Liturgy and Worship
Our Worship
Traditional in Form
We’re very traditional in our approach to worship for many good reasons. And this is intentional.
Contrary to what some think today about old and traditional worship with its rich and ostentatious ceremonies, Lutherans take a more nuanced approach to ceremony. We see the value of ceremonies “to teach men Scripture, and that those admonished by the Word may conceive faith and fear [of God, and obtain comfort], and thus also may pray (for these are the designs of ceremonies…)).
One should note, moreover, that “rites and ceremonies are necessary in worship…” (Paul H. D. Lang, Ceremony and Celebration, Originally published by Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Missouri, 1965, reproduced Oculi–March 14, 2004, Redeemer Lutheran Church, Fort Wayne, Indiana and Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Adell, Wisconsin, on p. 6). Lang goes on to write:
“The only kind of worship imaginable without rites and ceremonies would be private worship which is entirely without intelligible words. As soon as words are used, spoken or unspoken, symbols are employed, for words are symbols, and symbols belong to ceremonial. Public worship cannot be unceremonial because it requires some form of communication and all forms of communication are ceremony. When people speak about unceremonial worship, it is not a question of ceremonies, but of informality and spontaneity. Even informal or spontaneous worship, however, must have some kind of form or ceremonial. The phrase so commonly used in so-called informal worship, ‘Shall we pray,’ is just as much a form as ‘Let us pray.’ A hymn is a form, even a prescribed form. So also are hymn tunes and the Lord’s Prayer. In time even unprescribed, spontaneous forms become routine and then the worship is formal, ritualistic, or ceremonial. Such rites and ceremonies may differ from the traditional ones, but they are nevertheless ceremonial.”
Some people think that worship that is old and traditional in form cannot be relevant to us today, or worse yet, that the old ways of worship are no longer in step with the Holy Spirit’s work today. Nothing could be further from the truth in our view. The Holy Spirit is at work precisely where God’s Word is taught in its purity and the Sacraments Jesus gave us are administered in accord with His teaching.
So while there are certainly many ways in which we can rightly worship God, using either old or new forms, we generally stick with the older, tried-and-true forms that focus on the Word and have a long and sustained record of focus on that Word. Don’t worry though; we’re not stuck in the past. The Holy Spirit continues to bless the church with new expressions of the Word in songs, hymns, and spiritual songs.
Word- and Christ-centered in Focus
Worship for Lutherans is first and foremost about God bringing salvation to us poor sinners through Christ and His Word. When we worship God, we receive those gifts of the Gospel anew. We never tire of this. It is the center of our spirituality, for as the Holy Spirit teaches us through Paul, our life is now hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:1-4). To live we must abide in Christ, and to abide in Christ we must abide in His Word and in His Sacraments.
Having received those gifts, we also offer our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving back to God, and we offer our lives in sacrificial love to one another and to others in our lives. But this is secondary to our understanding of Christian worship, which is primarily God bringing to us the forgiveness of sins through Christ and the Word. That Word brought us to life in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. That Word sustains us in Christ’s life by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Historic Liturgy
Our pattern of worship is liturgical and historical.
In a practical sense, what that means for us is that during our liturgical worship services, we can all benefit the most from the Word of God which is so abundantly present and which gives us life.
While each of us has much to learn about true worship that pleases God (John 4:24), we must always remember that God Himself longs to bring to us Christ’s gifts of the Gospel. We therefore love the liturgy as it has been faithfully handed down generation after generation in the church, for He who gathers us together in Christ’s name and sanctifies us through those Gospel gifts (Word and Sacrament) is at work in us through them by the power of the Holy Spirit to keep us in Christ.
We don’t claim to be perfect at any of this, for there is great mystery in the celebration of the Mass; however, everything we aim to do in our worship is biblical and always points us to Christ crucified.
Lutheran Hymnody
We are very blessed to have a rich a collection of Hymns available for our congregations to sing the Faith during the Mass and in other services. These musical treasures are esteemed by Christians in many different denominations and traditions as well, as they articulate so clearly the wonderful theology that undergirds faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is one of the most influential legacies of the Lutheran tradition today, and, sadly, it is not fully appreciated even among some Lutheran churches. But more and more churches are starting to see these strong biblical hymns as a resource for Teaching the Faith and of proclaiming the Gospel to one another and to the world in our generation.