Jared Wilson writes:
Gospel deficiency is the major crisis of the evangelical church. The good news has been replaced by many things, most often a therapeutic, self-help approach to biblical application. The result is a Church that, ironically enough, preaches works, not grace, and a growing number of Christians who neither understand the gospel nor revel in its scandal.
Read the remainder of this excellent blog post here.
Some highlights:
1. The gospel is not advice. It is news.
It is not “Do more, be more, try more.” It is the message that the work is done.
The gospel does not say “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” It says “It is finished!”
Our flesh hates this contrast. We hate it because the gospel says to us “You can’t do it; you are unable; you are deficient.” And we don’t like to hear that. Nobody wants to hear that we are incapable of saving ourselves, that in our insidest insides we are broken and cannot repair ourselves.
But this is what the gospel forces us to admit. And because it forces us to admit we are sinners deserving punishment with no inherent means of rescue, it forces us to admit that only God can save us, which forces us to reckon with the gospel truth that salvation is God’s work, not ours.
2. If holding the gospel as the power to save doesn’t push us toward greater gospel-centeredness, certainly Paul’s claim that it is of “first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3) should do the trick. But, again, we hold off on the gospel. We make it occasional or half-hearted, thereby ascribing it lesser worth than our very important and self-devised Six Steps for Successful Living.
In a recent White Horse Inn podcast, the fellows warned listeners to beware the preacher who says, “Well, of course the gospel.” The point here is that they are highlighting so much of what they do that is not the gospel and then when asked about the gospel’s absence, they say, “Well, of course the gospel.” In such churches the gospel is implied. Which means it is an afterthought. An implied gospel is a gospel FAIL.
The gospel should not be implied. It is of first importance. It should be the clearest, most prevalent message and theme of all a community’s worship and focus.
3. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us. We are fickle, self-righteous, forgetful people. Yet we serve a steadfast, gracious, faithful God. Many preachers are fearful of highlighting the gospel every time they speak for fear of it appearing stale. But gospel redundancy is a good thing! We need it. We need the gospel every day (His mercies are new every morning) because we forget it and we sin every day.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
"You, Too, Should be a Fundamentalist"
I stumbled on this very nice, little essay by a friend of mine, Dr. Lawrence Rast, Academic Dean at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne. In it, he sees in current evangelicalism a lack of historical roots and confessional stability. Instead evangelicalism is drifting into a meaningless individualism:
To put it another way, evangelicalism may be becoming the victim of its own sense of historylessness, which could lead to an aimless drifting on the American religious scene. As elder statesmen pass away and institutions shift with the times, the lack of the anchor of a sense of history and confession has put American evangelicalism into a state of flux perhaps as significant as that faced by the liberal churches a century ago.
Where Butler saw America "awash in a sea of faith," present-day evangelicalism, which lacks a deep and abiding sense of a living tradition (though by no means authoritative in the Roman Catholic sense), seems adrift in a sea of individual faiths that are radically personal and individualistic in nature. The fides qua creditor (the personal faith that apprehends the merits of Christ) has so trumped the fides quae creditor (the historic Christian faith that is believed) that the latter is largely unknown and sometimes simply ignored. This radical individualism and sense of historylessness manifests itself perhaps most clearly in the lack of a formal confessional tradition within the evangelical movement. And lacking this anchor, evangelicalism has democratized to the point of making individualizing confession to the point of meaninglessness. "How can you question my faith? It works for me," and so on. The faith experience of the individual becomes absolutely authoritative.
Then he writes this about the LCMS and its history:
My own faith tradition, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (founded in 1847), has had a tension-filled experience with American evangelicalism. While it adapted some evangelical methods and strategies for reaching those apart from the church and it applauded a number of evangelicalism's points, ) it simultaneously criticized evangelical theology severely for what it believed were departures from the historic faith-the fides quae creditur. However, with the fundamentalist/modernist controversy and the emergence of a reorganized evangelicalism in the post-World War II era, some in Missouri moved closer to evangelicalism. Walter A. Maier, the famous and influential Lutheran Hour speaker not only preached a sermon titled, "You, Too, Should be a Fundamentalist," he also frequently challenged his hearers to "accept" Christ's "offer" of salvation.
