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?"

Bored of Celebration!

I resigned my volunteer position on a worship committee at an ELCA Lutheran church a few weeks ago. They call themselves the "Board of Celebration" when they really should be called "BORED OF CELEBRATION." I work normally the nights and have had to miss the meetings, which are boring to begin with, and controlled by the pastor and the gal running it who wants things her way in her limited view of the world.  I grew frustrated and knew what I was up against- a wall.

I gave them all several worship articles I have written and ones the church put out for effective worship or how to enhance worship you already are doing, but no response from them or even comment from pondering. They didn't want "someone from Denver, Colorado telling them what to do," I heard on the grapevine from another congregant.  I have constantly complained about the service being so chopped up with vital parts of the liturgy cut out to get the service done in an hour right to the pastor who stood by his decisions or made silly excuses. (My ancestor Martin Luther would give him hell too, I am afraid.)  I have tried to get them to do special German Lutheran Christmas, Wintermass, and Octoberfest services to draw the community in, they vetoed that. (They are a German Lutheran church in the ELCA.)

Gee, I once managed to get a whole different congregation and visitors amounting to 200 people to dance around a Swedish maypole at an ELCA church I was liturgist at. (I think that is uploaded on my page desktop here.) The Swedish-American pastor there gave me carte blanche, and I flew with it using the Holy Spirit, and the church grew! Couldn't get these people to budge on anything at this German church.

I have written them all about expanding worship back to a full service to not cut out any of the liturgy in order to "get er done in one hour."  No avail.  I even sent them a bulletin I found from that church in 1982 for an example with nothing cut out of the liturgy, asking them if they could do a Lutheran service correctly like that again. No comments. I finally figured out the pastor was the one who makes the ultimate decisions, and is the one who is behind picking the hymns and cutting out the liturgy, and his wife, the other pastor, stands behind him as one.  That's the problem of husband-wife pastor teams!

Dead! They are dead heads, stick-in-the-muds, closed-minded,  stubborn, ignorant of Lutheran theology, history and the relevance of the liturgy.

I gave up.  Their loss.

One of my professors at Iliff School at Theology in Denver, CO once told our class that he thought committees and boards were the spawn of Satan. I think he was right. (I met one devil on a church committee once, who fired me from church council in front of the whole group for being gone three months to caregive for my elderly parents who needed me. I wrote him an email that went to everybody telling him I thought he was a piece of feces. He apologized finally, but not to my face, the coward.)

Another professor of theology once told me that "you cannot even fart in some churches without some damn committee stifling it!"  How true!

Truth is, I HATE COMMITTEES!  They stifle talent in their midst, they are sometimes closed, deaf and mute. And, they make people like me with God-given talents of publishing, leading worship, singing and musical talent PISSED OFF!

I think I will go start my own Lutheran church, after all, I am Luther's ancestor aren't I?  He farted in church to chase the devil away when scripture or music wouldn't!

My cousin was the Bishop of the Lutheran Church of Sweden, Rev. J.A. Eklund. He wrote beautiful hymns and was big on high church worship.  

I don't know if I would affiliate with the goofy ELCA/Higgin's Road, (who, incidentally, have done nothing but put a road block in front of me on many things.) But, I would start my own new American Lutheran denomination, where all are welcome to come and serve: gays, straights, Germans, Swedes, Finns, African, Danish, Norskies, Icelanders, European, Natives,  people of all colors, dogs, cats, fish, Catholics, ex-Catholics, Covenenters, etc,  gamblers, saints and sinners,  and Holy Communion for all with no questions asked at a real communion rail shaped in a circle like the world with the altar in the middle.

And, they would get the whole story of the liturgy, the love of God, no political correctness crap to hinder worship, and the WORD and SACRAMENTS with no music or liturgy being cut out to "get er done" in an hour!

AMEN!

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!

Rejected & Lazy Worship Ritual in Wisconsin

Been a while since I posted.  Buried both of my elderly parents I caregave for last year.

