The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, is never present where lies are told. And there is actually more unity of the church present where Christians of differing confession honorably determine that they do not have the same understanding of the Gospel than where the painful fact of confessional splintering is hidden behind a pious lie.
– Herman Sasse, “Union and Confession,” The Lonely Way, Volume 1.
It seemed the overall intent of the conference was to unabashedly state that even though people may disagree in the practice of worship services, we share the same theology. Our Synodical President, the Rev. Dr. Gerald Kieschnick, addressed areas where we were united and where we were divided in a paper (PDF) available at lcms.org.
Pastor Ben Ball asked a question on Tuesday about practices which communicate theology to the observer. He noted that there were wooden containers at the front row of the worship center which seemed designed to receive individual cups after communion. He asked what happened to the plastic individual cups that were put in the “sacred trash cans.” The pastor of Concordia-Kirkwood, Pr. Scott Siedler, responded that the cups would be moved into larger trash bags and put into the trash.
This was a scandal. Lutherans believe, teach, and confess that after the Words of Institution are spoken the bread and wine are not merely bread and wine but the body and blood of Jesus Christ, broken for us and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins. In the accounts of the institution of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus never says that the bread and wine are no longer his body and blood. Respect for the body and blood, then, usually prescribes that all of the elements are consumed as is commanded: “take, eat”; “drink of it, all of you.” When this is not possible, the communion ware is rinsed of wine/blood and returned to the earth, rather than dumped in the sewer or the trash.
The issue was followed-up to Pr. Sielder by Prs. Ball and Weedon. To Pr. Siedler’s credit, he announced before the Eucharist that the individual cups would be handled differently this time so as not to give offense. After the service, Prs. Ball and Weedon made sure the cups were rinsed and the residual elements were handled appropriately. I would like to thank all three pastors for their actions.
Another issue was a female worship leader leading the assembled in a litany of repentance, singing “Lord Have Mercy” by Steve Merkel (lyrics). The worship leader sang the verses, and the congregation sang the “Lord Have Mercy” refrain. In the Evening Prayer service the first evening, the pastor prayed the petitions in the litany setting, and we answered, “Lord, have mercy” (p. 22 of the convention worship book). During the contemporary morning prayer, the role is assumed by the worship leader with this song on p. 33. Did the woman assume the pastoral office on Tuesday? President Kieshnick said that the LCMS is united in confessing, “That the Scriptures clearly teach that women are not to hold the pastoral office.” (p. 3 of the above PDF). To be fair, when I open my Treasury of Daily Prayer to the service of the Litany (p. O-53), the parts of a pastor are marked with a red L for leader rather than a red P for pastor.
Other issues were caught more in conversation than in the worship practice. There was critique that some were elevating the Mass over the Word. This is a strange charge, since the Mass for the most part is Word, but I think the person was arguing for more freedom from the form. There was disagreement over whether church was primarily for Christians or whether worship’s main goal was to convince and convert, like Billy Graham’s services.
I kept listening for theological bounds in contemporary worship. Professor Arand’s presentation got close, but no guidance was suggested.
These are theological differences that should have been handled at a Model Theological Conference, and I was concerned that these kinds of issues were not addressed. Then again, we only had 2½ days.
Still more to come, but we have rounded the corner and will finish on more positive notes.
Women assisting with prayers… that’s one to consider. Missouri doesn’t elevate prayer to the same level as Preaching and the Sacraments (at least where matters of fellowship are concerned).
Still, the historic practice of the Church is that the prayers are announced and/or lead by the deacon (as in a called, male deacon, and not an elected church official). Some are permanent, life-long, ordained deacons and some are on their way to full ordination as a pastor. The deacon, in this case, is ordained by the Church and not merely consecrated by a district.
Leaving gender out of this, unless your musicians also have a pastoral or diaconal call, they are not given the authority to offer sacrificial acts on behalf of the congregation.
I speak here in terms of the chief prayers of the church, such as the Kyrie (when sung with a leader), the Litany, the Collect of the Day and other Collects, the Prayers of the Church, the Eucharistic Prayer (obviously), the Post-Communion Prayer, etc.
