How do we help the Worship Challenged?

Jesus tells us "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."  

My spirit is poor when I worship in ELCA churches that do half-assed worship and cut out half of the service and think it's good. I walk away angry and hungry to be fed.  My church, for instance, has a husband-wife team of pastors who are dynamic and interesting, but are worship challenged. (I am not a fan of couples working together as co-pastors in churches. It is taboo in the corporate world and in academic settings, and should be in churches.)

The worship board of celebration, (bored of celebration, if you ask me) decided on using Evangelical Lutheran Worship Setting 8, after I coaxed them. Its one of the popular settings of liturgy in the ELCA, with it's bright, uplifting, cheery, fun music to sing, which shines on a electronic keyboard or piano.  It's not made for use on an organ.  This setting is the mountain peak of good, contemporary Lutheran worship. We do it in Denver at my ELCA church with just a piano, and sometimes guitars added. It is a wonderful liturgy that uplifts people to the glory of God. The Kyrie, Hymn of praise (2 of them!), Alleluia, Sanctus, and  Lamb of God give you a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven at hand.  

I walked out of church in a foul mood when I went to church last Sunday to worship God with this new setting, and I became poor in spirit as a result. The Holy Communion was again the half-assed streamlined "get er done" version with this...

The Lord be with you. And also with you. Lift up your hearts. We lift them to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give God thanks and praise. In the night in which he was betrayed...

There is no pastoral preface here, and this is not theologically correct, as there is NO Thanksgiving after the last "let us give thanks to the Lord our God."  And there was no Sanctus to sing with the hosts of heaven, and the clouds of witnesses and angels. They just used the "Lamb of God" after the words of Institution. I don't know where pastors are getting this crap, but it is either coming down from the ELCA's ELW manual on worship, Higgins Road, or the local synod offices telling pastors they can do this garbage. 

Luther clearly stated in the Augsburg Confession "We do not abolish the mass!"  What part of this historic Lutheran confession don't pastors get when planning worship these days? Are our ELCA seminaries teaching pastors how to do half-assed worship? Are they just becoming too lazy to assemble a liturgy that is theologically sound?

Half of John Vlvisaker's "This is the Feast" was used. And, only Jay Beech's awesome "Lamb of God" from Setting 8 was sung. The rest of Setting 8 was missing, and only a contemporary offertory and some strange alleluia song was used- all played on the PIPE ORGAN!  Yuck. You couldn't even hear the high, uplifting bright tones in the music, because it is made for a keyboard, not organ. I love the organ, but not contemporary music on it, and I am a traditionalist!

Worst part, is several congregants who know I am on the "Board of Celebration" came up to me to complain about the service sounding like a "funeral dirge" or "depressing."   I agreed. 

Wrote the head pastor who assembled the service, but he responded avoiding the missing liturgy, and with excuses about the organist needing permission from the board to use the piano???  (I wrote back asking him if they were going to tell her how to cut her meat at dinner too- I hate committees, as they stifle talent.) He also said that the Alleluia was rejected by the board, that is why it was not used.  How could anybody not like that Alleluia? (They must have no musical taste.) He avoided the complaints about the service missing, but then wrote they were going to use the Kyrie maybe for Advent?  Hello?  

I don't think he or his wife have a concept of Lutheran liturgy. The last time they did any full form was my Mom's funeral service a year ago when I used Regina Fryxell's Setting 2 from the old Service Book and Hymnal!  I assembled Mom's funeral service in a pamphlet myself so they couldn't screw it up. 

Setting 8 is supposed to be uplifting, by using it, not half or parts of it with half-assed worship.One can add more things to it from contemporary sources.

Again, I wrote the pastors about poor worship practice and cutting the service out. Once, I remembered, I had a stern comment once from the pastor's wife, the other pastor, that she "thought the service was just fine the way it was."  She needs help, I thought.

This time I questioned both pastors about their seminary worship classes and if they were taught how to do a Lutheran service correctly. They went to Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, which I had some reservations about when I visited looking for a seminary, since they didn't seem so Lutheran anymore but just like the Jones' trying to be like everybody else. And, God forbid if you like being Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, German, Finlander, or Icelandic, because they want you to forget about that and be multi-ethnic!  (Being Scandinavian and the others, including Afro-American, Native American, and Spanish,  is being multi-ethnic, you dipheads!)

Why is worship so bad in some ELCA churches in this area of the country? 

I have found most of the Green Bay ELCA churches to have half-assed worship with most of the service missing, or other silly things going on. (One pastor announces each page and hymn we are to sing, even tho listed in the bulletin we can read with first grade educations. LOL)

The first point of contact people have with a congregation is the Sunday service, and for visitors for the first time, it can make or break their return trip to your church. When Lutheran worship is not done reverently, and poorly, many do not come back. If a church is unfriendly, that is another subject for another blog. 

I am supposed to be related to Martin Luther, and I carry his torch on good worship to teach others. I defend the liturgy and worship, as stated in the Augsburg Confession. I have tried the passive "maybe we could do it this way approach" with pastors with no luck.

Maybe being tough on them like Luther with a few choice words might make them wake up to their silly ways with Lutheran worship practice?

God does so much for us with his steadfast love, and everything he gives us, and we respond to him, his word and sacrament in church with half-assed worship! What is wrong with this picture?  Plenty!  God help us!