Archive for the 'Worship' Category

Worship Conference

Published July 26, 2011 Children , Hymnody , Worship Leave a Comment

There are no words which can adequately describe the experience of attending the WELS National Conference on Worship, Music, and the Arts. The best I could do would be to encourage you to view online the two services which were held on the Martin Luther College campus in the Chapel of the Christ. Of course, it’s not quite like being there, but maybe it gives you some idea.

The theme of this year’s conference was handing down the Lutheran heritage to the next generation. WELS President Mark Schroeder, who was just re-elected to another term today, wrote in his introductory letter to the conference:

Lutherans have been blessed with a rich heritage—an astounding array of spiritual treasures, passed down to us over the centuries through faithful Christians who have gone before us. It’s a biblical heritage that grounds us firmly on the Words of Scripture. It’s a confessional and theological heritage that connects us to faithful confessors and to the church of all ages. And it’s a liturgical heritage that respects our roots and values commitment to worship that focuses on the proclamation of the gospel in all its beauty.

We Lutherans today are the beneficiaries and recipients of such a rich heritage. But blessings such as those we’ve received bring with them a solemn responsibility. Our heritage is one to be treasured for ourselves to be sure, but it is also one that we will want to pass along to the next generation of Lutheran Christians. By treasuring this heritage for ourselves, we keep the gospel of Jesus Christ as the focus of our worship and of our efforts to bring the good news of Christ to a fallen world. By passing this heritage to the next generation, we take our place in a long line of faithful witnesses, as “one generation commends [God's] works to another” (Psalm 145:4).

Throughout the week, this theme was expressed in several ways, most notably in the keynote address, in the 48 voice children’s choir assembled for the conference, and in a number of the presentations.

It was under this theme that I presented the topic of “Hymns in the Life of Church, School, and Home.” I maintain that the church’s song—especially her hymns—provides us with a vehicle for passing the faith on to the next generation. This happens when these songs not only provide musical accompaniment for the proclamation of the gospel in corporate worship, but especially when these hymns accompany the lives of the church’s members. It starts with children at a very young age; when hymns are learned young and learned well, they provide for a lifetime of comfort and strength.

I have created a web page with all kinds of information related to this topic. There you can find links to all the books, presentations, CDs, etc that I referred to in my presentation. On the page you can also view the slides I used. Keep in mind that the slides are not the presentation itself; they were mainly used to illustrate the stories I used to make various points. If you click through the slides you will see various images, videos, and audio clips. Over the next several days I hope to post a few of the stories to which those slides refer.

Hymns and Children

Published July 1, 2011 Children , Hymnody , Worship Leave a Comment

Yesterday I heard an interesting segment of Issues, etc, on teaching hymns to children. You can listen to the segment here.

This covers some of the same ground that I will be presenting in a few weeks at the WELS National Conference on Worship, Music, and the Arts in St. Peter, MN.  Here is a description of my presentation:

A Lutheran hymnal is a rich devotional resource that deserves to be used in every church, school, and especially, in every home. Already at a very young age, children are capable of learning hymns and participating in worship. These hymns provide solid teaching and strong comfort for Christians, young and old alike. This presentation provides practical and inspiring ideas and anecdotes for teachers, parents, pastors, and all who influence children and worship.

After the conference, I will post my presentation and materials here. But I’m looking forward to seeing some of you in Minnesota in just a few weeks.

What I’ve been up to

Published April 26, 2010 Baseball , Books , Church Year , Ministry , School , Worship 1 Comment

I’ve been pretty silent here lately, so I thought I’d give you a quick rundown on what has been keeping me busy.

Lent and Easter
Yes, this is perhaps the busiest time of the year. People will make comments to me about how busy I must be, with all the extra services. And this year we even added a service on Good Friday—five unique services from Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday. But I’m never exactly sure how to respond. Yes, I’m busy. And it is a struggle to get ready for all the services, especially when they come so quickly, and especially when other issues inevitably come up during holy week. But I really don’t want anyone to think that I would rather be doing anything else.

For all of the busy-ness and the craziness, there is simply no time of year I love more than holy week, and especially the feast of the resurrection. It can be such a temptation to get through Good Friday, and sort of coast through Easter. But, no. The festival service on Easter is the most important of all, the highest festival in the entire year. This year I preached on the historic epistle for Easter Sunday, 1 Corinthians 5:6-8. What a joy to keep the festival, and for it all to culminate in the feast that is the Lord’s Supper, a foretaste of the feast already enjoyed by the saints in heaven.

Here the true Paschal Lamb we see,
Whom God so freely gave us;
He died on the accursed tree—
So strong his love—to save us.
See, his blood now marks our door;
Faith points to it; death passes o’er,
And Satan cannot harm us. Hallelujah!