Thought I would still say in 2012, I am finding the Midwestern Wisconsin ELCA Lutherans very lazy at worship. We are more Catholic in ritual out West in Colorado where I am from, and take the time to do it correctly and to keep it holy.  (No gabby announcements regurgitating the bulletin the start of service, we do brief announcements for after the benediction and amen, before the last hymn is sung.)

In fact, the local ELCA synod here in Wisconsin rejected me for seminary in 32 minutes after my jumping through their hoops for 9 months, and passing psych evals etc. I was a threat to the locals here with my Colorado values ( I am from the Midwest), besides having a cousin who was the Bishop of the Lutheran Church of Sweden, a grandpa who was a Lutheran-Swedish Covenant pastor and supposedly being related to Martin Luther in my German side, and me leading worship, publishing hymnals, liturgies, and articles in the Gannett newspapers on worship. Yep, a threat.

Would you believe 6 clergy told me everything they personally thought was wrong with me - and believe me, they hit below the belt! It was a crucifiction!  I should have told them off, the hypocrites. I nearly lost my faith for a few months afterwards believing what the Devil would want me to believe that came out of their mouths. 

Would you believe 4 ELCA clergy and one lay person told me to my face that I was an enigma, scatterbrained, had no musical talent and was immature! Try holding onto your faith after that crap! LOL

I wish I could have spewed pea soup all over them like Linda Blair!

 I wrote the head Bishop of the ELCA at Higgins Road in Chicago with a formal complaint, but he whimped out and passed it onto his flunkie in the Candidacy department who sent me the corporate policy. Just like getting a letter from AT&T. Real Christlike, not. "Blessed are those who are persecuted," I read from Jesus to give me hope and comfort.   Maybe a article in the USA Today on my work and rejection would wake the Bishop up?  LOL  He needs to dissolve the local candidacy committee here in Wisconsin. Too much of a whimp to do that. My ancestor Luther would have kicked them in the butt after drinking them under the table with beer.

I have helped a local Luther Seminary grad ELCA pastor who had no worship training at Luther. (Seems this is the case at Luther and LSTC in Chicago with many pastors who are not taught properly on worship!)  Wartburg, PLTS, Gettysburg, and Philly sem grads seem to have the worship and sermon concepts. The pastor taught me a lot, and I taught him a lot. It was a mutal blessing.

Brought the church's early service from 8 to 40+ people in a few months in 2010-2011.  We packed them in doing Swedish services at Christmas and Midsommar. The late service was contemporary and loose, which he detested. I taught the early crowd the basics of using a cross processional, and an acolyte and high church. They loved the structure of the liturgy and hymns. Used a mix of SBH 1 & 2 /LBW 2/ and ELW 8 scripted in the bulletin each week. Worked.  I led by chanting and being worship assistant to represent the priesthood of all believers- those sitting in the pews responding to God.

You have not lived until you have felt and seen the Holy Spirit at work with people holding hands dancing around a Swedish maypole outside in Summer - singing "Children of the Heavenly Father" led by a violinist and song leaders!

Even with the increase in numbers and publicity in the local press for the Swedish event, the local Bishop intervened and forced the pastor out and asked me, the organist, and others to leave the church for his own agenda to take over. Nice Bishop - has control issues or not too well endowed I am thinking?  I hate church politics and I hate some of the hypocrites who run our churches and synods. May God bless them. God has a plan for them too, I am afraid. LOL

After touring the local ELCA churches in the Green Bay area, I have come to the conclusion that the churches and pastors are just plain lazy to do worship ritual with liturgy etc. Why bother then to do any at all if it is a bother?

It is like someone in the local synod has all told them how to streamline the service to get people in and out.

I found three churches doing the Peace at the beginning of the service during gabby announcements. The reason it is normally done after the Prayers of the Church so that there is reconciliation between God's people afterwards. It loses it's place and the meaning and concept by having it at the beginning of the service.