From there, some congregational song and some choral works are prayer. Sometimes the choir chants the Lord’s Prayer. Things get fuzzy in this area, and I will leave it to others to touch on that.
I attended an LCMS conference on worship some time ago, and there too a female lector or worship leader was employed – as a last minute change to the agenda. Some of us protested, but the chairman of the COW would not hear it.
It seems there is sometimes a need to make a “statement” at such gatherings, rather than refrain from causing offense. I think of the many conferences and conventions I have been at – shudder…
When this is not possible, the communion ware is rinsed of wine/blood and returned to the earth, rather than dumped in the sewer or the trash.
Thanks be to God. This is in line with classic Lutheran practice.
I was trying to describe classic Lutheran practice with that statement. Unfortunately, it’s not followed in all Lutheran or even LCMS churches.
“There was critique that some were elevating the Mass over the Word.”
I think this critique is on point a lot of times. Of course the Mass is the Word, but when you restrict the form the Word must take without Scriptural basis, you are elevating the form of the Word over the substance of it. So, say instead of the Gloria we sing one of the many other songs of praise that come from the Word. Some argue that this is improper. I don’t think this is an argument Lutheans can make. Lutherans don’t restrict the form of Baptism, or Communion, or prayer, or fasting, or confession, or good works, or any other practice except by the teachings of Christ and the Apostles. There is some disagreement, for example, does Christ’s taking of the cup mean that we should commune from a single chalice, but the arguments are based in Scripture. There is no Scriptural basis for elevating traditional worship forms over innovative forms, so long as they both teach what Christ and the Apostles taught.
There is a lot to criticize in a lot of contemporary worship on this basis, as Lutherans using non-Lutheran worship styles haven’t done as well as Luther did at removing the practices that promote incorrect understandings of faith and justification. But there is no Scriptural or Confessional basis to impose on another’s freedom in worship by insisting that the worship is only right and proper if it follows the traditional forms that developed in the church, as beautiful and beneficial as I think they are.
Lutheranism is a big tent. It insists on proper teaching of what Christ and the Apostles taught, but it does not go on to bind and restrict where Christ and the Apostles did not.
By the way, you mentioned Pr. Waddell in one of your posts. I think he does a great job highlighting good contemporary worship practices on his blog, worshipconcord.wordpress.com. His type of doctrinal critique of CoW is far more helpful to to the proper teaching and preaching of the Word than the ineffective and conscience-binding demands for liturgical compliance. There is equal danger in CoW of elevating its form (to be in stride with mainstream evangelical worship, quickly becoming a new competing tradition) over the Word.
Boaz,
Thank you for your comments.
True, but that is a big “so long,” with some of our seminary professors even questioning who decides what is and isn’t appropriate.
While the form of the Divine Service has indeed evolved, especially after the Reformation when Luther carved out false doctrine, consider the wisdom of what 2000 years of Christian priests and pastors thought was wise to put into worship, things like asking the Lord for mercy, announcing our forgiveness, reading Scripture, the breaking of bread and the prayers, the preaching of the Word, the creeds, the Lord’s Prayer, and so forth. A lot of people over the millenia have thought about what we do in response to Christ’s death, resurrection, and coming again both now in the Lord’s Supper and later in the final judgment. We are placing a heavy burden upon our pastors to be the sole arbiter of faithful confession when they innovate the service, and I think you’ll agree, many pastors fail here, even in our Lutheran big tent.
We don’t have to have “liturgical compliance,” but look at all the wonderful stuff that happens when we do. Kids can participate in the Divine Service before they can read. People in the hospital can sing and pray the liturgy, comforting their souls for what lies ahead. The pastoral care of patients with Alzheimer’s and other disorders becomes so much easier when they have been inculcated with theology and practice common to not just their pastor but the next Lutheran pastor who comes along and knows the liturgy. Liturgy is not a have to for the least of these, Christ’s brethren, it is a get to.
“I think he (Pr. Waddell) does a great job highlighting good contemporary worship practices on his blog.”