So let us keep the Festival
to which the Lord invites us;
Christ is himself the Lord of all,
The sun that warms and lights us.
Now his grace to us imparts
Eternal sunshine to our hearts.
The night of sin is ended. Hallelujah! (CW 161, st. 3,4)

School Planning & Accreditation
We are busy planning and preparing for the next school, and even beyond. In January we began the process of a school self-study for accreditation. But we’re also gearing up for next year by getting all of our enrollment materials in place. This week we’re distributing fliers throughout the area. We’ve already delivered 2,000 to surrounding homes, and we’ll be getting more out as soon as they’re printed. El Paso is a growing city, with lots of young military families. Accreditation is an important part of serving these families, partly because Ft. Bliss requires school to be accredited in order to be recommended on post, and also because military families move so often that we want to make sure our students records easily transfer to the schools nationwide, even worldwide, where our students end up.

Home
I’m trying my hand at desert gardening this summer. The kids and I have planted tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and melons. We’ll see how things grow here. We definitely have plenty of sun. It should be a fun little experiment. and if we get some food out of it, great.

Last month Sara’s sister Liz arrived in El Paso. She is an Army nurse and will be stationed at William Beaumont Army Medical Center for the next two years. She will be staying with us until she finds a place of her own. We’re not really in any hurry for that to happen, however; it’s nice to have her here. And it will be a real blessing to have family within a few miles instead of a few hundred miles (or thousand).

It’s baseball season again, and I’ve again been enjoying the MLB AtBat app on my phone. As much as I wish I could be in Minnesota to actually see outdoor Major League Baseball in Minnesota this summer, being able to listen to the games on my phone is better than nothing.

Reading
I’m still trying to make my way through my “to read” stack of books. However, I just can’t resist adding more books to the pile. If you want to, you can watch what I’m reading on the web site GoodReads.

I’m looking forward to reading through the Lutheran Confessions in the Book of Concord again this summer. I try to do that every other year. I’ll write more on that in the next couple weeks.

Coming Up
Right now I’m especially gearing up for our Ascension service. I’ve always had a service on Ascension wherever I’ve been, even though they’re not always well attended. This year we’ve invited our area congregations to join us and with our combined efforts hope to have a service fitting for this high festival. It seems that every year I appreciate the significance of Jesus’ ascension even more.

Next week I’ll be heading to Flagstaff Arizona for pastor’s conference. In a few week, we’ll have confirmation here. And just after that school will be out for another year. Wow, it’s gone by fast.

Now Rise

Published January 10, 2010 Church Year , Worship Leave a Comment

Over the past several years I have really appreciated the hymn “To Jordan’s River Came our Lord” (CW 89) as the Hymn of the Day for the Baptism of our Lord. In particular, there’s just something about climbing into the pulpit while singing these words:

Now rise, faint hearts: be resolute!
This man is Christ, our substitute!
He was baptized in Jordan’s stream,
Proclaimed Redeemer, Lord supreme.

Saturday Evening Prayer

Published October 3, 2009 Ministry , Worship 2 Comments

I have found the collection of prayers in the CW Pastor’s Companion, as well as the LSB Pastoral Care Companion, to be quite useful. Here is a pastor’s prayer as he prepares for Sunday morning. The version is from the CW:PC.

O God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I humbly pray: pardon all my sins. Look not on my great unworthiness but on your great mercy, by which you have appointed me to be your ambassador in Christ’s place. Put your Word in my mouth and speak with my tongue. Bring forth fruit through me, your unworthy servant, and let not the preaching of your Word be without effect among us. May all that I utter be in accord with your will and the confession of your Church, that your name may be glorified, your congregation strengthened, and your Church built up.

Let the praises of the Church be acceptable to you. Keep us from vain babbling and lying lip service. Preserve your Holy Word among us that it may be joyfully and boldly proclaimed in its truth and purity. Guard us in the right use of the Sacrament in accord with the institution of Jesus Christ our Savior. Be our God and our children’s God, now and forever. Hear my prayer, O Father, for the sake of your dear Son.

Christian Worship: Pastor’s Companion. Northwestern Publishing House, 2004, p. 11.

See also: LSB Pastoral Care Companion. Concordia Publishing House, 2007, p. xix.

Note: Both of these volumes are very valuable to me. I hope to write a comparison of the two books sometime in the near future.

Morning Prayers

Published September 13, 2009 Worship Leave a Comment

I’m always impressed by the way the sunlight comes into the church in the morning, especially as it streams in through the stained glass and projects crosses on the back of the church.

I took this photo this morning as I was preparing for the service.