The whole essay is very much worth reading. But I will make you go over to Modern Reformation to read it. You will have to sign up for a free issue to get access but it is worth it.
To put it another way, evangelicalism may be becoming the victim of its own sense of historylessness, which could lead to an aimless drifting on the American religious scene. As elder statesmen pass away and institutions shift with the times, the lack of the anchor of a sense of history and confession has put American evangelicalism into a state of flux perhaps as significant as that faced by the liberal churches a century ago.
Where Butler saw America "awash in a sea of faith," present-day evangelicalism, which lacks a deep and abiding sense of a living tradition (though by no means authoritative in the Roman Catholic sense), seems adrift in a sea of individual faiths that are radically personal and individualistic in nature. The fides qua creditor (the personal faith that apprehends the merits of Christ) has so trumped the fides quae creditor (the historic Christian faith that is believed) that the latter is largely unknown and sometimes simply ignored. This radical individualism and sense of historylessness manifests itself perhaps most clearly in the lack of a formal confessional tradition within the evangelical movement. And lacking this anchor, evangelicalism has democratized to the point of making individualizing confession to the point of meaninglessness. "How can you question my faith? It works for me," and so on. The faith experience of the individual becomes absolutely authoritative.
Then he writes this about the LCMS and its history:
My own faith tradition, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (founded in 1847), has had a tension-filled experience with American evangelicalism. While it adapted some evangelical methods and strategies for reaching those apart from the church and it applauded a number of evangelicalism's points, ) it simultaneously criticized evangelical theology severely for what it believed were departures from the historic faith-the fides quae creditur. However, with the fundamentalist/modernist controversy and the emergence of a reorganized evangelicalism in the post-World War II era, some in Missouri moved closer to evangelicalism. Walter A. Maier, the famous and influential Lutheran Hour speaker not only preached a sermon titled, "You, Too, Should be a Fundamentalist," he also frequently challenged his hearers to "accept" Christ's "offer" of salvation.
The whole essay is very much worth reading. But I will make you go over to Modern Reformation to read it. You will have to sign up for a free issue to get access but it is worth it.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
New Lutheran body to form after gay pastor vote
From the AP :
The split over gay clergy within the country's largest Lutheran denomination has prompted a conservative faction to begin forming a new Lutheran church body separate from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Leaders of Lutheran CORE said Wednesday that a working group would immediately begin drafting a constitution and taking other steps to form the denomination, with hopes to have it off the ground by next August.
"There are many people within the ELCA who are very unhappy with what has happened," said the Rev. Paull Spring, chairman of Lutheran CORE and a retired ELCA bishop from State College, Pa.
At its annual convention in Minneapolis in August, ELCA delegates voted to lift a ban that had prohibited sexually active gay and lesbian pastors from serving as clergy. The new policy, expected to take effect in April, will allow such individuals to lead ELCA churches as long as they can show that they are in committed, lifelong relationships.
Opponents, led by Lutheran CORE, said that decision is in direct contradiction to Scripture.
At a September convention, Lutheran CORE members voted to spend a year considering whether to form a new Lutheran denomination. However, its leaders said Wednesday that a heavy volume of requests for an alternative from disenfranchised congregations and churchgoers prompted them to hasten the process.
John Brooks, spokesman at the ELCA's Chicago-based headquarters, said Lutheran CORE's move was not unexpected. He expressed hope that church members would ultimately opt to stay in the denomination as it strives to be "a place for all people despite any differences we might have on any issues."
Neither Brooks nor Lutheran CORE leaders would guess what kind of numbers a new denomination might attract. Lutheran CORE leaders believe there is deep opposition to the new policy among rank-and-file churchgoers, but said some may not be willing to actually depart the ELCA over it.
Brooks said the ELCA has not seen significant departures yet, but he cautioned it's too soon after the August decision to read much into that.
