Glory Be, To All Three

Why do we say or sing “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever”?

This little prayer, named the “Gloria Patri” after its first two words when said in Latin, is also known as the “lesser doxology.”  A “doxology” is short hymn or expression of praise.  A popular one you may be familiar with is “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.”  You’ll notice that even that one ends “Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”  The reason for this is that Christian praise MUST be Trinitarian.  Christians worship a God who is three in one, and this mysterious truth is at the heart of everything we believe about God (theology), which in turn shapes the praise we give to him (doxology).  How we pray to and praise God shapes what we believe about Him over time, yet what we believe about God also influences how we worship.  It may seem like the chicken and the egg, but nonetheless it is important for Christians to worship God in spirit and in truth:  To worship Him in truth must include worshiping Him as He has revealed Himself to be in Scripture.  So we therefore use this brief little prayer to proclaim that our praises are for the Triune God of the Christian scriptures.  This is why it is often used at the end of a Psalm:  though the Psalms are all about Christ from beginning to end, He is not mentioned by name, so the use of a trinitarian doxology sets our use of the Psalms apart from their original Jewish context.  Many hymns in the Lutheran Service Book also close with a Trinitarian doxology.  This is indicated by a triangle symbol before the final stanza.  The “Gloria Patri” is the oldest and most well known doxology, dating from the fourth century.  So when we pray this little hymn of praise to God, we are singing a prayer that has united believers across the centuries, just like the Lord’s prayer, and that is continually being prayed around the world today.  Because it is not metered (unlike “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow”), it is often added to the end of anything chanted, including the Psalms, Introit, Nunc Dimittis, and the song of Mary.  In a world where many different gods compete for our attention and devotion, adding this little prayer to the end of our praises is a bold declaration that we worship the God of the Bible, who has come to us in the person of Jesus.

No Bulletin Liturgy for You!

Why are we reading from these books in front of us?

What happened to my bulletin?  The words are all gone!

The bulletin today contains only an outline of the service so that we can find our place.  The words of our worship service can be found in the brown book in the pews in front of you, with a gold cross on the upper right of the front cover, called the “Lutheran Service Book.”  It might look like just a hymnal, but it’s actually so much more.  It also includes things such as a daily Bible reading plan, prayers for private devotions, most of the Psalms, the Small Catechism (which summarizes what our church believes), and orders for prayer as individuals or groups.  It truly is an all-in-one worship and devotional resource for church and home.  If you open this book to page 184, you will find today’s order of service.  The pattern of worship we follow is called the “Divine Service,” and it can be  done with different musical versions.  These different versions are called “settings,” and the setting we are using today is “Divine Service 3.”  This is the old, familiar, and sentimental version that many in our parish grew up with and  dates back almost 150 years.  You will notice many of the things being sung have Latin names, such as the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei.  Printed right alongside is musical notation to show us how they are sung.  Don’t read music?  No problem!  Just follow the words, and let the sound of the choir, pastor, and organ lead you through the different parts of the liturgy.  Don’t worry, you don’t even have to sing it if you’re not comfortable.  The important thing is that we pray these words.  A wise old man once said “He who sings prays twice.”  The reason we sing all these different songs together is so that we can pray with one voice as a way to worship God when we gather to hear his Word and receive the Sacraments.  These ancient prayers, some dating to before Christ even, have been prayed by the church together for centuries as a way of simultaneously expressing what we believe about God and helping us to form those convictions more strongly over time as we pray them.  You will find that the God we pray to is one who is glorious and holy, yet he loves to show mercy and take away the sin of the world.

The Church as an Army

Why do we march in and out during the first and last hymns?

What is the point of a “processional” hymn?