Pr. Waddell does highlight good practices, but it seems that even those good practices are subservient to the freedom of the congregation and that is where I part with Pr. Waddell. He refuses to acknowledge any benefit to uniformity in practice, the time-tested catechetical benefits of the historic liturgy, or the confusion which widely divergent practices cause. None of these things bind consciences, but in every dealing I’ve had with Pr. Waddell he assumes such and falls back to what I consider radical freedom which is unwilling to submit, in love, to the benefit of anyone else.
Lutherans don’t restrict the form of Baptism, or Communion, or prayer…
We do restrict the form of Baptism. We insist that water be used and the words “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” be used.
We do not recognize the baptism in Pentecostal churches that baptize in the name of Jesus only. We do not recognize the baptism of Mormons. We do not recognize (as far as I know) a baptism that uses Creator/Redeemer/Sanctifier (or other descriptive terms) in lieu of Father/Son/Holy Spirit. The latter is just now creeping into the church.
We do restrict the form of Communion. We insist on close communion (although we disagree on what that means). We insist on wine wherever possible and discourage grape juice. We insist that the Words of Institution be recited in the presence of the communicants. We do not recognize the communion of denominations that do not teach the Lutheran distinctions of the Eucharist.
We restrict prayer in some sense as well. The collects take on a certain form. They begin by addressing God with a formal name as opposed to “Dear God,” like our prayer is merely a letter of request, or even worse, “Father God, we just…” as though we should not boldly come before the Father. They then teach us something about something God has done or promised, and then they place a request before the throne of God.
Then there is the longer General Prayer or the shorter “Lord in Your mercy … Hear our prayer.” Of course, one could do the Bidding Prayer, the Suffrages, the Litany, etc., in lieu of the regularly prescribed prayers.
We do not generally offer “popcorn prayers” where congregants say their individual petitions aloud during the prayers of the Divine Service.
Regarding the Gloria, it is the chief text for that part of the liturgy, but even then it is not sung for Advent and Lent, and This Is the Feast may be substituted for Easter and its Season and on other festivals. It is not stated in the rubrics, but the Te Deum would also work. The problem comes in when the Gloria, with its rich, christological imagery is replaced by “I love you, Lord,” which totally places the emphasis on our works and not Christ’s work.
The liturgy helps us maintain this focus on Christ. It gives us the framework for solid, Christ-centered worship where God comes to us in Word and Sacrament. The Gospel is never restrictive, it is only freeing! So the liturgy frees us instead of binds us. It offers us the sweet Gospel of forgiveness in our Baptism, in Absolution, and in Christ’s Body and Blood and that indeed frees us!
Thought I would chime in…our music director and I wanted to see what was being said “out there” and so googled to our hearts content. Came on this website…
Couple points.
1. Contemporary vs. traditional is silly talk. I agree with everyone who asks, “What do these terms mean?” Classical/modern forms of liturgy…better…no winner in the end.
2. The extent of the legalism (very gently said) about handling the vessels of the Supper. How far? Fair enough…wine remnants in individual cups thoughtlessly thrown into “trash cans”. And even the washing water in which they are subsequently rinsed. I can resonate with properly and reverently handling/disposing that. But what about the disposition of the sink when the building is demo’ed and replaced/expanded…The pipes? The hands that wash them and then proceed to the bathroom for bodily discharges…How far logically do we go? This is for me the big hang up on the disposition discussion and others like it (organ only, formal equivalence translations only, men only cantors). At what point are we “straining out the gnat”. At what point have we gotten to tithing “mint and dill and cummin?”
3. What was witnessed at CK in terms of worship was our worship life…the whole idea that there is a typical “contemporary” service out there that the COW did not have represented is preposterous…if by that deficiency you understand/were looking for a non-sacramental, non-Scriptural, subjectively oriented Osteen event…then the conference was deficient…but I don’t think people are looking for “that”. And even if such a form was represented, how would we know whether it was “typical enough?” There is always another length to go before the continuum of criticism ends.
