So Target makes a fairly cool iPhone/iPod app. It would be MUCH cooler if Target had WiFi so that iPods could use it! #

Ugh. The last bag in a box of garbage bags needs to have a redline or some indication of running out. BEFORE I go to the store. #

RT @JerodNBC4: snowpocolypse ‘10 is underway! everybody panic!!!!! // School already cancelled! How am I going to get anything done? #

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The Synod has requested that each district hold its own conference. One advocate of contemporary worship (again, what does this mean?) suggested repeatedly that we do not invite people to these conferences that are “extreme or polarizing”, that each side try “to understand as well as be understood.”

The irony is that in not wanting to listen to everyone, the person making the suggestion is indeed being the polarizer. There is an implicit argument that people who don’t agree with this person’s norms are extreme and polarizing. The other side has already been pre-judged.

In order to listen, you have to give the other side their say.

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I would have gotten that one right, but I thought about other books that I might stumble on. Other people might have the same issues, and I started asking around for pastors who might be willing to summarize or point me to some public domain commentary that I could use on Time Out.

Pastor Will Weedon of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Hamil, IL., stepped up.  He pointed me to The Kretzmann Project, home of the electronic edition of The Popular Commentary of the Bible by Paul E. Kretzmann, Ph. D., D. D.  The introductions to each book alone are filled with such good stuff, not only summarizing the content of the book but laying out Christ in the Old Testament.

The introductions will probably take another one to two minutes to read per book. It’s likely that they will be included as part of the Time Out episode on Pirate Christian Radio, but they will for sure be available as part of the podcasts on the Time Out site. When the summaries are included on the podcast, I will provide a link back to the Kretzmann Project site so you can follow along.

Thank you, Pr. Weedon, and thank you big time to those who digitized The Kretzmann Project.

Ugh…Updating my 301 redirect list. The joys of having a five-year-old blog. #

Kantor Beethe employs an intro reminiscent of Superman, Thursday at noon Eastern on Time Out. #

Crimony. Podcast files are too large for online backup, everything else may be too sensitive. #

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I suppose theoretically one could divorce one’s mind from the meaning of the words, but this isn’t a charge unique to liturgical worship. In fact, it’s more likely to happen when one is getting lost in ecstatic music.

The aversion to rote worship and memorization is counter to how we learn and harms our ability to use knowledge. Do we memorize multiplication tables, or do we sit down with a piece of paper and do the basic math every time? Do we turn screws each way to see what works, or does “righty-tighty-lefty-loosey” come into the mind without effort?

Rote worship — liturgical worship — is part of the institutional knowledge of the church. It is the shorthand of our vocabulary to convey bigger ideas. It is also a guard by which we ensure we believe the same things. We do not live in Wonderland, where Humpty Dumpty chooses the meaning of words.

How many times in a Lutheran’s life do the following phrases fit various situations?

• poor, miserable sinner
• by what we have done and by what we have left undone
• I forgive you
• Lord, have mercy
• From the creeds: I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, etc.

These are the church’s tools, and we make them ours. We do not get the opportunity to collect every little question about God during the week, seek a judgement of appropriate application by the pastor, then run it back to our daily vocations and apply it. No, some situations simply call for a nice, polite, “I’m a poor, miserable sinner.” That’s simply the best explanation for stuff I have done and stuff I haven’t done (oh, there’s another one…).

The liturgy will not tell you how to have your best life now, prescribe a program for evangelism, or communicate some vision from the pastor regarding where he wants the congregation to be in five years. It will tell you that you are a sinner, that you need to be and have been redeemed by Christ, and that He has provided His Supper to strengthen your faith. That’s not bad stuff to recite every week. If it loses meaning to me, then the fault is mine, not the liturgy’s.