     Aside from signaling the “official” beginning beginning of the worship service, uniting our voices in song, and directing our attention to the common activity of the assembly, the march in and out (along with many other movements in the service) symbolically represent many different things.  In ancient times, an army would march under a flag to identify which side they were on.  This flag, called a “standard,” was often modeled after the royal banners of their king.  The cross, being the symbol of our King, is the standard of the church militant.  So as it is followed into the chancel for worship, we declare the kingdom of Christ to be our loyalty and confess that we are at war with the kingdom of darkness.  As the cross recesses out of the church at the end of the service, this symbolizes that we are following Christ out into the world to be his servants and soldiers.  There are important two-fold distinctions in the church.  The first is the difference between the church militant (those on earth, still fighting against the spiritual forces of evil) and the church triumphant (those in heaven, whose rest is won).  In the church militant, our lives revolve around a two-fold pattern of gathering and dispersing.  We, as baptized believers, are the church all throughout the week, but one thing the church does is gather weekly around the Word and Sacraments to be nourished by the gifts of God, because Christ is present with us here together in a special way distinct from how he is with us individually throughout the week.  This feeds and strengthens us as we continue to fight the good fight.  After this, we are scattered back out into world, going in the peace of the Lord to  serve Him.  The processional and recessional hymns signify these two stages of the church’s life on earth.  Now, can you count how many hymns I’ve alluded to in the previous paragraph?  

From the Augsburg Confession:  Article IV:  Also they teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ's sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ's sake, who, by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins.  This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight.

Every Sunday Has It's Parade

Why do we sing a “processional hymn?"
What is the point of all this theatrical movement in worship?

Psalm 100 says “I will enter his courts with praise.”  We recognize that, as Christ has promised to always be present when we gather in His name, our coming together for worship is an entering into the presence of God in a special way that is mysteriously different from the way in which He is always with us individually.  And thus, we sing to God as we gather together, and as the cross processes, it reminds us of the presence of Christ, which is always among his gathered people.  The processional hymn unifies us for worship and signifies the “official” beginning of the worship service, even though we have already invoked the name of the Trinity, confessed our sins, and received the words of God’s forgiveness.  The confession itself has never been considered a part of the worship service.  Indeed, prior to the Reformation, it wasn’t included on Sundays.  Instead, the faithful were expected to go to private confession on Saturday, and somehow keep from sinning until Sunday morning in order to receive the Sacrament in a “state of grace.”  As Lutherans, we recognize that this isn’t possible anyways, ‘cause sinners gonna sin.  So although our churches still maintain the practice of private confession, we revisit it as a congregation on Sunday mornings to sort of “wipe our feet at the door” as we enter to worship.  The invocation reminds us whose we are, the confession reminds us who we were (condemned sinners), and the absolution declares the Gospel to us.  This establishes our identity as a congregation, and we assemble based on this to worship, unified in our singing.  In our church, songs sung before the invocation and confession are considered “pre-service singing,” because we recognize that our purpose for gathering has not yet been formally declared.  Next week we will discuss the significance of physical movement in worship. 

Singing the Wondrous Story

Our Pastor gave me a hymn to sing for last Sunday's hymn of the day.  I was instantly taken by it.  It says everything a good sermon would need to say about the Gospel text of the day.  The text of the day was the parable of the Good Samaritan.  This story is far too often wielded as a moralistic club, where the Pastor beats you up for not being caring enough and showing enough compassion to random hurting strangers or enemies (as if we were capable of really doing enough good in such a needy world).

This hymn illustrates a good law/gospel exploration of the major themes of the story.  You can't sing these words and not be comforted by the reassurance of God's great compassion for us in sending Jesus.  This song is nothing other than good news.  LCMS Lutherans, let us be a church that is distinguished for our singing of songs that preach the Gospel!

The hymn text is written by a pastor in our district, Rev. John G. Fleischmann, and the title is "My Neighbor."  It is posted here with his permission.  Following is a bit more humorous take on the telling of this parable.

Unclean and battered, torn by sin

By things I do, my thoughts within,

I lie there bloodied on life's road

With death and sin my only load.

Across that road the world passed by

Turning a deaf ear to my cry,

No help they give, they could not save

And so they left me for my grave.

And, what of me, when I saw need?  

Did I my Savior's bidding heed?

Too often on the other side

I've walked away because of pride.

Sin bleeds from me and stops my breath, 

In Adam all I know is death;

My works are rage, my offerings vain,

From dust I came in dust remain.

But in my need my Savior died,

Not passing on the other side.

Rebreathed His Spirit in my dust,

Bound up my wounds, declared me just.

