Gottesblog

The Church has her own culture and language – even call it a style if you wish. It is a culture and language informed by the Word of God and blessed and handed down to us by generations of the faithful. That culture and language will find slightly different expression across time and place – but it will always be recognizable as the Church's own. Ceremonies and orders will differ across time and place – but they will always comport with the Church's culture and language. If it were possible, you could pick up King David and drop into St. Chrysostom's sanctuary in the fifth century AD and he would know what was going on. Likewise, you could take John the Golden-Mouthed and plop him into a Lutheran sanctuary during Divine Service and he would know what was going on.

Lutheran parishes and parishioners start down the American Evangelical worship road for a variety of reasons - I think most would agree that a desire to be relevant in the current culture is most widely stated as the starting point. The idea is that this culture in this time, unlike any before it, must have the whole of Christian worship turned toward its own expectations, musical styles, cultural symbols, etc. The liturgy, of course, is always being tweaked, grows, changes, etc. In the past, this had been a slow (and not always steady) process. But this generation of (American Boomer) Christians needed something more. The Church's liturgy was putting people off. They couldn't connect. The liturgy had become a stumbling block - a barrier to people hearing the Word.

In our last episode, we explored the distressing side of vacationing in the Missouri Synod. Now for the other side of the coin.

What a joy to walk into a sanctuary in another town and immediately feel at home. While no two places are alike - here are the signs of faith, there are the signposts of a place set aside for the worship of God.

Please see this non-liturgical post over at Four-and-Twenty on calls from folks "looking to get in touch" with one of your parishioners.

The bishop shall be the husband of one wife - or, if you will, the missus dominicus is to have but one missus. And as Fr. Luther discovered with "Kitty, my rib" he who has found a good wife has found a precious treasure, indeed. This is true for all men, but perhaps even more true for the parish pastor. For few professions have as their prerequisite that one "manage his own household well." For example, you can get quite far in politics, or as a carpet layer, or in the plumbing business with a lousy home life. Not so among us, at least not for long.

In the comments of the post below about the utility of keeping all of our parishes familiar with the Common Service, we wondered just how many options there really are for the ordinaries across LSB's five settings of the Divine Service. That is, using just the substitutions and options for the ordinaries listed in each of the five LSB settings, how many different orders of service does that make?

This just in: the Common Service did not fall from heaven, aglow with baroque gold-leaf. This is bound to cause some consternation amongst the Gottesdienst-liturgico-hypo-Euro-hobbyist crowd: but I don't care. It's time that canard went the way of the dodo. Furthermore, I am not afraid to say - yes, even here on the Gottesdienst Online blog - that there is no special indulgence or grace attached to that form of the Lutheran reception of the Western Mass.

Parish and personal duties have taken me to two events in Roman Catholic parishes this year – in two different dioceses. Back in January our parish choir participated in a Sunday afternoon “Epiphany Ecumenical Concert” here in a neighboring town and earlier this summer I attended a wedding in a Roman Catholic diocese in another state.

This thought-provoking article by Jeffrey A. Tucker approaches the question of state symbols and song in Christian worship from the point of view of the Roman Catholic church - but it is certainly applicable to Lutheran parishes as well.