Who Says I’m Not Open To Contemporary Worship?

My missus and I will try out a new church tomorrow.

I always like to call ahead (OK, my favorite niece was on Facebook and IM’d the pastor for me, she was more than happy to help her uncle out!) and announce that I’m going to visit someplace new so that the pastor’s job is made easy and he doesn’t have to wonder if the person he is communing shares the same confession of faith that all Lutherans are supposed to. I certainly don’t want him to wonder if I’m some Jack Mormon who just wandered off the street and thinks that the Holy Supper is only a representation of the body and blood of our Lord and to be consumed as part of an ordinance (hey, that’s just like my evangelical and reformed friends... that’s kinda weird ain’t it?) and not the true Body and Blood that offers life, salvation, and the remission of sins by the power of the Word attached to the elements of bread and wine. So, I’m considerate like that and all.

Anyhoo, I was warned by the pastor (once again through social media instant messaging) that tomorrow being the fifth Sunday of the month it is normal for the congregation to experiment with contemporary worship: Divine Service 1! When I asked if the service was going to be conducted in Latin or even Greek I was informed that the language of choice for this particular congregation was but the vernacular!

So, there you have it; tomorrow I will knowingly go to a church that practices contemporary worship, Divine Service 1 out of the Lutheran Service Book, and conducts the entire service in English. Who says I’m not open to contemporary worship?

“This Stuff Is Depressing!”

First the back-story…

I just got around to retuning my digital converter box last week. I was trying to get the local PBS station which I haven’t been able to pick up since the country went from an analog to a digital signal for over the air TV. (No, I don’t have cable or satellite, only the freebie signal picked up by a pair of good old fashiony rabbit ears.) I knew that all us cheapskates who get our TV for free (I am cheap, just ask anybody who knows me) were supposed to reset our converter boxes right after the switch but I had simply put the task off.

While I’m still not able to pick up my local PBS signal, I was a bit surprised that I picked a new and previously unknown to me and all channel called ION. I’m really enjoying one or two of the ION stations with the sailing lifestyle program Attitudes and Latitudes being my favorite. (I’m big fan of being out on the water and it doesn't seem to matter if it’s sailing, kayaking or even a fishing trip!) But not all the channels are my cup of tea, like for instance the ION Worship channel.

The Worship channel is basically what you’d expect from Americanized Christianity. There’s lots of talk of God with precious little discussion of either Jesus, what exactly it is that Jesus did for us at the cross, or what He does for us right now through the means of grace, that is to say; the preached Word and administered Sacraments. I have wonder if the producers for these programs have Jesus stuffed in a back room somewhere next to the first aid kit and right under the sign saying “If you use something make sure you return it; somebody else may need to use it after you, signed: management ”. Is it so hard to even mention his name? Apparently, yes it is.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t expect a discussion of the Heidelberg Disputation or Chemnitz’s Loci Theologici. To be honest there are very few churches Lutheran or otherwise where in-depth studies and discussions are common place. It’s sad but it’s true.

I do find myself watching ION’s Worship channel every now and then though to see what some of my more evangelical friends, whether they are reformed or Calvinist, view as worship. I’ve found that a good many of these same friends use the term worship interchangeably with sanctified living, good works, and even daily devotionals. Worship, for many, is not necessarily synonymous with what goes on in church on a Sunday morning although it is sometimes included, albeit rarely, in that context. Occasionally worship in the Americanized Christian lexicon can mean just listening to songs that are playing on contemporary Christian music radio stations and there are a lot of these songs on ION Worship’s playlist.

Okey-dokey, that’s the back-story.

I was listening to ION Worship’s Hymns of Hope program over the weekend when my missus wandered into the living room with a puzzled look on her face and asked “What the heck are you listening to?” I responded I didn’t know which of the four lines was the title and was watching strictly for curiosities’ sake.

Her next remark was priceless; “Well, this stuff is depressing! I stopped listening to country music when it all got to be this depressing.”

She had a point. The song was not unlike a pop hit where the singer tries his best to be all emotional and sensitive through a singing style reminiscent of something close to the grunge style of music in the nineties. There is no doubt that it does indeed take a good bit of talent to sing as if you just had a root canal without the benefit of anesthesia. I guess the question I’m thinking is; should songs sung in worship need to sound this way to express hope.

To be fair, the historic church has always sung hymns that had a somewhat somber tone during penitential seasons like Lent but the focus of those hymns is always Christ’s journey to Jerusalem and the cross. These wonderful hymns are filled with sung confessions of Christ atoning work is a far cry from songs that can’t even so mention our Lord much less his salvific work.

Now maybe the performer was indeed grief-stricken having only four lines to sing before he had to repeat the chorus five or six times. It stuck me as odd that the chorus was the majority of the song. I know I’d get a little bummed out if I had to perform such a repetitive composition.

And the kicker alluded to above; there wasn’t a single mention of God, Jesus, or Holy Ghost. There wasn’t even a mention of a generic deity that is included sometimes in prayers so as to be all ecumenical and not offend. Who the heck wants to sing a song that doesn’t mention God or Jesus and call it worship. How in the world do you sing a song on a program called Hymns of Hope without giving a reason for the hope we have in Christ Jesus?

