, the baseball game goes into extra innings, the band comes out for an additional encore, or the vacation gets extended by a few days.

There isn’t anything wrong with a short worship service in and of itself, in case anyone raises that strawman. Compline isn’t very long, for example. Sometimes very good reasons arise for an abbreviated service. A short service is better than none. The question is whether it is wise to modify worship for the unchurched, who incidentally are 100% opposed to worshiping God until the Word works.

I am somewhat confused on that point in this case. The Chicago Tribune story quotes Pastor Boshoven as stating that this is not an evangelistic technique:

The motivation behind a church service in Merrillville that lasts only 30 minutes isn’t to attract people who want to spend less time in a religious program, its creator said.

Rather, the idea is to introduce a new form of church where the focus is on stories from the Bible, rather than the traditional ceremonial aspects of worship, said the Rev. Richard Boshoven.

Yet, he seems to be dancing around that idea:

We believe that God’s word is transformational and able to change lives… But the word needs to reach people first. Yes… on the surface this seems like ‘low commitment’ which is attractive to many disconnected Christians. But in reconnecting to the Word, a whole new depth of relationship is fostering a commitment to living a life of faith.

I think the interesting bit in the first quote is actually: “the focus is on stories from the Bible, rather than the traditional ceremonial aspects of worship.” I would hope that it is a strawman. The focus in historic Christian liturgy should not be “traditional ceremonial aspects of worship.” If it is, then we have lost our way as assuredly as the church who guts the liturgy.

I said I hope that it is a strawman. According to the articles, this is merely an additional service. They still have the “traditional” worship services wherein I suppose they focus on the traditional ceremonial aspects of worship rather than stories from the bible. Why is this a dichotomy? Nothing is wrong with focusing on stories from the bible, indeed everything about that is right! Look at the lectionary, you see many, many stories. But this is merely because it reflects the historic nature of the Christian faith — something that exists in real time, not in a mythological alternate reality. Christianity is not about ceremonies or empty morality. Christianity is about mankind who sin and God who entered time and became enfleshed in the womb of a virgin to live and die and take the penalty of our sin, so that we could be with Him for eternity.

The liturgical ceremonies should never distract from this. It is a sad thing that in today’s age, the world is so empty of depth that when they encounter something with depth, they recoil and miss the point. So I understand why it would be appealing to have a 30 minute bible study and call it worship. Another example of trying to reach post-moderns.

Yet, I think one major mistake is made. I agree with Pastor Boshoven’s assertion that “God’s word is transformational and able to change lives.” That’s why we have deep, liturgical worship. Worship brings God’s gifts of Word and Sacrament to the worshiper. Every word in the liturgy is designed to do this. But the individual needs to be transformed (we call it regenerated) in order to appreciate these gifts. I hope that we can give the Holy Spirit credit for being able to do this, without thinking that He can only do so much and we have to dumb down the service to help.

Pastor Weedon made a comment on Issues, Etc which helped my thinking on this. To paraphrase (due to my faulty memory), he said that time was created for worship. Think of that when we begrudge worship our time, which is indeed merely on loan.

I just saw a Gottesdienst blog post raising awareness of the capitulation of Lutheran Child and Family Services of Illinois. Sad situation, and I’m sure the first of many, but one sentence caught my attention:

This is not really a tough decision ethically, because the bending or compromising of principles is never a good thing to do, no matter what good might come of it.

I guess I’ve never heard that so succinctly put. I know that I’ve often struggled with times when it seems like we might be able to compromise on our principles without giving too much, in order that some great good might potentially come out of it. But isn’t that just another case of the ends justifying the means?

Below is an email I sent to the WELS Hymnal Committee:

Thank you for your patient work on the new hymnal. You have one of those impossible tasks wherein you will displease perhaps the bulk of people regardless of the result. Yet, it is a good work, and God will bless faithful work.

I wanted to add some lay comments to the recent discussion of variety in worship (http://www.welshymnal.com/blog/feedback/rites-variety). It is a difficult thing to balance, but I would encourage you to lean towards consistency.

The practical concerns of the ability of young, old, and guests to grasp a consistent service have been beautifully expressed by Rev. Schroeder. I’d like to add a theological concern: worship is preaching.

