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!