#LCMSMTC LSB Morning Prayer was quite good. Serious male unison. #

• #LCMSMTC Larry Vogel: Psalm 50 and 51 indicate worship may be a spiritual low, not high. #
• #LCMSMTC Vogel: Evangelical communion strength is service in the word, but empty of Christ’s body it is just carbohydrate #
• #LCMSMTC Vogel: RCC communion strength is its sacramental emphasis. We have both Word and sacramental emphasis even in CW. #
• #LCMSMTC Beecroft: pastoral theology must be sacramental. We believe Christ truly present in our midst and we should act as such. #
• #LCMSMTC Gibbs: we don’t eat the Body with our soul. #
• #LCMSMTC Vogel: we can have all the shell and trapping of worship but no Christ // if there’s no Word? #
• #LCMSMTC Gibbs: We only think Christ is the guest. He’s the host. #
• #LCMSMTC What we saw in CW thus morning is an improvement over what I have seen in other CW services. Still, big issues exist. #
• #LCMSMTC Dien Ashley Taylor: our Christ-purchased freedom allows us to be noble and nimble in ways that proclaim the glory of Christ #
• #LCMSMTC Taylor: do not be idiosyncratically contextual for contextual’s sake. We are the church catholic. #
• #LCMSMTC Two CW pastors say the no. of services keeps them from doing Adult Bible class. One pastor explains as he goes, as a result. #
• #LCMSMTC Mason Beecroft: Retaining the Mass is key to being missional and vocational. #
• #LCMSMTC Beecroft: God uses physical means to share holy things with His people. #
• #LCMSMTC Steve Arnold: most of our members find what we do to be incomprehensible. #
• #LCMSMTC Arnold: church needs to be a safe place from the world…where do women and minorities feel comfortable? more sen. gender language #
• #LCMSMTC Jeff Cloeter Our sacraments form missionary disciples and vocational specialists. #
• #LCMSMTC Cloeter: The Great Commission is not satisfied by only bringing people to church. #
• #LCMSMTC Cloeter: Worship as Vocation: freedom in Christ for service to neighbor. #
• #LCMSMTC Cloeter: Christians are animated by the Body and the Blood. There is something weird about us who encounter God in the sacraments #
• #LCMSMTC Cloeter: a good sermon is one that the listener can preach to his friends #
• Internet access was turned off this afternoon at Concordia, so likely no posts for Wednesday. #
• #LCMSMTC Pres. Kieschnick: people without God are in disarray; people with Christ are united. #
• #LCMSMTC Charles Arand: Practices flow from doctrine, so some adiaphora are better than others. #
• #LCMSMTC Charles Arand: Human traditions do not save, but they have purposes and value, primarily to teach and to have church order. #
• #LCMSMTC Arand: Our rites need to tell the full story: the creation, the reclaiming of creation, and the renewal of creation. #
• #LCMSMTC Arand: use collegiality to find balance between catholic-lutheran connection to church and using tools of a particular place #
• #LCMSMTC James Waddell: we do not have theological unity on adiaphora. #
• #LCMSMTC Waddell: some churches use contemporary worship does not communicate the Gospel clearly or at all. #
• #LCMSMTC Art Just: Theology is in body, is fleshly. How should we act based on who we are. #
• #LCMSMTC Art Just: Our Protestant religious culture treats Christ as if he is not here, as if the finite cannot contain the infinite. #
• #LCMSMTC Just: within the historical liturgy we believe, teach, and confess Christ given to us for the forgiveness of sins. #
• #LCMSMTC Just: how do we take our catholic faith into the postmodern world? #
• #LCMSMTC Just: even Rome has submitted to our Protestant religious culture. #
• #LCMSMTC I can’t tweet enough Arthur Just. Wow. #
• #LCMSMTC Just: We lost sight of the miracles our liturgical worship contains. We are settling for less than heaven itself. #
• #LCMSMTC Gibbs: some churches just have one Saturday morning membership class #
• #LCMSMTC Arand: in the 16th century preaching and teaching were the same thing. The distinction arose out of pietism. #
• #LCMSMTC Magness: the liturgy is not an impediment to the Gospel. #
• #LCMSMTC Taylor: creeds are helpful, when so many people believe so many things. They remind us there is an expessed unity. #
• #LCMSMTC Conference is over! So much to mull over and report. #

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Sunday night Seminarian Samuel Powell drove Cantor Beethe and I back and forth to the seminary chapel. He also took pictures with his phone, since I had issues with my camera. He also brought the guest soloist, Allison Ulmer.

Monday and Tuesday nights I secured a conference room at 10pm for Compline. Cantor Beethe and Pr. Weedon showed up for both, Pr. Paul Cain showed up for Tuesday night, and Brad Hall, former organist of Zion in Columbus (talk about your small world) was there Monday night.

Brad Hall, we should have known each other a lot longer. Just saying. Too bad you were up in that balcony during the LSB workshop in ‘06. I could have been spared a lot of heartburn, but maybe I would take too much for granted.

It was an honor and a privilege to work within feet of my accompanist. I hope we meet again, but right now Fort Smith / Little Rock isn’t on my boss’s radar. Thank God for high speed Internet!

I met Pr. Matthew Harrison and actually spoke with him a bit. I wanted him to sign my copy of “Christ, Have Mercy,” but he missed the first day of the conference due to his uncle’s funeral, and everyone wanted to talk to him. One more secured for the winning team. Blessings and condolences to you and yours, Pastor. Blessings again on your work with Haiti.

I know one is supposed to go to bed after Compline, but it was cool discussing and laughing with the likes of Beecroft, Weedon, Petersen, and Ball Monday night. The next day I felt like the kids had kept me up again. It was good to talk with other bloggers such as Pr. Peters.

I saw Kantor Hoffman the last two days. I had a duet with him in Rock Springs in July of 2007. A kind and gracious guy with mad, mad, MAD organ skillz. Ask him to play “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” for you.

