Liturgy The Work of the People: Not here!

Hungry...no more liturgy!

  I have found myself impoverished and hungry in local ELCA churches in my area of Wisconsin in the upper Midwest. Compared to Colorado, where we are more Catholic in ritual and nobody in an ELCA church dares to cut out the liturgy, I am very hungry for ritual in worship where I live now.  There is barely any liturgy or any structure to the service anymore in this region with everyone doing what they wish to do in worship and throwing liturgy of contemporary or traditional styles to the wind.

   I stopped going to the large, downtown ELCA I once attended because of the husband and wife team of pastors with their weak sermons. Parts of the liturgy are cut out and the prayers are "canned" ones with no heart from the Sundays and Season's simply because they think it is easier to just cut and paste them in the bulletin and pull them off for prayers. Nobody in the church is mentioned for healing or sickness and it seems so rushed and heartless. 

  I thought I could help them but their committee didn't want someone from Denver telling them how to do church and they objected to having to restore all of the liturgy to the service that is missing. One pastor there even told me to "cease and desist" in an email, so I stopped going.      

  Helped out with cantoring the Kyrie and Glory to God parts for a dwindling ELCA near downtown. I got them to do traditional liturgy (all of it with what they already knew to sing) just once a month and it was helping them get more people in. However, their organist of 50 years felt threatened by me since she thinks she runs the church, and told me right to my face in the sanctuary "if you want liturgy, go to some other synod, because I am not playing it in my church!"  I wrote the pastor that they were on their own, as I wasn't going to return being treated like garbage like that. 

 I visited every other ELCA church in the area and these are some of the findings:

More people invading the worship space up front

- A husband-wife pastor team who puts on the Mr. and Mrs. Show leading a band, which has no liturgy, praise songs that repeat and give glory to us instead of God, and weak, vague, sermons and  POWERPOINT screens, and nobody sings along, but sits there like bumps and watch.  Communion only twice a month and the pastor was offended when I asked them why didn't do it each week like many ELCAs. He sent me a silly figure showing only a handful of ELCA's doing weekly communion and said he would never do it weekly because "it is too much work!"  

-Another husband-wife team of pastors who try to do it right, but announce everything they are going to do next like it is a circus or show and their bulletin is the pitts as you have to follow the contents and stumble through the ELW to find your stuff to sing. Unfortunately, their congregation is the most unfriendliest in the area, and I let them know nobody would say hello, even at the coffee hour before church. No response. 

-A pastor with a guitar who dumped the liturgy and packs them  in with entertainment worship with PowerPoint and another pastor there who does not use the lectionary to give them the Gospel but lectures on things he feels like. Luther grad, and he is hung up on saying like a Baptist.."and the people said....Amen."  He was doing a PowerPoint Bible study walking across the stage they made, and didn't preach. I wanted to walk out three times. When I emailed the head pastor about where the liturgy and sermon was, he let it out that "he doesn't like to be around people that much."  Wrong profession for this guy.

People stare at the stupid screen instead of the cross and altar during church!

-Another large ELCA where there is total disregard for doing the liturgy. We sat during the Great Thanksgiving!  Pastor is too lazy to have people stand during this important part of worship.  Sat during the confession too. And, there is only communion twice a month.  I asked the pastor why he has people sit, "there are elderly people up front I don't want to have stand too long." I replied, "stand as you are able," then.  "Too hard to do that," he replied.

Drive Thru Communion!

 There is also the drive-thru communion experience at most ELCA's in the area who have taken out their communion rail. I am sick of intinction, it is like stop and go communion and is so quick. There is no time to pray, contemplate or thank God on your knees. They tell Americans to sit down and have dinner with their families instead of rushing too much, these churches need to listen to that advice during the holy meal. 

  So what is a person to do when the church is going to hell in a breadbasket in your area and they are removed from the real world?  Pray? Teach?  I have given up on these fools who run the show here in Wisconsin. I even wrote the local synod Bishop who told me they have switched to "low worship" in the last few years. A pastor in the area told me it was because of the last Bishop here who wanted the churches to dump the liturgy and focus on getting up the numbers!

 So, I have resorted to going to the local Roman Catholic church because I know I can get Lutheran worship there. I even take communion there, but they only give you a wafer and if you want to dip in a cootie cup, have at it. The liturgy is always there as it is supposed to be.

  I cannot understand why it is so hard for ELCA churches in my area here to do the simple elements of a Kyrie, Glory to God, Alleluia, Offertory song, Sanctus, Lamb of God, Canticle.  It is not that hard people, and the more you dump out, the more the work of the people does not happen and people will not sing anymore. They are timid here in Wisconsin, perhaps the German Lutheran influence of not being seen or heard?

  Somebody at Higgins Road (like the new lady Bishop) needs to get on the stick and get this branch of the Lutherans back to being liturgical...it is who we are.

  


The best resource to teach people about Lutheran Worship!

 Daniel Erlander has a wonderful book (Baptized We Live) on being ELCA Lutheran that holds true to today:  We are CATHOLIC,  We are LUTHERAN, We are LITURGICAL!

I should send each pastor in the area that page, and write..."any questions?"