So far, he said, five congregations nationwide have voted to leave the ELCA. More have started the process, with 87 taking a first vote to leave the denomination. Of those, 28 did not achieve the two-thirds vote necessary to leave the ELCA. In all, there are 10,300 ELCA churches in the country with about 4.7 million members.
If a congregation passes the two-thirds bar on its first vote, it must then wait 90 days before taking a second, final vote that also requires a two-thirds majority.
Other Christian denominations have seen factions split off over the gay clergy debate. In 2003, the 2 million-member Episcopal Church consecrated its first openly gay bishop, a move that alienated American Episcopalians from its worldwide parent, the Anglican Communion. The divide has led to the formation of the more conservative Anglican Church in North America, which claims 100,000 members.
In addition to helping birth a new Lutheran church body, Lutheran CORE leaders said their organization would continue its recent move toward creating a free-floating synod within the ELCA for congregations opposed to the liberalized policy but who don't want to leave the denomination.
Lutheran CORE has also urged supportive congregations to stop paying so-called mission support funds that help supplement the ELCA's operating budget. Last weekend, ELCA leaders reduced their 2010 operating budget by $7.7 million, a move Brooks said was motivated mainly by the U.S. economy but also in part by an expected drop in the mission funds.
Ryan Schwarz, a Lutheran CORE member from Washington, D.C., is charged with leading the organizing effort for the new denomination. He said a committee would begin work immediately on drafting a constitution, building a budget and other steps needed to form the yet-unnamed denomination. They hope to have it ready to go by next August, he said.
"Many of us have spent years now struggling to call the ELCA to remain faithful to the Orthodox Christianity of the last 2,000 years," Schwarz said. "While this is of course a wrenching decision, there is also a sense of hope in refocusing on our true mission, which is evangelizing the Lutheran faith."
The split over gay clergy within the country's largest Lutheran denomination has prompted a conservative faction to begin forming a new Lutheran church body separate from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Leaders of Lutheran CORE said Wednesday that a working group would immediately begin drafting a constitution and taking other steps to form the denomination, with hopes to have it off the ground by next August.
"There are many people within the ELCA who are very unhappy with what has happened," said the Rev. Paull Spring, chairman of Lutheran CORE and a retired ELCA bishop from State College, Pa.
At its annual convention in Minneapolis in August, ELCA delegates voted to lift a ban that had prohibited sexually active gay and lesbian pastors from serving as clergy. The new policy, expected to take effect in April, will allow such individuals to lead ELCA churches as long as they can show that they are in committed, lifelong relationships.
Opponents, led by Lutheran CORE, said that decision is in direct contradiction to Scripture.
At a September convention, Lutheran CORE members voted to spend a year considering whether to form a new Lutheran denomination. However, its leaders said Wednesday that a heavy volume of requests for an alternative from disenfranchised congregations and churchgoers prompted them to hasten the process.
John Brooks, spokesman at the ELCA's Chicago-based headquarters, said Lutheran CORE's move was not unexpected. He expressed hope that church members would ultimately opt to stay in the denomination as it strives to be "a place for all people despite any differences we might have on any issues."
Neither Brooks nor Lutheran CORE leaders would guess what kind of numbers a new denomination might attract. Lutheran CORE leaders believe there is deep opposition to the new policy among rank-and-file churchgoers, but said some may not be willing to actually depart the ELCA over it.
Brooks said the ELCA has not seen significant departures yet, but he cautioned it's too soon after the August decision to read much into that.
So far, he said, five congregations nationwide have voted to leave the ELCA. More have started the process, with 87 taking a first vote to leave the denomination. Of those, 28 did not achieve the two-thirds vote necessary to leave the ELCA. In all, there are 10,300 ELCA churches in the country with about 4.7 million members.
If a congregation passes the two-thirds bar on its first vote, it must then wait 90 days before taking a second, final vote that also requires a two-thirds majority.