I got the privilege of meeting Pr. Paul Schlueter, a blogging pastor who lives just west of Dublin. It’s nice to know I’m not the tallest Lutheran in Ohio! Our district president is no slouch, either. It was good to meet Pr. Cripe and the other pastors from our state.

I didn’t get enough time, either, with the profs: Paul Grime, Jeff Gibbs, Art Just. Really smart people who use their powers for good. I didn’t get to meet the Issues, Etc., gang and see their studio, but hey, something for next time, I suppose.

I count it all — good, ugly (not much bad, really) — as gift. I look forward to continuing the conversations.

Keep in touch, guys!

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.

Arnold, a professor emeritus and chaplain at Concordia University, St. Paul, stressed “hospitality”, making worship a safe place for the world. He called for more sensitive gender language to make women feel more comfortable. He also asked for authenticity in our worship, stating that our spirituality is authentic, therefor our worship is authentic. Most of our members find what we do to be incomprehensible. We need to be conversational to help with wounds visited upon people by the church, such as the priest scandals in the Roman Catholic church. The church has one thing to offer: forgiveness of sins in proclamation of the Gospel.

Grime and Arnold also followed Tuesday’s last presentation of the day, “Missional and Vocational (Another Approach).” Looking back at my notes and tweets, I guess I really didn’t find anything groundbreaking.  Grime did quote Korby concerning our preaching: in our preaching, we have defanged the law so it will merely gum us to death.

A panel discussion with moderated questions from the floor followed. One person tried to discuss with Pr. Beecroft which form of the Mass he preferred we use, and Beecroft said he would be content if we just followed the Divine Services in the LSB, for the sake of catholicity and good order. One questioner read a John Piper quote about worship and asked if people agreed. Pr. Ben Ball asked a question about how religious practices inform people what we believe, using the Eucharist later that day as an example. That turned into a bit of a scandal, which I will cover later in its own section.

Another question was asked regarding Pr. Cloeter’s illustration of Christians living among the teepees of the unchurched, which led to a comparison by Steve Arnold with Dances with Wolves. There was a small problem with Arnold’s comparison: in Costner’s movie, the soldier became an Indian, rather than the soldier converting Indians to his way of thinking.

A pair of responders followed Wednesday’s presentation by Charles Arand, “Practical and Theological.” Dr. James Waddell was the first, a graduate instructor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan. I put a couple of posts on Twitter from him. My general impression of his response was that he was trying to agree with everyone.

Dr. Arthur A. Just, Jr., Professor of Exegetical Theology, among other things, at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, delivered an amazing response. Like Professor Gibbs, it will be worth your time to download and listen to his response.  I could not post fast enough on Twitter.  Some samples:

• Theology is in body, is fleshly. How should we act based on who we are.
• Our Protestant religious culture treats Christ as if he is not here, as if the finite cannot contain the infinite.
• Within the historical liturgy we believe, teach, and confess Christ given to us for the forgiveness of sins.
• We lost sight of the miracles our liturgical worship contains. We are settling for less than heaven itself.

Amazing stuff.  I also had the privilege of having Dr. Just at my table during the Table Talks.  What a wise, patient, and listening person. Would that we all have his demeanor and insight. I am now an Arthur Just fan. Someone start an Art Just facebook page, please.

I don’t have many notes on the final open microphone question and answer session from Friday morning, but I will note that Cantor Phillip Magness asked a couple of questions. First he asked about the LCMS brand: are we to use LCMS as a seal of approval that everything no matter what is good in a church, and we should just swallow it?  Or should LCMS mean that there are certain expectations of what you will find inside?

Secondly he asked if and how we could ensure that there were common elements in our contemporary services, for example, the creeds? Can we keep from writing our own creeds and inadvertently introducing heresies? Pr. Taylor, one of the advocates of diverse worship, said he would be just fine with keeping the ecumenical creeds in worship.

My district president, Pr. Terry Cripe, asked Pr. Beecroft on the panel, “What practices in contemporary worship militate against the Gospel?” Beecroft gave anecdotal examples such as plastic and styrofoam individual cups in communion, pastors who don’t wear vestments, and pastors who draw attention to themselves through personality and make themselves the show, rather than focusing on Christ.

Pr. Beecroft did score some amicable points with those who favor alternative worship. He said during the second panel that he could recognize the contemporary services at Concordia-Kirkwood as Lutheran overall. That drew a relief from some people.

Ohio District Response

According to the rules of the convention, I cannot mention anything specific of anybody at the table talks or the district talks without gaining permission, so I won’t discuss much. I will say that Pr. Beecroft’s presentation got the most visceral response.