Now safe within His Church I'm free;

Blood, Water, Spirit plead for me,

The Ark of God, the Inn of Grace

Where I behold my Father's face.

May I in Christ my neighbor know

Binding his wounds serves Christ below.

Your love for him make plain through me,

That he may, too, your Glory see.

You loved me when I could not love,

For my sin barred me from above.

In Christ my love is now set free,

O praise and bless the Trinity.

THIS Song is Official!

Why do we sing the “Hymn of the Day?”

You may have noticed that one particular song in the worship service seems to be the “official” song of the service.  How is this one different from the other songs in the service?  The “Hymn of the Day” is a distinctly Lutheran addition to the ancient worship pattern of the church.  At the time of the reformation, the only hymns sung in worship were the parts of the liturgy.  But Luther, who was a compulsive catechizer, was searching for a way to use music to help instruct people in the faith so that through singing they might come to understand God better.  An explosion of hymn writing was set off, and many new songs were written specifically to address particular passages in the Gospels.  They began to match up songs with the lectionary readings they were based on in order that they might provide commentary and help focus the congregation’s thoughts on the themes of the day.  So the purpose of this hymn, specially selected for every week of the church year, is to help us interpret, understand, reflect on, and remember the content of the Gospel reading.  Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”  So we see that our singing can be a way in which the Word of Christ dwells in us and teaches us His wisdom.  Ephesians 5:18b - 19 also says, “...be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs…”  So when we sing, our music is not only for the purpose of praising God:  We also benefit one another if the music helps us root our hearts and minds in the Word of God.  The Hymn of the Day is written specifically to help us do that with the Gospel reading of the day.

From the Large Catechism  on the Third Commandment:  ...most especially, on this day of rest (since we get no other chance), we have the freedom and time to attend divine service.  We come together to hear and use God’s Word, and then to praise God, to sing and to pray.  ...Indeed, we Christians ought always to keep such a holy day and be occupied with nothing but holy things.  This means we should daily be engaged with God’s Word and carry it in our hearts and upon our lips.  But since we do not always have free time, we must devote several hours a week for the sake of the young, or at least a day for the sake of the entire multitude, to being concerned about this alone.  ...Know, therefore, that you must be concerned not only about hearing, but also about learning and retaining God’s Word in memory.  Do not think that this is optional for you or of no great importance.  Think that it is God’s commandment, who will require an account from you about how you have heard, learned, and honored His Word.  

How I came to love the Lutheran Service Book

Three years ago I would have never seen myself where I am today, doing what I do.  I say this not necessarily because I have gone so far so much as what I am doing now is so different.  I play organ and lead music for a (mostly) liturgical Lutheran congregation where the traditions of the ancient church inform our current practice.  ...just two years ago I was  "worship leader" at a Southern Baptist church where we played all the latest music from the CCM charts.  Did I get hit on the head?  This post does not totally chronicle my discovery of the ancient tradition of Christianity and my journey into the liturgical church so much as it describes how the Lutheran Service Book, specifically, was instrumental in pushing me down the Wittenburg trail.

My love for the Lutheran liturgy came about through quite a strange journey.  Michael Spencer (the Internet Monk, a Southern Baptist, R.I.P.) brought the Lutheran Service Book to my attention had the highest praise for it.  When Bill Cwirla included an excerpt of "I Bind Unto Myself Today" recorded at "Higher Things" on his program (the God Whisperers), I knew I had to get a copy.  I was familiar with "St. Patrick's Breastplate" through my use of the Book of Common Prayer, and I thought that hymn was by far the best musical setting of that prayer I had ever heard (and I've heard many).  That and Starke's metrical paraphrase of the Te Deum (set to Thaxted) alone were worth the price of the leather gift edition.

I was working for a Southern Baptist church at the time, and when I received my copy I remember reading through it thinking, "How awesome would it be to be making music for services who pulled from THIS book as the primary source?"  It just had a special allure to me that no other hymnal in my collection (+75) did.

Part of what makes a hymn, song, or canticle of good quality is a natural ability to transcend its original musical  genre.  As I read through the LSB service settings, I realized that all of them could be led by a guitar if necessary.  This book is connected to the church of ages past, without doing it in a way that necessarily alienates the younger generations of today.  It can be made to speak their language without altering its content.