Another thing they are doing is cutting parts of the Holy Communion to steamline it. I found one pastor just using the salutation, then went into the Words of Institution, then distibution. Others don't use a Thanksgiving at all. Yep, no communion rails to kneel, pray and contemplate at, except at one ELCA church in Green Bay. The rest do Drive Thru communion - gotta move, get you outta here. No time for God or peace or hope.

I reminded several local ELCA churches about the Augsburg Confession we supposedly follow: "We do not abolish the Mass."  Yet, I have to go to Roman Catholic churches in the Green Bay area to get a full Lutheran service I am used to out West. The Catholics here are packing them in with the full liturgy, crucifer cross, assisting lay minister, kneeling for confession, using all the liturgy, and prayers with Holy Communion each week to contemporary and traditional music. I crash communion there at Catholic churches, still can't get why they only give the wafer and no wine as Jesus commanded. I gag on it. Dang priest gets all the wine, which is not fair. Those gluttens or winos; It's for all, it's Jesus' blood for Christ's sake!  ( no disrespect)

What are we missing here in the ELCA Lutheran churches?  Proper leadership/education to get out of the 1950's of the pastor doing everything up front, and into the 1970's of what the rest of us in the ELCA have been doing nationwide for nearly 40 years.

Got any ideas on how to wake them up and help them learn and get with it?

Most are experiencing loses in the collection plate each week with the budgets.

Perhaps if they quit cutting corners with the first point of contact people/visitors/seekers have with a church - which is the Sunday service, they could liturgically feed people with the work of the people,  and money would come in more? I know I leave feeling empty even with Holy Communion in some streamlined form to rush me out the door.

Any ideas?

As for me, it is one day at a time for the grief of losing my beloved parents in one year in 2010-2011. It is a cross I must bear, but a cross that I know God carries with me. I must firmly believe that my folks are with Christ in heaven and not doubt.

Peace be with you who read this post.

ELCA pastors cutting part of liturgy!

I have noticed recently while visiting many ELCA churches in the upper Midwest, the service is watered down and parts of the liturgy are missing. It is alarming to this Lutheran who was raised on four-part liturgy and hymns. The liturgy is just as sacred to our story as hymns are, and should not be cut out or skimped on. It is the journey through worship that we do in a singing, liturgical church using key biblical phrases, set to music. We inherited it from our Roman Catholic founders, who in turn inherited it from the worship styles taught by Jesus of Nazareth, the Jewish rites found in the synogogues. I am sure Jesus didn't cut anything out when he was teaching, as he loved the sacred liturgy. Why are pastors cutting it out of our Lutheran services?

Posting the format here that my church in Denver uses might help some churches and clergy here in the Midwest or elsewhere. I love using a hymnal, but my church publishes a 10 page bulletin each Sunday –“killing trees for Jesus” I call it. We use a bulletin cover from Augsburg Fortress that has the cover art, and readings for that week on the back to follow along with. Most churches publishing use MS publisher, and this can be in 10 ft format or 12. Music is inserted from CD Rom. However, nothing gets cut, and we get everything that every ELCA Lutheran church should be doing if they are Lutheran – contemporary or traditional, even with the beauty of a hymnal in the pews. People are not stupid, but smart, have a first grade education, and can follow a liturgy without announcing the page we are on. Using a hymnal with a bulletin listing what is next helps their brains inquire and resolve and think instead of dumbing it down further. Both formats can be accomplished using the following.

Here goes to help you with our format that we found works in 26 steps:

1. Start with your confession first. Save announcements to just before the last hymn. (You might have a deacon or host do a quick welcome, but start the worship asap while people are prepared and have contemplated after the prelude music)

2. Start your opening hymn, do not skip stanzas, but sing them like you believe every word. Use bright, happy opening hymns, and not slow ones for openers, even during Lent.