There was a situation where one person discussed a belief that people who use the liturgy go through their weekly life without any real sanctification, trusting in their General Absolution the next Sunday. I responded by borrowing from Rosebrough, et. al., that “we do what we do because we are what we are.”  We are washed (1 Cor 6:9-11). Paul didn’t stop writing Romans at chapter 5. Therefore in our gratitude we try to align our lives with what God intended.  If there is a member who does not seem to be doing this, he needs to be hit with the Law, not threatened with hell, but Bo Giertz style: “You are a Christian.  Do you think a Christian should be acting this way?” That drew some satisfaction across the table. Likewise, I said it was possible to rock out at the Sunday contemporary worship service and still act like a heathen the rest of the week. That got agreement.

David Johnson of the LCMS Commission on Worship kicked off the conference by asking everyone to be sensitive and showed a video with clips from various church services.  Jon Vieker of the LCMS Commission on Worship introduced a select bibliography, and Larry Stoterau, LCMS Pacific Southwest District President introduced the Theses on Worship prepared by the District Presidents.

Dr. Jeff Gibbs, professor of Exegetical Theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, held the first presentation in the gym, so I couldn’t post snippets on Twitter. His presentation, “Worship that is Scriptural and Confessional,” was golden. If the audio is made publicly available, it will be worth your time to download and listen to it. Because I couldn’t Twitter his points, here are some notes:

• Theology is like the first shingle of a house: if it is allowed to be off even a little bit at the beginning, the row of shingles will be completely messed up down the road.
• Christianity is not an escapist religion. Just dying and going to heaven is not the complete story. We also have the resurrection of the body. Death is a separation of body and soul as judgment of the sin still in it. Jesus begins the new creation in his own body. Worship is a piece of God’s story for all creation.
• Corporate worship is inevitably shaped by tradition because our God is the God of history. Corporate worship began in the gap of Scripture between Malachi and Matthew. God did not demand weekly worship, but God used and uses that tradition to build the church.
• We refuse to either be a slave to tradition or despise tradition.
• Worship is not about me; God is not to become part of me, I am to become part of God.
• Conversion happens through the Word, which can be done in or outside worship. Worship is primarily God in service to his Christians, to do what we need him to do.
• Ephesians 4:11 – “to equip the saints” in the Greek context should instead read “to restore the saints”. Instead of giving people tools for a finite job, pastors should be continually restoring the saints.
• We should recapture the hearing of Scripture as God coming down to us. Are we in worship magnificently preaching Christ and His glory?
• The Reformation was won in the printing press and the pulpit.
• Is the gospel only forgiveness? There is more to say. Only some of Paul’s letters mention justification. In every letter Paul proclaims the glory of what has been done in Christ. We need to hear all the glories of Christ and all the dangers that he has saved us from. But our preaching is cliche-ridden and law-based.
• Does preaching fill you with joy and power and courage? We are dead men who have been brought back to life!

Towards the end of his presentation Dr. Gibbs actually did preach a small homily of Law and Gospel, powerfully and emotionally. It was great stuff.

Larry Vogel of the Committee on Theology and Church Relations gave a presentation on worship that is “pastoral and sacramental.” There are some notes on the Twitter feed. He discussed how all religions worship God, but only we do “in spirit and truth.” Worship is not something we do to bargain with God (Psalm 50:7-12) but flows from our reception of God’s gifts. Worship may generate spiritual “highs”, but what is the reason? Where there is faith in God, there is true worship. The heart of the Church’s regular worship is the Word of Christ in reading, preaching, song, and Sacrament. Lutheran worship is evangelically pastoral and catholicly Sacramental.

One major critique I had with Rev. Vogel’s presentation was that he would say he liked one way of worship but then advocate another. It was like a self-denial.

Dien Ashley Taylor, pastor of Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Bronx, vibrantly delivered a presentation of “Worship that is Personal and Contextual.” He stated that confession can inform context, and vice versa. Adiaphora is not a free-for-all, but it is a sanctified conversation with brothers and sisters in Christ to keep worship “proleptically and prophetically straight.” We should not be “idiosyncratically contextual for contextual’s sake.” We are the church catholic. “Lutherans, who value the Word, should not abandon the word catholic.”

My take: Contextual, desired to mean that worship was adapting the place and instruments of where the church is, was supplanting “contemporary” in some circles, but it is an equally vague word when proponents want to use it opposite historical or liturgical. Liturgy can be a context.

Rev. Taylor employed a lot of jargon and, as you can tell above, complex vocabulary in his presentation. He also sang pieces of songs as examples of different contexts. Everyone joined in on some songs such as, “We All Believe in One True God,” but not on others.

Mason Beecroft gave “Missional and Vocational (One Approach).” He ran out of time despite cutting and moving some slides, but his thesis was clear: “Retaining the Mass is key to being missional and vocational.” In addition to the points I put on Twitter, he also said that God desires to share holy things with his people through physical means, and we show that through sacred space and sacred ritual. Our nonverbal movements, in addition to spoken Word, also communicate what is going on. Do styrofoam cups communicate that we have the blood of the God-man Jesus Christ? We should communicate that something bigger than us is taking place. Pastors wear vestments and cite liturgy to take the attention off themselves and put it on Christ.