It’s funny here at CK, I have many people who say to me “we don’t go far enough” and others who say “we go too far.” And yet the sum of the conversation is generally, “We don’t want to be that “outlandish contemporary church” or that “rigid liturgical church”. I respond, “Well what do you envision for CK’s worship?” Answer: “Not that.” Result: We preach Christ crucified and reason for the sins of the world and administer the sacraments weekly according to Christ’s institution. That seems to at least temper the discussion.
–Rev. Dr. Scott Seidler
Senior Pastor
Concordia, Kirkwood
feel free to email if you have questions/comments…I am pretty good natured on these things and enjoy the heat of criticism/charitable church conversation.
sseidler AT concordiakirkwood DOT org
Good discussion…all fair so far…and I am thankful for my more classical brothers and sisters to have kept it that way. Come quickly Lord Jesus!
Welcome, Pastor Seidler!
Thank you and your church for being such a gracious host for worship, the presentations, and the meals. The conference was better run than some of the business conferences I have attended.
I find it an act of bravery to open up your church and let everyone see what you do, especially when there is such wide variety in opinions. We were slightly confused as to the meaning of “model” in the phrase “model theological conference on worship”. Some thought that meant that what we saw was a representation of what is going on in the LCMS. I am glad you did not try to emulate what others do.
To your points:
1 and 3. I think you’ll find other pages on this blog where I also disagree with the “contemporary” moniker. I wish we could use the term “modern liturgy,” because for the most part I think that was what Concordia-Kirkwood represented at the conference. Having traveled the country on business for the past 11 years and visiting lots of LCMS churches, I can tell you that I’ve seen some services whose form and content would resemble worship in other denominations.
2. These are very good questions. We are poor, miserable sinners (again!). Your consideration of how we treat the elements after the Lord’s Supper is highly commendable. I would not let the possibility of straining gnats in extreme circumstances dissuade you from enhancing the teaching every week that we are handling the bread and body, given for us, the wine and blood, shed for the forgiveness of sins.
In fact, these are questions I think would be best suited for a theological conference on worship, humbling ourselves to meet some sort of agreement that is both practical and reverent. I don’t suppose your church would be up to having our scurvy lot back again?
I admire the fact that the Lord’s Supper is available weekly at your church. It’s a practice I would like to see my congregation taught into. I would have liked to hear one of your sermons at the conference. Given Professor Gibbs’s brief yet excellent homily towards the end of his presentation about us being dead men walking, it seems like we had people who had not been regularly exposed to that kind of law and gospel preaching.
I would like to influence the discussion toward viewing liturgy less as “rigid” and more as theological scaffolding. My family has one opportunity a week (and sometimes less) to get Christ-centered religious instruction from someone other than me: the Sunday School and Divine Service each Sunday morning. Some families don’t even make it to Sunday School. This is their one shot at getting the forgiveness of sins and good doctrine delivered to them. This is another reason why worship matters; others I’ve listed in previous comments.
Thank you so much for coming by, for your gracious hospitality at the conference and for your charitable discussion here.
Dan
Rev. Seidler: Thank you for chiming in. I am glad that you and your music director are contributing in some fashion (I also read you md’s comments at Fine Tuning). You represent yourselves well out here in the blogosphere and have good things to add to the discussion.
It is great that you were able to show the group what normally happens at your church as opposed to providing a “model” for other churches. Over at Fine Tuning, good things were said about the musicianship side of the services. I don’t get too hung up on the style of music, because what the text says is far more important.
I’d like to touch on “formal equivalence translations only,” since I just finished a mini-study on the Gloria. I would rather have a good hymnic paraphrase (there is even one in All God’s People Sing to the tune “Hark! The Herald”) than present the ICET version as a good translation. They left out entire phrases, consolidated the allusion to the Agnus Dei, and didn’t even attempt to translate “goodwill.”
That being said, the archaic language works for TLH and DS III, but I support cleaning it up a little for new settings. ICET just took it too far. It’s a little like comparing KJV and The Living Bible. One is quite heavy and the other is borderline anorexic.
I leave the longer speech on translating the Gloria for my own blog.
Thanks again for checking in here at Necessary Roughness.
Also, thanks for providing your email. I may have questions about the whole handling of vessels thing as it relates to my own parish.
Blessings to you and the ministry at CK!