Other Christian denominations have seen factions split off over the gay clergy debate. In 2003, the 2 million-member Episcopal Church consecrated its first openly gay bishop, a move that alienated American Episcopalians from its worldwide parent, the Anglican Communion. The divide has led to the formation of the more conservative Anglican Church in North America, which claims 100,000 members.
In addition to helping birth a new Lutheran church body, Lutheran CORE leaders said their organization would continue its recent move toward creating a free-floating synod within the ELCA for congregations opposed to the liberalized policy but who don't want to leave the denomination.
Lutheran CORE has also urged supportive congregations to stop paying so-called mission support funds that help supplement the ELCA's operating budget. Last weekend, ELCA leaders reduced their 2010 operating budget by $7.7 million, a move Brooks said was motivated mainly by the U.S. economy but also in part by an expected drop in the mission funds.
Ryan Schwarz, a Lutheran CORE member from Washington, D.C., is charged with leading the organizing effort for the new denomination. He said a committee would begin work immediately on drafting a constitution, building a budget and other steps needed to form the yet-unnamed denomination. They hope to have it ready to go by next August, he said.
"Many of us have spent years now struggling to call the ELCA to remain faithful to the Orthodox Christianity of the last 2,000 years," Schwarz said. "While this is of course a wrenching decision, there is also a sense of hope in refocusing on our true mission, which is evangelizing the Lutheran faith."
Nothing of this world is more durable
Nothing of this world is more durable than the heavens and the earth, and nothing in the order of nature passes away more quickly than speech. Words, as long as they are incomplete, are not yet words. Once completed, they cease utterly to be. In fact they cannot be perfected except by their own passing away.
Therefore he says: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass." As if he were openly to say: all that seems to you enduring and unchangeable is not enduring and without change in eternity. And everything of mine that seems to pass away is enduring and without change. My speech that seems to pass away, utters thoughts which endure forever.
Gregory the Great, Homilies 1.8, in ACCS, NT, Vol. II, p. 190.
Therefore he says: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass." As if he were openly to say: all that seems to you enduring and unchangeable is not enduring and without change in eternity. And everything of mine that seems to pass away is enduring and without change. My speech that seems to pass away, utters thoughts which endure forever.
Gregory the Great, Homilies 1.8, in ACCS, NT, Vol. II, p. 190.
Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours"
Here is a story that illustrates my lack of high culture.
I am sitting in the car with daughter number three waiting for daughter number four to come out from school. We are listening to the classical music station which we very rarely do but I have no rock and roll cds in the car and NPR news is boring at the moment.
Some piece of music comes on and I sit up straight and say "I know that piece! That is Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah by Allen Sherman!" I had no idea it was based on some classical piece of music. Wow. Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah was released in 1963. Growing up, I listened to that song on a 45 rpm record everytime we visited my grandmother in Houston, Texas. It belonged to my grandfather who listened to it as he was ill in the last months of his life.
I don't even know who Ponchielli is. But this is a funny song:
I am sitting in the car with daughter number three waiting for daughter number four to come out from school. We are listening to the classical music station which we very rarely do but I have no rock and roll cds in the car and NPR news is boring at the moment.
Some piece of music comes on and I sit up straight and say "I know that piece! That is Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah by Allen Sherman!" I had no idea it was based on some classical piece of music. Wow. Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah was released in 1963. Growing up, I listened to that song on a 45 rpm record everytime we visited my grandmother in Houston, Texas. It belonged to my grandfather who listened to it as he was ill in the last months of his life.
I don't even know who Ponchielli is. But this is a funny song:
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Postal Insanity
I live in a small town. Most residents get their mail at the Post office in PO boxes. So when you drop a letter for someone in town it has maybe 30 or 40 feet to go to get to its destination. Ever since I arrived here there has been a mail drop labeled "In Town" versus "Out of Town". So customers would self sort the mail; all the Catawba mail would be in one pile and processed right here in the Post Office. Makes sense right?
A few weeks ago the Catawba mail slot disappeared. The post master said the higher ups had decreed that all mail now had to go to Hickory (about twenty miles) west to be processed. Seemed kind of silly. My letter meant for the box literally feet away from the drop box had to travel 40 or 50 miles round trip just to come back to that box.