Pr. Beecroft also showed concern about the amount of liturgical instruction taught at seminary. Seminarians receive 3 to 6 hours of instruction. Do we want surgeons going into the operating room with 3 to 6 hours of instruction and practice? How much more should we be concerned when eternal souls are at stake?

Finally, Pr. Beecroft noted that alternative worship forms often tinker or do away with creedal texts. When we lose the common text of what we believe, we have nothing that keeps us believing the same thing.

Jeff Cloeter gave a presentation called “Worship that is Missional and Vocational (Another Approach).” Several good points are on the Twitter list. He identified four principles in worship: good preaching, unity and clarity, bridging worship into the week, and leaders that model. He freely admitted that he have all the answers to practical things like how to be a better father, and he would refer people to those who would have a better idea. He described the mission field as similar to a fort and tepees. We convert people by working in our vocations, animated by the Body and Blood of Christ, shed for our trespasses, showing in a mysterious way that we have encountered God. The Great Commission is not fulfilled by only inviting people to church.

On Wednesday morning, Charles Arand, chairman of the department of systematic theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, gave a presentation of “Worship that is Practical and Theological.” Arand to his credit was the first person to really begin to engage in what is really adiaphora — neither commanded nor forbidden. Practices flow from our theology, so some adiaphora are better than others. Adiaphora gives expression of the theology of the church.

He likened worship to a bicycle with training wheels: the front wheel, the marks of the church, controlling the direction; one training wheel, the contextual principle, using the tools of a particular place to expand the church; the other training wheel, the catholic principle, the unity of the church; and collegiality, the balance between the two training wheels. We dare not lean, Arand argued, either way too far without falling over.

Still more to come.

Maybe not in this post alone, but I need to cover:

• The agenda and methods of discussion
• The worship services
• Institutional knowledge
• The presentations
• The responders, especially certain theology professors
• The Ohio District’s response
• Evidence of differing theologies
• Reliquae
• The overheard
• The extracurricular
• The people I met

With the exception of presentations that were given in the gym of Concordia-Kirkwood and after about 3pm on Tuesday, I had wireless access and was able to Twitter key thoughts during the conference.  Do not take them as their quotes but as ideas I tried to get down in limited time and manual dexterity. You can follow the points at #LCMSMTC.

Agenda

It was clear ever since the first agendas came out that we weren’t going to solve the “worship wars” in 2½ days. Six presentations focused on general qualities that worship should be: Scriptural and Confessional, Pastoral and Sacramental, Personal and Contextual, Missional and Vocational (two approaches), and Practical and Theological.

Other than what Concordia-Kirkwood offered in its sanctuary and praise center, there were no samples of worship to critique. No bounds were discussed, and so my first expectation was not met.

Ted Kober of Ambassadors of Reconciliation, an LCMS Registered Service Organization, moderated the conference, and he did a good job of letting people discuss without things getting out of control on these emotional issues. He set forth ground rules that were very helpful.

Worship Services

It should be noted that the first agenda of the conference that came out had nothing that was labeled traditional or liturgical. The updated agenda that we received kicked off the conference with LSB Morning Prayer. I hope that means that there was some pre-conference feedback about what we were to be doing.

All services were printed in a large worship folder, which was usable, but all the hymns and songs only had melody. We ended up having to pick out harmonies on the better hymns or pull the LSB out of the pews for hymns like, “O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright.”

The worship services were represented as a “traditional” Morning Prayer service, a “blended” Evening Prayer service, a “contemporary” Morning Prayer service, and a “contemporary” Eucharist service. To Concordia-Kirkwood’s credit, all services had some semblance of liturgical form and could even be recognized as Lutheran. Blended looked like traditional accompanied by praise band instruments in a somewhat reverent way, except for one song. Unfortunately, the worship that we saw were not examples of what we have in the Synod, whether traditional, blended, or contemporary.

I asked DP Terry Cripe what he thought after the contemporary service, which had two theologically light songs and two songs that actually had some meat on them. Pastor Cripe noted the older contemporary songs were indeed terrible, but the better songs were newer. It seemed that song writers have heard some criticism.

Institutional Knowledge

Several pastors made use of institutional knowledge in their presentations. One pastor used hymns such as “Thy Strong Word” and “We All Believe in One True God.” Another used the liturgical Psalm 51, “Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God.” When those were brought out, the assembly was encouraged to sing along. I wonder if the church plants who avoid liturgy and Lutheran hymns will be able to sing these in 20 years.

More to come.

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Thanks, Pastor Wilken!