Where is the hope without Jesus? Answer, there isn’t and maybe that’s the reason the performer sounded a bit depressed.

Will Museum Keepers Do The Keeping?

The awesome Mollie Ziegler Hemingway over at Steadfast Lutherans reports that the LCMS is opening a museum. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch article:

KIRKWOOD — The second-largest Lutheran denomination in North America opened a museum Sunday at its international headquarters on Kirkwood Road, telling the story of its growth since being founded in 1847 in the St. Louis area by Saxon and German immigrants seeking religious freedom.
One can see editions of some of Martin Luther’s books from the mid-1500s; a model of a ship that brought Lutherans to America in 1838; and the carriage that carried the synod’s first president. One can also hear radio broadcasts from the 1940s played on KFUO, the nation’s longest continually running Christian radio station.

Commenting on the article Charles Henrickson makes an important clarification and writes: "One small correction to the article: A visitor is quoted as saying, "It's the first time we've had a place to go and get one good overview of our church." That's not correct. For many years the museum was housed at the Concordia Historical Institute on the campus of Concordia Seminary in Clayton. Now the museum has been moved to the LCMS International Center in Kirkwood. So it's a relocation, not the "first time" we've had the museum."

Ok, all I want to know is will the LCMS staff the museum with, uh, I don’t know… museum keepers?

What Is A Confessional Lutheran?

“What is a confessional Lutheran?” That’s the question that was asked of me in a private email last week. Until I get back up on email I thought I’d give the readers a shot at this question. It should be noted that the question came from someone not terribly familiar with Lutherans.

I would argue that there are a good many folks who say that they are confessional but what they mean varies a great deal from the historic context of the phrase.

So, what is a confessional Lutheran and what does that mean?

Lack Of Posting And Texas Brouhaha

Sorry folks for the lack of posting this week. I’m down in Orlando at a metrology conference and my access to the web is a bit limited. I decided to save the company about thirty dollars a night by not staying on Disney property where the conference is being held so I can't access the hotel’s wireless. Oh well…

As far as I can tell, the biggest brouhaha in Lutheran circles this week is the decision to bring in a women worship pastor from outside the Lutheran church to lead the worship at a youth gathering down in Texas. In fact there are several individuals from outside Lutheran thought being brought in to lead youth ranging from the charismatic to nondenominational whose confession deny that Christ is present in, with, and under the Lord’s Supper as well as denying the Sacrament of Holy Baptism is anything but an ordinance with no regenerative effect.

There are several good posts addressing the matter over at Father Hollywood here, here, and here. Steadfast Lutherans have a post by Pastor Todd Wilken here and Pastor Timothy Rossow here. Pastor William Weedon also had a post here. Scott over at Stand Firm does exactly that right here. That great little firefly out on the west coast Lutheran Lucciola also chimmed in here.

If anyone has anymore information just forward it to me and I’ll try to post it in an update. Just remember that over the next few days I need to wait until I get back to the hotel to really get anything done…

Update: Dan over at Necessary Roughness chimes in on the matter with a post titled Need a Speaker or Teacher for Your Lutheran Youth Event. Good points Dan!

I'm Not A Conservative!

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I’ve been a little busy at work. I've also been dealing with all the folks linking to me because of my post entitled Thoughts On The LCMS Youth Gathering. Not too many of those links have been positive.

Because of that post there are some folks out there that have been labeling me either a nut or worse yet; a conservative. I am not a conservative. I am not a conservative Lutheran. What I am however is a confessional Lutheran. So what is the difference?

Confessional Lutherans subscribe to the doctrines laid out in the Book of Concord because they are in agreement with the Scriptures. In other words they offer a quai subscription. Confessional Lutherans believe and confess that Scripture has given us poor miserable creatures very clear doctrines and that those very same doctrines needn’t be understood by human reason, common sense, or in context of whatever century or year we might all be living in.

The confessors wrote in the Formula of Concord the following:

“Therefore, it is our intent to give witness before God and all Christendom, among those who are alive today and those who will come after us, that the explanation here set forth regarding all the controversial articles of faith which we have addressed and explained–and no other explanation–is our teaching, faith, and confession. In it we shall appear before the judgment throne of Jesus Christ, by God’s grace, with fearless hearts and thus give account of our faith, and we will neither secretly nor publicly speak or write anything contrary to it. Instead, on the strength of God’s grace, we intend to abide by this confession (FC SD, XII, 40).”

With all that being said, you might see why I’m not a conservative, or maybe not.

Most Christians (and I would dare say Lutherans) in America these days are conservative with Billy Graham being at the top of the most admired list. Billy Graham is a conservative Christian because he believes that the Bible is God’s word. But he also believes and promotes decision theology, which means that one must make a conscious decision to accept Christ, is why Rev. Graham had alter calls at his crusades. This in spite of Jesus himself saying;

“All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.” [Matthew 11:27]

Decision theology is just the tip of the iceberg which separates Confessional and conservative Christians. I happen to be the former, because I confess. I don’t confess insofar as I understand the Bible but rather I confess. That insofar as is what separates me from the conservatives.

So in conclusion, I am not a conservative!