Now I read in this morning's paper that the Hickory processing center will close down to be replaced by the large center in Greensboro, 90 MILES TO THE EAST!
So, now, if I want to mail a note to one of my fellow citizens of Catawba that piece of mail will have to travel 90 miles to east and 90 miles back, 180 miles, just to get to its destination the few feet from where I drop it.
Insane, insane. No wonder the postal service is losing millions and millions of dollars.
A few weeks ago the Catawba mail slot disappeared. The post master said the higher ups had decreed that all mail now had to go to Hickory (about twenty miles) west to be processed. Seemed kind of silly. My letter meant for the box literally feet away from the drop box had to travel 40 or 50 miles round trip just to come back to that box.
Now I read in this morning's paper that the Hickory processing center will close down to be replaced by the large center in Greensboro, 90 MILES TO THE EAST!
So, now, if I want to mail a note to one of my fellow citizens of Catawba that piece of mail will have to travel 90 miles to east and 90 miles back, 180 miles, just to get to its destination the few feet from where I drop it.
Insane, insane. No wonder the postal service is losing millions and millions of dollars.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Bob Dylan fans are the battered wives of the music industry
Andrew Ferguson at teh Weekly Standard writes a funny, biting article about the decline of Bob Dylan and the silliness of fans who have an unshakable faith in his "genius". The review is right in many respects. Dylan's voice live and in recording has been unlistenable for a long time and his songwriting irrelevant since at least Shot of Love in 1981.
Ferguson's thoughts on the new Dylan Christmas album is spot on:
Many of the notices about Christmas in the Heart have been pussyfooting. We should be clear: The record is not irony, or camp. This is not a case of "It's so bad it's good." Dylan is not Florence Foster Jenkins or Tom Waits. This is a case of "It's so bad I can't believe it." Under no one else's name would a commercial concern like Sony release a product so embarrassing. Yet embarrassing doesn't quite cover it. For a man as self-aware as Bob Dylan, it's--what? The conclusion is unavoidable: He's doing this on purpose. He knows what his record sounds like. It's not a misstep. It's not a gag. It's an affront, a taunt. He's giving us a choice. He's saying, Okay, this is what it's come to: You've got two options. You can cover your ears and go running from the room in horror, or you can call me an enigmatic genius who's daring to plumb heretofore unexplored archetypes of the American imagination. But you can't do both.
But when Ferguson tries to skewer Dylan for not being a poet or a great songwriter like Hoagy Carmichael or Ned Rorem or Virgil Thomson or Cole Porter he misses teh rock and roll boat. Bob Dylan has written plenty fo bad songs even in his prime but he stands in the folk, blues, hillbilly and rock line of songwriters. He is not a stylist. So compare him to Woody Guthrie, Chuck Berry, Big Joe Turner or the Rolling Stones. He does nto wriote poetry , he sings songs. Some bad some pretty amazing.
But, yes, don't buy anything after 1981 and certainly not the new Christmas CD.
Ferguson's thoughts on the new Dylan Christmas album is spot on:
Many of the notices about Christmas in the Heart have been pussyfooting. We should be clear: The record is not irony, or camp. This is not a case of "It's so bad it's good." Dylan is not Florence Foster Jenkins or Tom Waits. This is a case of "It's so bad I can't believe it." Under no one else's name would a commercial concern like Sony release a product so embarrassing. Yet embarrassing doesn't quite cover it. For a man as self-aware as Bob Dylan, it's--what? The conclusion is unavoidable: He's doing this on purpose. He knows what his record sounds like. It's not a misstep. It's not a gag. It's an affront, a taunt. He's giving us a choice. He's saying, Okay, this is what it's come to: You've got two options. You can cover your ears and go running from the room in horror, or you can call me an enigmatic genius who's daring to plumb heretofore unexplored archetypes of the American imagination. But you can't do both.