I dislike the term “contemporary.” Contemporary refers to a short length of historical time, something new, when some of the things that are done in this type of service are not new at all.  The advocates, to avoid getting a term assigned to them by critics, should choose a term that has to do with what is going on in the service.

The worship format war is tangential to and consequential of the theologies people have about worship, and there is more than one theology of worship. It doesn’t take a Master’s Degree of Divinity to see this.

I will be attending the LCMS Model Theological Conference on Worship in St. Louis next week. The advance literature has been interesting, including Chapter 22 of Timothy H. Maschke’s, “Gathered Guests,” titled “Variety in Worship.” There is a lot of talk of freedom, adaptation to the culture, making things “new” again for a congregation, and experiencing other expressions, all of which ring true to me in various degrees.

Yet to those who seek “freedom” in worship, even Maschke has rules.  Some materials cannot be sung by congregations, leaving them to watch the band or the performer. The pastor and those involved in worship planning need to analyze the theme and theology of what they are including in the service. Materials should be “Lutheranized” to emphasize Word and Sacrament, Law and Gospel. Contemporary worship, even to Maschke, is not the “freedom” to do whatever one wants. As someone who has traveled to a lot of different churches while on business trips, I can tell you that even Maschke’s level of discernment has not been followed. Watching some services has been like driving without seat belts or even a steering wheel.

Whatever the variety the LCMS seeks, it should make sure that the texts we use in worship, first are free of heterodox theology, and second, include good Christian theology. One can sing a sing, “Jesus is Lord,” 20 times, and while the statement is indeed true, think of those who can’t confess the Nicene Creed who can still claim that “Jesus is Lord.” A love song to Jesus can be sung by just about anyone — even Gandhi is quoted as saying he liked Jesus.

We can take that even further. I should be able to tell upon viewing the whole text of the service what denomination that church is and what that church teaches. It makes no sense for a Lutheran church to teach that people can earn even part of their way to heaven, or that Jesus exists as separate God and man people, or that the sacraments are mere metaphor.

If the Model Theological Conference on Worship can publish guidelines that ensure that distinctly Lutheran doctrine is proclaimed in the order of service and in the hymns, and those guidelines are followed, then it will be a success in my opinion. Some may inappropriately call that “dead orthodoxy” or slavery to a doctrine, but we are supposed to be slaves to Christ, and we should teach his Word. We have to complete that sentence in the Great Commission, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

The core argument is not liturgical vs. contemporary. Those are styles and tools. A liturgy can be written that totally botches law and gospel. How many times have we seen “confessions of sins” that say only that we are sorry for not evangelizing, or that we have bad attitudes, or that we haven’t given enough to the church? Likewise, we can have contemporary worship that puts us into true pondering of the Word that God has given to us, such as Cantor Magness’s Taizé service. That requires real work, though, on the part of the cantor or pastor to deliver sound doctrine.

I am interested in seeing if the Conference tries to push for freedom for freedom’s sake, or if and how it will address the proper usage of new tools to ensure that Lutherans in these new services will actually stay Lutheran, recognizing their own depravity and relying on Christ for their deliverance. The published liturgies in TLH/LW/LSB have the advantage over the need for reinventing the wheel.

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This last year has seen a lot for my family, including:

A lot less travel this year. Times got a little scary in the 2^nd quarter as my training job was phased out and we weren’t sure whether I could get transferred in time. Thanks be to God, I did get the transfer from Cementing back to my old digs in Production Enhancement. We’ve been bug-testing the next release of software, and I’ve been able to do that from home. This year may involve me doing some international travel.

Lots of support for my dad. Thanks to everyone who has prayed for and helped my parents.  Dad is out of organized therapy and doing some exercises at home. He and Mom are taking it one day at a time.

The girls are in school! They started kindergarten. Pray for them, since it’s public school.  Twin #2’s communication has improved a lot this year.

A new church. Zion in Columbus has been good to us. The liturgical consistency gives Twin #2 things to look forward to during the service, and she sings louder than the generally-accepted-as-Lutheran volume. Twin #1 half the time tells the Bible story back to the Sunday School teacher.  Thank you, TDP. Pastor Kudart nominated me to go to the Model Theological Conference on Worship in a couple of weeks, and I am grateful for the opportunity. He also gave me some good theological and musical reading that I aim to get done this year.

Blogging. Got Issues, Etc., Blog of the Week twice this year, which was cool. Blogging has been significantly less this year, partly due to my being home more, partly due to…

Time Out. My wife gave me a microphone last Christmas, which I used to make a couple proof-of-concept shows. Pastor Craig Donofrio of Santa Ana, CA, gave me some good advice right at the start. While I was on the road, I was able to get some help from guest performers and organists along the way, and Episode 8 was the first to be broadcast on Pirate Christian Radio with Chris Rosebrough. Towards the end of July, I had run out of organist accompaniments, and I put a facebook status message out asking for an organist with an LSB and a recorder. Kantor Nathan Beethe of Little Rock, AR, stepped up and said, “I’m your man,” and he has been the man, with his chanting and creative accompaniments. Kantor, Tracey Rolandelli, and Dr. Joel Kramme, my former university choir professor, have given me good vocal advice. Thank you, all. This next year, we are looking at getting license to sing more hymns. I want the podcast to be a good place for people to sing along, and making it self-sufficient wouldn’t be a bad thing, either.