You see…this is when it gets fun…good conversation…positions firmly but charitably held…
Love the language of scaffolding. The pastoral care ethic evident in the conversation gives a great deal of balance to the charge of “rigidity” in form.
I could really get into blogging…
There’s a difference between intentionally poeticizing a Scripture for the sake of song, rhyme and meter. The public reading of Scripture, the ability for the spoken word to be accessible to the middle of the audience…that’s another deal entirely. On the other side of that fence, I wholly agree that a single, standardized version for all orthodox Christianity to refer to–a common modern translation akin to the KJV but with language befitting a middle English knowledge–this would be ideal.
It’s one of the reasons why the ESV is such a puzzle for me. On a formal equivalence scale, it is excellent. On the middle of the audience scale…arguably a little rough…Disappointing that the modern KJV which is known as the NIV has been jettisoned…granted the translational/reformed bent…Tough, tough, tough.
One of our conversation points at Concordia, because we unapologetically do not have children’s church (a nursery if needed) during services, is the very issue of familiar scaffolding that families, and especially our little ones can depend on. At the same time, we want worship to bridge toward community…One hour seamlessly interwoven into the other 167 (even while sleeping and knowing that He is a God who neither slumbers or sleeps). This overlap is more than just catechetical at a formal and contentual level…we intend it to be affectual as well, where worship expresses the warmth of the week ahead in our Christian community. I sometimes think this is where larger churches/more “contemporary” churches may open themselves up to criticism…the drive to embody the warmth of Christian fellowship on a relational level overshadowing the objectivity of our confessional priorities incarnated through the liturgy. (I am not sure on the incarnated word there…but I’m close on that–the gifts of God for the people of God, means of grace…that kind of thing.)
Other thoughts?
I could really get into blogging…
Don’t let WordPress and Blogger fool you. It’s easy to start a blog. It takes a little bit longer to get used to and to account for the type of people who come across your blog and rip things out of context.
I applaud your efforts to keep kids in church — that’s one of my soapbox issues.
The notion of being the “bridge” brings out all sorts of thoughts — please be assured that I am not accusing you or CK of the following:
1. We should try to be authentic and not bait-and-switch people. If a church is bringing in people with something other than the Word, it’s going to take something other than the Word to keep them there.
2: We can learn from Charles Finney, not in emulating him and his works doctrine, but in examining his admissions that his “new measures” needed to be more and more outlandlish to keep people excited and that style and substance are linked (Rast article on Finney). That last admission is not original to Finney, it’s better known as lex orandi, lex credendi: the rule of prayer is the rule of belief.
3. We are in the world and not of it (John 17, v. 11 and 16). This should be confessed by our worship, not in becoming Amish, of course, but by worshiping in settings and with music that convey that our sins both original and actual are confessed and forgiven by the God-man, Jesus Christ. Also at the same time, if a person sees such spaces and hears such worship as “I am holy and you are not,” we need to be right there, saying, no, I am a sinner too. God is holy, and out of his love and atonement he makes us his holy children too in Christ. Thanks be to God!
Thus we have to be careful in employing elements from “the world” in our worship. Sure, we got the message at the conference that worship is “contextual”, but Christianity and Lutheranism lend their contexts too.
This is merely part of the theology that would have been nice to have been hashed out at a theological conference.
Whatever the style and substance, we confess that the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies us, and this is done through the proclamation of the Word and the administration of the sacraments. A person is not in the Church because he prefers rock or Bach; he is there because he needs to hear Christ crucified for sinners.
One valuable thing that I learned from the conference is that people have different notions and definitions of “contemporary” — another reason why the term is bad. I wish the “modern liturgical” format that CK employed at the conference, still having recognizably Lutheran elements, was the extent of what we are calling “contemporary” in the LCMS. Before we liturgical advocates totally dismiss all “contemporary” as rank heresy
and before the LCMS blesses “contemporary” worship, we need to examine what is going on in the name of context, hospitality, contemporariness, et cetera.
Carl Schalk once said (paraphrasing), “I don’t like calling that form ‘contemporary’ because it makes it sound like what we are doing is not.”