3. Moving like clockwork, start your Kyrie, (even ELW Setting 8) and then go right into your Hymn of Praise/This is the Feast. Keep it at a good tempo.

4. Sit – start with the first and second lessons. (We skip the Psalms, as they take up time, and were not used until LBW came out) You might want to skip the second reading, and do a Psalm instead.

5. Gospel reading by the pastor.

6. Children’s sermon – make it geared toward kids, but not adults with entertainment or using kids for laughs. Puppet shows are really not appropriate, but sitting down with the kids on the steps and talking to them like Jesus could will get them to eat out of your hands.

7. Sermon – 10 -15 minutes (reassure people of God’s love, keep it organized – use the Gospel, don’t use the repeating word model, get the point across and move on)

8. Hymn of the Day is sung – all stanzas (Baptism is done here if needed- skip Creed, as it is in there already in that liturgy.) We use cardstock, in the size of the bulletin for the baptism liturgy, inserted and stored away.

9. Creed – Apostles or Nicene will work nicely.

10. Prayers of the Day – have them read by a lay person, even written by a lay person, with the response “hear our prayer.” Pastor does the last petition – “into your hands we commend our prayers, trusting in your mercy… etc. “

11. Sharing the Peace. ( we call it the intermission)

12. Offertory – have ushers move quickly. Sung solo or choir can sing here nicely.

13. Offertory song – use one of the versions of “Create In Me” “Let The Vineyards” or “Old 100th” Even using one the two beloved "Create in Me' versions from SBH can be fun and contemplative for babyboomers. Keep all songs to one stanza as written.

14. Offertory prayer.

15. Preface to Holy Communion – start immediately singing or saying

16. Pastor Preface – don’t skip or cheat, as this is a part of the ancient church preface from the Jewish faith – “It is our duty and our delight in all places etc.”

17. Sanctus – let the people sing the song of the angels. People need to hear and know the words “Hosanna in the highest!”

18. Words of Institution – sing or say them. You can use the music that Martin Luther used, to make a dent.

19. Another option in ELW is the old SBH communion prayer that is updated, and written by noted Lutheran scholar, Dr. Luther Reed. (i.e. “Holy are you and great is the majesty of your glory”

20. Lamb of God - sing it. (we have sometimes sung the ELW setting 8 version twice through because it is beautiful.)

21. Post-Communion canticle – use it as a close to Communion. One stanza. ELW has options of settings, or you can use ELW 201, which is updated from SBH Setting 2. “O Lord Now Let Your Servant” in ELW 313 one stanza works well too.

22. Benediction and Amen. A great version is the old version from Numbers: The Lord Bless you and keep you etc. It reaches people more than the Aaronic blessing “Almighty God, Father Son etc.” Sometimes insert the old Danish Amen from SBH to be sung, it moves people and helps them remember their confirmation, or wedding etc.

23. Now do the Announcements! (have people sit) Keep them brief; do not regurgitate the bulletin, which can be read by people with a first grade education. Have presentations like Thrivent or a fundraiser for earthquake victims here, but brief.

24. Stand and sing your last hymn, all stanzas.

25. Go in peace, serve the Lord! Thanks be to God!

26. Postlude


Some findings to reinforce what is above: Here are some of my observations:

I have noticed the Kyrie is sung, and then there is no Gloria or This is the Feast, and an offertory (Create In Me or other) is skipped as a sung response. Then, if there is Holy Communion, the Preface (i.e. The Lord be with you; and also with you etc ) is rushed through, going right to the Words of Institution, without a sung Sanctus or Preface sung by the pastor. Then a quickie Lamb of God is sung with no Post Communion canticle. Things may be rushed a bit by “drive thru communion” which is Intinction to get the line moving faster so there is no time to contemplate at a rail or kneel or receive a blessing when you need to pray while taking communion. I felt like I had been pushed through the drive thru at Burger King in most churches instead of communing. Are all these elements what the online worship source “Sundays and Seasons” suggests?