Finally,

A little lighter. The NR Wife got me an iPod touch for my birthday with her mad Craiglist skillz. One app I’ve been using since late July has been “Lose It!”, which is a calorie counter + food database. I went from 297 down to about 265 in mid-November on dieting alone.  This year I plan to keep the food intake reasonable and exercise more. I have Tae Bo DVDs, and I hope the Wii really does do some calorie burning.

Lots to be thankful for in 2009 and some interesting things to look forward to in Twenty-Ten. I wish you all a happy new year. Thank you for reading NR; I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

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If Christmas preparation has you already worn out, put it in neutral and rest a bit before the Big One. Go back and take in the O Antiphons.  Maybe sing or learn some Advent hymns. The Word of the almighty sovereign Lord of heaven and earth had been resting in a womb for nine months, give or take. You can find 15 minutes.

I’ll taking some of my own medicine tonight.  The Christmas cookie cut-outs the twins and I baked too often stuck to the cookie sheets.  To Teflon®! Maybe a return is in order. Then the older twin, in batches of five or six, asks, “Can we open the presents from Grandma and Grandpa” and “Please, please, PLEASE, can I have another cookie?” The younger twin doesn’t bother to ask: she just grabs them, so the cookies have to be defended while they cool and the icing dries.

If you haven’t visited the Time Out site, do so this evening and the next couple of days.  We have a ton of new stuff for December, including:

• Episodes 42, 43, and 44, featuring Advent hymns
• An Advent Bonus Edition with three more hymns
• The O Antiphons, chanted by Nathan Beethe
• Christmas Eve, Episode 45, appearing 12:15pm EST, featuring “Lo, How A Rose E’er Blooming”
• A Christmas Bonus Edition with three more hymns.

I do suggest the Christmas Bonus Edition on Friday, which includes, a cold- and decongestant-free, “Now Sing We, Now Rejoice,” and a bilingual “Silent Night.”

It takes effort to celebrate! Get rested up so you can enjoy it.  Merry Christmas.

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This was the first time I’d heard this kind of service. There was a lot of antiphonal chanting as well as percussive and stringed instruments, if I heard it right.  I could discern quite well what the cantor was singing, but the congregation’s part was understandably muddled.

When evaluating alternative/contemporary/whatever-we-call-it-now kinds of worship, I try to look for what gets left out as well as what gets added. That looked OK: Christian doctrine was confessed in the service, and Bethany’s pastor Rev. Tim Rossow preached a good Law and Gospel sermon. The Litany from LSB’s Evening Prayer was a welcome section of normalcy.

I understand that because of the origins of the music, everyone in those original services had to learn the songs in a new language (Latin) to emphasize equality, and repetition obviously helps that. Another purpose of the repetition in Taizé, though, according to the LCMS sheet, is to keep adding instruments, descants, and other things to the musical lines. I am curious as to whether the plentiful repetition in Taizé and the continuous building of additional layers and harmonies could possibly take the focus off the text and put it on the music, as those in the experience are wondering where the next layer going to come from. I’m sure Cantor Magness will be the first to tell us that the music serves the text rather than the other way around.

It was a good, obviously well-practiced performance, and I enjoyed listening to it. I also appreciate any opportunities to get antiphonal chants back into worship.

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Welcome, everyone who visited from the Issues, Etc., site! Be sure to also check out the Time Out podcast for favorite hymns and Bible readings.

As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written,

“‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’”

Jesus says John is a prophet, even more than a prophet. Recall that the OT prophets of God did some rocking things back in the day: Elijah raised the dead, parted a river, extended food, called down a famine, called down fire upon a water-soaked altar in a duel of gods, and left the earth on a chariot of fire, for starters. Moses had his share of deeds with Pharoah, bringing water from rocks, et cetera. These guys demonstrated fantastic acts with the power of God, but verse 11 says that among those born of women, John was greater than these.

What did John do? He preached repentance. He baptized. He announced “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” He decreased so that Christ would increase.

When we people talk about the power of God, often we don’t talk of the things John did.  We like the Pharisees desire to see signs. We look for proof outside the Word that God is in our lives. Given the choice we would rather see Jesus heal the paralytic than forgive his sin. Those who would like to be seen as greatest of God seek the packed auditoriums, the landmark worship centers, and the best-selling books — although I hear “At the House of My Fathers” is pretty good.