One of the problems with Pop American Christianity is the search for that which is new and exciting. Everyone wants to find a new approach to scripture, a new and exciting way to read the bible. This is reflected in their theology, which all too often strays into the heresy of enthusiasm, and their practice, which is typified by driving rhythms and emotional appeals. Not a new problem, of course. Luther speaks of them as “the fickle and fastidious spirits who rush in like unclean swine without faith or reason, and who delight only in novelty and tire of it as quickly, when it has worn off. Such people are a nuisance even in other affairs, but in spiritual matters, they are absolutely unbearable.”

Yet with worship, we all too often fall in the same hole. We constantly look for new rites, new settings, new prayers, new lectionaries, et cetera. This can come dangerously close to being a search for novelty and innovation, and sometimes results in importing the practice — and unintentionally the theology — of those who are really good at novelty (and heresy).

I’ve heard it said that when one reads the sermons of Luther and the other Lutheran fathers, one can get frustrated by the lack of Gospel. Yet, the reason given for this is the amount of gospel in worship itself. Every collect, exhortation, and hymn — indeed, every part of the ordinary and propers — beautifully preach Christ crucified, for you.

When pastor so-and-so prays the collect, he doesn’t have to worry about the theological soundness of something he wrote last week. The congregation doesn’t have to spend time analyzing what he wrote. He and the congregation can simply pray, knowing that these beautiful words have withstood the test of time, that they have been vetted by generations before us. Pastor so-and-so ceases to be important. The liturgy places him back in his preaching office, wherein he teaches and expounds the Word as he is called. He doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel every service. He simply uses the beautiful wheel which has been passed down through the ages. Each generation adds a bit of polish to this wheel, one adding a little here, one removing a little there, keeping it fresh but still delivering God’s good gifts to us in need of them.

I once heard a pastor describe the liturgy as learning to die. That, as we get older and approach death, we remember the beautiful collects, hymns, and other poetry of worship, and this keeps us strong in our faith. Life isn’t variety. It is a simple walk through our daily callings, sometimes doing the same thing day in, day out for the rest of our lives. Worship reflects this.

During some periods of our lives, we find life exciting and exhilarating. Likewise, we sometimes find worship exciting, during the feast of Easter, or perhaps even just realizing the incredible beauty and awe of watching heaven and earth meet in the sacraments. However, during other times of our lives we get up in the morning and do the same things we did the day before and will do the next day. We do the same thing with worship. “Our father, who art in heaven…”. Same old words. Both times are equally blessed, and equally gifts from God. And frequently, the difference is merely perspective.

My state before God changed in baptism. I was there brought into his family, given new life, a new Adam, and a new deadly enemy. My state will change one more time, in death. Then, I will lose the old Adam and strife with the enemy. In between, what I need doesn’t change. I still need God’s strong Word which bespeaks me righteous, delivered to me via the mouth of the pastor and in bread and wine. The consistency of worship should reflect this.

I will submit that when we search for the new, we should repent and humbly rejoice in the old. God’s Word is not new.

Yes, there is a time for careful, thoughtful, prayerful consideration of changes to our liturgies. They are indeed adiaphora. Change is not bad, as long as it is change for the better and not change for change.

I hope to see a return to much of the beauty of the past. I would personally love to see a rediscovery of the beautiful art of chant. I would love to see an emphasis on weekly communion. I would love to see the historic festival liturgies dusted off and used once again, the Tridium for example. I’d love to see the daily offices restored: Compline, Vespers, Evening Prayer, Matins, Morning Prayer (as distinct liturgies). I’d love to see a strong one year lectionary.

But ultimately, I hope to see a restoration of consistency in worship. Week in, week out, worshiping God with the same words and the same setting.

I’d suggest for serious consideration, dropping most of the divine service settings. Alternative service settings, Divine Services from the Supplement, Service of the Word, et cetera. Create one, consistent liturgy. Base it off of the Common Service. Call it Divine Service. Focus on one, beautiful, simple setting of this liturgy. Then, add variety in the propers, including restoring the propers which CW didn’t include. And focus on clear, complete rubrics.