There's just something different about Lutheran hymnody.  I was using the PCA's "Trinity Hymnal" for my private and family devotions at the time, but it was just too sterile and full of pietistic gospel songs.  The LSB songs were much more deeply spiritual:  they voice lament, prepare you for death, and direct your focus to the cross where you can leave your troubles in the hands of a gracious Savior, as you learn to trust Him more.  They brought me hope and comfort through the trying year I spent working for a Baptist church knowing I no longer believed their doctrine.  

The LCMS congregation I now serve had gotten somewhat away form a strict adherence to the Divine Service, though they did purchase the LSB and do a "by the book" service once a month or so.  Now we follow the order of the Divine Service nearly every week (though we sometimes mix and match the musical settings), and I've heard mostly positive feedback from the congregation.  This stuff speaks to people's souls, much more than their favorite musical style or idiomatic preferences.  I can't begin to describe what a blessing it is to be in a church that allows me to use this material.  N.T. Wright advises, "If you're picking music for worship, pick music from more than one century."  In some places, more than one decade would be progress.  The "evangelical circus" is subjected to such dogmatic chronological snobbery, but I truly feel as if I have finally escaped the "beauty pageant" of its trendy methodology.  

One of the other things I like best about being a Lutheran is being able to sing all this deep poetry in minor key, which the LSB is chock full of.  Evangelical Power Pop Praise is completely void of a repertoire for expressing some of the darker emotions we face as Christian disciples, preferring to drown them out in a torrent of sugary sap.  The ancient chorales, however, are something you can sing honestly.  No more "I Surrender All" with a big phony grin trying to convince everyone that this time I really mean it.  Rather, as Lutherans we celebrate that Christ surrendered all for us, as in hymn #544, "O Love, How Deep."  

As I finish more of my "10 reasons I converted to Lutheranism" series, I will describe more of how the appeal of the fine arts and serious choral music hooked me on Augsburg theology.  As I told a friend of mine who was a Presbyterian church planter, I guess I was just predestined to be a Lutheran.

I finish this with two videos displaying the music mentioned above.  The first is a church singing the "Te Deum," or, "We Praise You and Acknowledge You," (found at LSB 941) and the second is a Reformed church singing "O Love, How Deep" (LSB 544).  Enjoy!

Church Music Innovation

According to Stan Endicott (the Purpose Driven choir conductor), 50 years from now, all church music will sound like Coldplay.  This is most certainly wrong and presumptuous.  Imagine Billy Graham saying back in the 60's that 50 years from then, all church music would sound like George Beverly Shea.  A church sounding then like what's popular today will most certainly be far behind the curve.

The fastest route to cultural relevance is historical connectedness.  According to C. S. Lewis, the more up to date a book is, the sooner it goes out of date.  The same could be said of music; the truly classic will endure, and the trendy will be replace by the next flavor of the month.  As one who plans and leads in congregational singing, I would like the majority of my emphasis to lie on the former.  "A Mighty Fortress" will most certainly outlast "Lord I Lift Your Name on High."  Some might argue it already has.

Does anybody notice that a significantly unique new genre of music hasn't been invented in 15 years?  I'm sure there's some small niche or scholarly "progress" I'm overlooking in the field of "new music," but I'm talking about the repertoire of the general public.  75 years ago society stood on the brink of an unparalleled proliferation of musical styles, catalyzed by developments in music technology and the ensuing instrumentation.  But for the moment, it seems to have settled.  Here's hoping that the lull will drive us back in time as we search for aural inspiration.

So what will church music look like in 50 years?  If you are a high church episcopalian, it will probably look remarkably similar to the way its been for the last 400 years.  If you're a low-church evangelical, one can only hope it becomes less cliche, mundane, and driven by a secular industry.  I think there's something to be said for a surge of upcoming innovation through bizarre combination of instruments.  Michael Gungor is just the tip of the iceberg for this, and a resurgence of folk style music in many Reformed churches may be the predecessor (that got some of us to take out our mandolins and dust them off).

In closing, here's a stab in the dark:  Expect to see some of this in Christian ritual before the mid-century mark!