The greatest man born of woman does the same things that Christ demands of our pastors. It is a better miracle that the message of a pastor convicts a person of his sin, and the Holy Spirit grants that man repentance. It is a better miracle that someone is baptized. It is a better miracle to announce the forgiveness of sins. And these better miracles continue with us today.

Please, Christian pastors.  Warn us to flee from the wrath that is to come. Prune our dead trust in our own deeds. Ditch the how-to application sermons and the programs, trying to administer our lives better than we can, and deliver the hard-hitting Law that drives us to cry for mercy at the cross. Then we can be watered with a Gospel that causes us to bear fruit in keeping with repentance and gives us a thankfulness that lets us tell everyone what God has done for us.

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There is good debate about whether Christians should sign the Manhattan Declaration, a political document authored by people from various Christian denominations. At the time of this post the number of people affixing their name is reaching 220,000.

The Declaration (PDF) contains this statement on page 7:

Writing from an explicitly Christian perspective, and citing Christian writers such as Augustine and Aquinas, (Dr. Martin Luther) King taught that just laws elevate and ennoble human beings because they are rooted in the moral law whose ultimate source is God Himself.

Pr. Charles Lehmann noted on cyberbrethren.com that Dr. King didn’t believe in the divinity of Christ. The evidence was easily enough to find.  From “The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Symbol of the Movement,” January 1957, viewable in Google Books:

We may find the divinity of Christ not in his substantial unity with God, but in his filial consciousness and in his unique dependence upon God. It was his felling of absolute dependence of God, as Schleiermaker would say, that made him divine.

Furthermore:

The orthodox attempt to explain the divinity of Jesus in terms of an inherent metaphysical substance within him seems to me quite inadequate. To say that the Christ, whose example of living we are bid to follow, is divine in an ontological sense is actually harmful and detrimental. To invest this Christ with such supernatural qualities makes the rejoinder: “Oh, well, he had a better chance for that kind of life than we can possible (sic) have.” In other words, one could easily use this as a means to hide behind behind (sic) his failures. So that the orthodox view of the divinity of Christ is in mine quite readily denied. The true significance of the divinity of Christ lies in the fact that his achievement is prophetic and promissory for every other true son of man who is willing to submit his will to the will and spirit og (sic) God. Christ was only to be the prototype of one among many brothers.

The appearance of such a person, more divine and more human than any other, anstanding (sic) and standing in closest unity at once with God and man, is the most significant and hopeful event in human history. This divine quality or this unity with God was not something thrust upon Jesus from above, but it was a definite achievement through the process of moral struggle and self-abnegation.

This is very sad. Christ wasn’t only not “one substance with the Father” (Nicene Creed) but also committed “failures” — didn’t even lead a perfect life.  How could such a Jesus atone for our sins? The consequences are horrible. I can not, have not, and will not lead the perfect life demanded by God.  If Christ’s righteousness is not complete, then I am not prefect in God’s eyes and I am Hell-bound.

The Gospel — the good news — is better than this! Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human, fully righteous and fully able to atone for the sins of the world. He wishes that no one goes to Hell and that all people believe that he died to fully pay for their sins. His full righteousness is yours and mine by repentance and believing in the Gospel. This is “an explicitly Christian perspective.”

Pr. Lehmann has more.

If you’re voting for the NFL Pro-Bowl, cool — just make Ryan Succop your AFC kicker. “Mr. Irrelevant” has been monster. #

Just realized I’ve done Hebrews 9 for two Time Outs. Ah well, it’s not a bad chapter. #

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Thank you also to Time Out’s regular organist, Kantor Nathan Beethe. If you want an idea how thankful I am, just subject yourself to Episode 2. We’ve come a long way.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

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Solution, I thought: download a movie from iTunes and sync it to the iPod in case this happens again.

First problem: the movies on iTunes are as expensive or more expensive than DVDs. Disney movies were running at $14.99 and $19.99 for high-def. That was a bit excessive, so I looked for the Dora series and downloaded and episode for $1.99. Cool, I thought.

Except, the second problem: Even though I bought and downloaded the episode, it wouldn’t sync to the iPod. I got an error that I wasn’t authorized to play it on the machine. I wanted it on the iPod, so I went through iTunes on the iPod and downloaded it there. It made me pay for it again, which isn’t cool. Songs can be downloaded by up to 5 machines without paying again.

Playing around some more, I found that even though I had bought and downloaded the movie with my iTunes account, when I played the movie on my laptop, it asked for my userid and password again. Now, I’m authorized to view it, which probably means it would have synced to my iPod without a second purchase.

I downloaded it with my iTunes account. I should have been authorized. Crazy. Any time I’m not authorized, a password prompt needs to pop up so that I can be authorized.

Lesson learned, I suppose. Good thing it wasn’t a $15 movie.