Then work on variations on this for specific festivals. A liturgy for Easter with is used every year, for example. There are enough feast days and festivals in the church year that they do a splendid job of keeping monotony from setting in. Not large variations. But specific things which are special and saved for those days.

I think that this can result in a consistent worship which we can all grasp and learn. Where WELS laymen who travel will find familiar worship each Sunday. Where we are united around a common doctrine and practice which reflects this doctrine. Where every sinner can recall the words of confession and absolution. Where we are unified in doctrine and practice.

The result would hopefully be worship which consistently preaches Christ crucified without striving for novelty or entertainment.

I am but a young layman who is learning humility. Clearly I haven’t learned the lesson well enough to refrain from wanting input on this project. But I hope that at least some of this will spark some thought and discussion. Feel free to jettison the rest.

In Christ Alone,
~William Johnston

Ran across this lecture by Chris Rosebrough recently, it is an interesting look at the intersection of philosophy, history, and the church growth movement. Highly recommend taking the time to listen. Probably also worth looking at the additional materials he has included.

I’ve been looking for a stated reason why we are making a new hymnal. I’ve been afraid that the primary reason was simply to create something new, a generally bad reason for almost anything, but especially bad applied to the public worship of God’s people. However, in the March 2014 WELS Connection Close-up, there is a lot more background on the hymnal project, including an interesting quote from Rev. Bryan Gerlach, the director of the Commission on Worship for the WELS:

“The goal of a new hymnal 30 years after Christian Worship allows for several benefits. It provides for earlier and wider usage of excellent new hymns, addresses beneficial worship trends, consolidates WELS’ primary worship resources into one book, and contributes to unity within the WELS.”

There is a lot of latitude within the statement, but at least it can indeed be taken positively. Outstanding questions I notice are:

• What “excellent new hymns”? There are indeed great new hymns, but wasn’t this addressed by the supplement?
• What “beneficial worship trends”? I’m excited to see a focus on rediscovering music throughout the service, especially in the form of chant. Some of what I saw at the 2011 WELS Conference on Worship and the Arts was very exciting. Is this the direction? Or are we going in the negative direction of continuing to walk as close as we can to the precipice of “contemporary worship” without thinking we’ve fallen?
• Wouldn’t consolidating WELS primary worship resources into one book be achieved by publishing a Hymnal+Supplement? I’m a little worried that this is a pipe dream, given that the church I attend hasn’t even purchased pew supplements. We rarely even open the hymnals anymore, opting to reprint the bulletin each week. (A necessity when the liturgy rarely is verbatim CW/S/OS.)
• “Contribute to unity in the WELS…” I’m somewhat cynical here. Unless we are actually willing to address difficult questions of practice and doctrine when people disagree, there is no way we will achieve unity. See the ongoing NIV2011 debacle for an example. Those who are trying to create a mishmash “blended” worship experience will not be constrained by a new liturgy. Those who are trying to go full bore CoWo are (hopefully) going to find nothing in a new hymnal project. Those who want a strong, solid, confessional, historic liturgy will hopefully find a wonderful resource in the new hymnal, but I’m only mildly optimistic about this happening. How does this contribute to unity?

One encouraging quote from the director of the new hymnal project, Rev. Michael Schultz:

“This project is predominately about continuing to make excellent worship resources available to the congregations of our synod. With the expectation in our day and age that these resources will be digital and downloadable device-ready, the technology aspect of the project will certainly be receiving our attention. We do recognize, however, that before worrying about the method of media delivery, we have a higher concern about the integrity of the materials — that they are faithful to God’s Word and that they proclaim Christ as Savior and King.”

Nitpick: Proclaim Christ crucified. I’m sure that he meant this, but it is so incredibly easy to fall into the Theology of Glory trap that so much of modern “worship” falls into, we should be very specific. Worship is about bringing God’s gifts to His people. In the process of which, they proclaim Christ as Savior and King. I fear that we often go off base by reversing this.

I am encouraged that although technology seems to be a focus, they place a higher emphasis on the “integrity of the materials”.

The Worship Conference this summer will be interesting. I’m hopeful that the new hymnal will be a massive improvement over the existing one — and there are definite places the existing one falls short — and pray that we don’t fall into the trap of trying to please everyone at once.