So, What Are The Rubrics For Liturgical Thundersticks During Worship?

So, what are the rubrics for when Christian’s gather to worship and wish to incorporate the use of “thundersticks” into worship? Does anybody know? I can’t find the required rubrics anywhere in the Lutheran Service book! Why is that?

First we need to define some terms…

Rubrics are according to the Lutheran Cyclopedia are “Directions for conducting services; the name is derived from the red ink often used for them, in distinction from the text of the service, in black ink.” Another way of putting that is that the rubrics tell us how to conduct the Divine Service so that everything moves and is conducted in an orderly fashion. There have been rubrics governing the conduct of the Divine Service since God instituted congregational worship in Leviticus. If you think that Leviticus is nothing more than a bunch of rules for an Old Testament Israel to follow then the rest of this post will not make any sense whatsoever. Just sayin’…

Thundersticks according to Wikipedia are “sometimes known as cheerstix, bangers or bambams, are long, narrow plastic balloons that are used as promotional noise makers. The noise is created when two thundersticks are struck together. They are most often used at sporting events, political rallies and concerts.”

Worship was defined by the reformation era Lutherans as the gathering of the faithful where the marks of the Church were present, that is to say, where the people could go to hear the Word preached purely and the Sacraments administered rightly. The center of the Christian’s spiritual life has always been the gathering together for worship and this is why our confessions point to the “marks” for the very definition of what the Church is.

So, back to my question… what are the rubrics for when Christian’s gather to worship and wish to incorporate the use of “thundersticks” into worship? Maybe I need to explain why I’m asking the question to begin with.

At July’s National Youth Gathering one of the mass events featured thundersticks used en masse (pun intended) by both those leading the service as well as by the kids. As I have been set straight by one of the workers for the mass events that “were not considered a "worship service," but were considered worship” I think it’s only fair that we make certain that our kids don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the use thundersticks during worship is in any way similar to their use in baseball or football games.

It is crucial that we teach our children that order in worship should be of the utmost importance and that rubrics help facilitate such order. How can expect our children to return to their grandfather’s church and those dusty old hymnals if we don’t take the liturgical use of thundersticks seriously and write rubrics for the time-honored use of these joyful noisemakers?

To not properly incorporate thundersticks into the worship life of our congregations through ordered rubrics would simply turn our worship services into something resembling pagan sporting events and profane the holy things of the Church. We don’t want that do we? No, we don’t.

It’s all about setting an example for our children it is.