Is it because pastors are worried about space limitations in the bulletin and trying to get everything done in one hour? Did they not learn in seminary how it is done & flows with the Service Book & Hymnal, and Lutheran Book of Worship formats – then without the aid of desktop publishing for bulletins back then? The new Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal offers more, but a church can assemble a full service in a bulletin using it start to finish and not skimp. Even with the pew editions, one can do a service fully without cutting things out. My church does Holy Communion each week.

Hopefully this posting can help you in worship planning. Enjoy!

For more information see book "And Also With You" http://voiceoftherockies.com/m_19.asp?pro=171&c=25&pn=And+Also+With+You+%2D+a+look+at+today%27s+Lutheran+worship

Lina Sandell: Children of the Heavenly Father

Tryggare kan ingen vara,
Än Guds lilla barnaskara,
Stjärnan ej på himlafästet,
Fågeln ej i kända nästet.

Children of the heav’nly Father
Safely in His bosom gather;
Nestling bird nor star in Heaven
Such a refuge e’er was given.

To hear this, follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h06eJrZrdHs

Famous Minnesotan Garrison Keillor has written "I once sang the bass line of Children of the Heavenly Father in a room with about three thousand Lutherans in it; and when we finished, we all had tears in our eyes, partly from the promise that God will not forsake us, partly from the proximity of all those lovely voices."

Lina Sandell wrote this cherished Lutheran hymn under the oak tree in the backyard of her father's parsonage. She used the passage from 1 John 3:1 “Great is the love the Father has lavished on us…children of God.” She was born a Swedish Lutheran pastor's daughter at Fröderyd, Småland, Sweden in 1832, and is known as the Fanny Crosby of Sweden. Lina endured many setbacks and tragedies, but relied on her Lutheran faith and trust in God to carry her through the midst of darkness. She had health problems with paralysis as a child and at age 26, she witnessed her father's drowning when he fell off a boat on Lake Vättern. After she married Carl Berg, a wealthy Stockholm merchant, she lost her only child in childbirth.

Writing hymns was therapy for Sandell to mend her broken heart, as she found great joy in expressing her child-like trust in God to reach others. Her friend, Oskar Ahnfelt, was a musician, and supplied many songs to her texts. He sang Lina's hymns into the cold heart of the King of Sweden, who had tossed him into jail for singing pietistic hymns publicly outside the state-run Lutheran churches. Moved to tears after hearing Ahnfelt perform a Sandell hymn while on trial, the King released him and told him to sing wherever he wanted! Ahnfelt also sang them into the hearts of the Scandinavian people with his 10-string guitar.

Famous concert vocalist Jenny Lind was also inspired by these hymns, and she sang them all over the world. Sandell wrote over 650 hymn texts before she died in 1903 to which many English translations were given over the years in the Lutheran, Swedish Baptist and Ev. Covenant Church hymnals. Her other well-known hymns are Day by Day (ELW 790) and Thy Holy Wings (ELW 613), The Numberless Gifts of God’s Mercies (ELW 683) however, it is Children of the Heavenly Father (ELW 781) that is the most loved.

The original was translated as More Secure Is No One Ever, which means Trygarre Kan Ingen Vara in Svenska. However, the current translation by Augustana pastor Ernst Olson in 1925 was reworked from the beautiful lines in the texts to come up with what we love now. The tune is said to be of a Swedish folksong and is sung at funerals, healing services, weddings, baptisms and during the church year. Out of all the Lutheran hymns in our tradition, this one can make the most stoic, coldest Lutheran melt inside and weep right in church—including tough Viking men! The hymn touches the heart with gold with the promise and truth that God loves all his children and will never forsake us. If ever you are going through sorrow, doubting God, or on a bumpy road, look up this hymn and sing it, as it will bring great comfort to you with God’s love. Such is the love of God to us–guaranteed unconditionally!