But when Ferguson tries to skewer Dylan for not being a poet or a great songwriter like Hoagy Carmichael or Ned Rorem or Virgil Thomson or Cole Porter he misses teh rock and roll boat. Bob Dylan has written plenty fo bad songs even in his prime but he stands in the folk, blues, hillbilly and rock line of songwriters. He is not a stylist. So compare him to Woody Guthrie, Chuck Berry, Big Joe Turner or the Rolling Stones. He does nto wriote poetry , he sings songs. Some bad some pretty amazing.
But, yes, don't buy anything after 1981 and certainly not the new Christmas CD.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Different worship styles under same roof can divide congregation
Here is a very interesting article by Terry Mattingly on worship styles in the LCMS. It features Philip Magness and focuses entirely on the LCMS.
If members of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod have heard it once, they’ve heard their national leaders repeat this mantra a thousand times: “This is not your grandfather’s church.”
That’s certainly what musician Phillip Magness experienced when he took a sabbatical from Bethany Lutheran Church in Naperville, Ill., and began a research tour after the 2006 release of the Lutheran Service Book. Since he led the committee charged with promoting the new hymnal, Magness wanted to see what was happening in the conservative denomination’s sanctuaries.
“What I found out is that we’re a lot like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates,” he said. “It says ‘Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’ on the sign, but when you go inside you have no idea what you’re going to get. ... Some of our churches are playing with the structure of the liturgy and some are playing with the content and our whole synod is trying to find out how to draw some boundaries.”
One pastor wanted to offer five worship services in five musical formats to meet the needs of what he perceived as five separate audiences in his church.
The “TLH” service was for members still attached to the 1941 volume called “The Lutheran Hymnal.” Then there was the “Valpo” audience, which yearned for the “smells and bells” approach to high-church worship popular at Valparaiso University in Indiana. Then there were fans of the pop “CCM” music found in the “Contemporary Christian Music” industry. The “Gen X” crowd wanted its own post-baby-boomer music.
The fifth service? It would feature country music.
These struggles are particularly poignant for Missouri Synod Lutherans, who are part of a 2.3 million-member denomination that occupies a tense niche between the larger, more liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the evangelical megachurch marketplace.
It’s crucial, said Magness, to understand that the churches linked to Martin Luther are part of the Protestant Reformation, but it’s hard to pin a simple “Protestant” label on their approach to piety. Missouri Synod Lutherans, for example, have much in common with evangelicals, especially in terms of biblical authority and conservative morality.
However, some parish leaders are not sure they want to make radical changes to modernize their worship services.
Magness, for example, is one of about 30 Missouri Synod musicians known as “cantors,” an honorary title once held by Johann Sebastian Bach and many others in Lutheran history. Magness has created Liturgy Solutions, a company that helps churches of all sizes maintain Lutheran traditions, while mixing old and new music.
“We know that culture is not static,” he said. “We want to find the way to proclaim the church’s message in ways that remain reverent and appropriate, yet sound fresh today. Otherwise, we’d be singing chants in Latin every Sunday.”
The problem is that many pastors resort to forming separate congregations that worship under the same roof — variations on a “traditional” vs. “contemporary” split. What is “traditional” worship? That’s whatever older church leaders were doing before new leaders decided to change what Magness called the “soundtrack” for worship.
Sadly, these worship wars often drive off some faithful members, losses that negate whatever growth followed the changes that were adopted to attract newcomers.
Magness believes that church leaders should attempt to work with all members to create services that are faithful to the past, but not stuck in the past. A common warning sign that trouble is ahead, he added, is when pastors begin altering the words of crucial prayers and liturgical texts — even the ancient creeds.
The bottom line, he said, is that dividing a church into separate, even competing, worship services rarely produces growth. At least, that isn’t what is happening in the Lutheran congregations he has studied.
“Maybe the saints prefer a place where the real practice of the church — preaching the Gospel in its truth and purity and administering the sacraments rightly and reverently — (is) much, much more important than whether Jack’s son gets to play his trap set in church or whether the patriarchal families get to pick all the hymns because they don’t want to sing any new songs,” said Magness at a national worship conference.