Bulletin Covers

Published March 29, 2009 Tech , Worship Closed

At the beginning of Advent this past year our congregation stopped using the NPH bulletin covers. The covers feature full color pictures and usually have a phrase from one of the lessons for that Sunday of the church year. However, it seemed that more often than not, the featured phrase was not the part of that lesson that made a connection to the other lessons and formed the theme for the day. In some cases, the emphasis on the cover seemed to draw the emphasis away from the theme of the day. On top of that, Christian Worship Supplement has a supplementary lectionary and if we happen to substitute the lesson with the featured phrase, the cover really makes little sense.

The cost of the bulletin covers is not outrageous, but there was a savings for us in dropping the subscription. We were also starting to print out our services in the bulletins, so the cost savings from the covers has helped cover the cost of the extra printing.

So, for several months now I have had to find some kind of graphic to use on the cover to our bulletin. I have almost always been able to find something appropriate from the collection Clip Art…for the Liturgical Year. That’s my go-to clip art collection. If someone has a good suggestion for another collection with high-quality B/W art suitable for this kind of thing, leave me a comment.

But every once in a while I just can’t find something that really fits. That happened last Sunday. I just couldn’t find something that was just right. So I tried something that I had seen before, but had never found an opportunity to use it.

Wordle.net is a web application that creates a graphic visualization of a body of text, with the most frequent words in larger type. I tried it with my sermon text, the second lesson for the day—Ephesians 2:4–10. This is what I got:

I thought it turned out very well and was exactly what I needed for my bulletin cover. I’m sure that not every text works out like that, with the most frequent words as the most important words. But this is a tool I’ll probably want to check every once in a while, especially when I can’t find a bulletin cover.


Prayer at the Close of Day on Baptism

Published November 7, 2008 Baptism , Worship 1 Comment

One of the services at this summer's worship conference was a Service of Prayer at the Close of Day (Compline) that centered on Baptism. If I remember correctly, we sang two of my favorite hymns from the Supplement, "I Am Baptized into Christ" and "Lord Support Us All Day." The setting of compline that we used was fantastic, and well done. The whole thing was tightly wound around the thoughts of baptism as we come to the close of another day. But I'd have to say that the highlight of that particular service was the commentary/sermon. I won't say anything more about it—you can watch it for yourself. I'll give you the link so that you can watch it on Streams.

Prayer at the Close of Day Sermon on Streams

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Children in Worship

Published October 24, 2008 Children , Worship Leave a Comment

With four children (and soon-to-be five) under the age of six, I am naturally interested in the topic of children and worship. But it's not just for my own children. As a pastor I am interested in all the little lambs who need to hear the voice of their shepherd.

I believe that Lutherans approach this topic from a rather unique perspective. (Unique because so many others do do not approach it in the same way.) The biblical teachings of original sin, the way the Holy Spirit works faith through the means of grace, and the understanding of the primary purpose of public worship as God's service to us—all these affect the way we think about the place of children in worship.

I want to share with you an audio segment from the Lutheran radio show "Issues, etc." It is a discussion about this topic that I found useful. You'll can listen to it here on the website or click the link below if that doesn't work. I also included a link to another book that talks about children and worship.

The picture here is part of an altarpiece in Wittenberg. I shared this with our school kids in chapel this morning. The point is pretty easy to get. Martin Luther preaches in such a way that Christ is the center of his preaching and the people's worship. But take a look at the congregation. Notice the kids right in the front. Even an infant sitting on a lap. Receiving God's gifts right along with the others. Someday I hope to have a good-sized print of this painting hanging in my study.

Predella

St. Matthew, Apostle

Published September 22, 2008 Church Year , Worship Leave a Comment

Evangelist Matthew
Yesterday at Trinity we observed the minor festival named for the tax collector-turned apostle Matthew. Since it fell on a Sunday this year and since it is year A in the three year lectionary series (and I've been preaching on the gospels), it seemed good to take this opportunity. It was a little refreshing to switch to red paraments during this long green season. But it was especially interesting to think a little about Matthew's perspective in writing a Gospel account. We don't hear really anything else about Matthew except that he was a tax collector (something Matthew always makes sure to point out). In recent weeks we've seen God's generosity in the parable of the workers in the vineyard, God's complete forgiveness in the parable of the unforgiving servant, God's concern for any one sinner who goes astray in Mt 18. I think studying the call of Matthew helps explain why Matthew would write these things. Jesus had shown this same concern, forgiveness, and extreme generosity to Matthew. 

As a side note, I don't think I've ever been able to use the proper preface for "minor festivals" before. As we give thanks to God for the example of faith of believers from the past, it gives new meaning to the words "therefore with all the saints on earth and hosts of heaven…"

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