“I do know this: the congregation that works out these issues the old-fashioned way provides a better confession of ‘one Lord, one faith and one baptism’ than the congregation that doesn’t share the Lord’s Supper together.”
Terry Mattingly directs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Contact him at tmattingly@cccu.org or www.tmatt.net.
If members of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod have heard it once, they’ve heard their national leaders repeat this mantra a thousand times: “This is not your grandfather’s church.”
That’s certainly what musician Phillip Magness experienced when he took a sabbatical from Bethany Lutheran Church in Naperville, Ill., and began a research tour after the 2006 release of the Lutheran Service Book. Since he led the committee charged with promoting the new hymnal, Magness wanted to see what was happening in the conservative denomination’s sanctuaries.
“What I found out is that we’re a lot like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates,” he said. “It says ‘Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’ on the sign, but when you go inside you have no idea what you’re going to get. ... Some of our churches are playing with the structure of the liturgy and some are playing with the content and our whole synod is trying to find out how to draw some boundaries.”
One pastor wanted to offer five worship services in five musical formats to meet the needs of what he perceived as five separate audiences in his church.
The “TLH” service was for members still attached to the 1941 volume called “The Lutheran Hymnal.” Then there was the “Valpo” audience, which yearned for the “smells and bells” approach to high-church worship popular at Valparaiso University in Indiana. Then there were fans of the pop “CCM” music found in the “Contemporary Christian Music” industry. The “Gen X” crowd wanted its own post-baby-boomer music.
The fifth service? It would feature country music.
These struggles are particularly poignant for Missouri Synod Lutherans, who are part of a 2.3 million-member denomination that occupies a tense niche between the larger, more liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the evangelical megachurch marketplace.
It’s crucial, said Magness, to understand that the churches linked to Martin Luther are part of the Protestant Reformation, but it’s hard to pin a simple “Protestant” label on their approach to piety. Missouri Synod Lutherans, for example, have much in common with evangelicals, especially in terms of biblical authority and conservative morality.
However, some parish leaders are not sure they want to make radical changes to modernize their worship services.
Magness, for example, is one of about 30 Missouri Synod musicians known as “cantors,” an honorary title once held by Johann Sebastian Bach and many others in Lutheran history. Magness has created Liturgy Solutions, a company that helps churches of all sizes maintain Lutheran traditions, while mixing old and new music.
“We know that culture is not static,” he said. “We want to find the way to proclaim the church’s message in ways that remain reverent and appropriate, yet sound fresh today. Otherwise, we’d be singing chants in Latin every Sunday.”
The problem is that many pastors resort to forming separate congregations that worship under the same roof — variations on a “traditional” vs. “contemporary” split. What is “traditional” worship? That’s whatever older church leaders were doing before new leaders decided to change what Magness called the “soundtrack” for worship.
Sadly, these worship wars often drive off some faithful members, losses that negate whatever growth followed the changes that were adopted to attract newcomers.
Magness believes that church leaders should attempt to work with all members to create services that are faithful to the past, but not stuck in the past. A common warning sign that trouble is ahead, he added, is when pastors begin altering the words of crucial prayers and liturgical texts — even the ancient creeds.
The bottom line, he said, is that dividing a church into separate, even competing, worship services rarely produces growth. At least, that isn’t what is happening in the Lutheran congregations he has studied.
“Maybe the saints prefer a place where the real practice of the church — preaching the Gospel in its truth and purity and administering the sacraments rightly and reverently — (is) much, much more important than whether Jack’s son gets to play his trap set in church or whether the patriarchal families get to pick all the hymns because they don’t want to sing any new songs,” said Magness at a national worship conference.
“I do know this: the congregation that works out these issues the old-fashioned way provides a better confession of ‘one Lord, one faith and one baptism’ than the congregation that doesn’t share the Lord’s Supper together.”
Terry Mattingly directs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Contact him at tmattingly@cccu.org or www.tmatt.net.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
