From Episcopal News Service: “Episcopalians, Lutherans cross border to celebrate full communion.”

Back in 2001 the US Lutherans and Episcopalians celebrated a liturgy of full communion.

“The center of our life here is gathering for our Divine Service of Holy Communion every Sunday, and our life together grows out of that.” — Pastor Mason Beecroft

The second video, “Loving the Liturgy — Grace Lutheran Church,” focuses on liturgical theology and the experience of this congregation as it gathers for worship.

“The Liturgy or the tradition is there to form our minds that our minds might be the mind of Christ.” — Pastor Mason Beecroft

The church’s website, from which the title of this post comes, presents a more developed liturgical theology. Be sure to click on the tab “Dancing at Grace” (no, not that kind of dancing!).

I think these videos are an interesting introduction to liturgical worship as one congregation experiences it. They strike me as a useful catechetical or evangelistic tool, especially as both their form and content will appeal to a post-Megachurch/Emergent Church audience (as well as to any tech-savvy audience).

I find the honesty, simplicity and traditional quality of their worship very appealing, and the presentation in this format to be attractive and extremely useful. Kudos to Paster Beecroft and the Grace Lutheran Church in Tulsa!

O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver,
the hope of the nations and their Savior:
Come and save us, O Lord our God.

Family Practice

Our family is a ‘sit at the table together’ family. As Lutheran Christians, we own the fact that we are often thought of as the family of Christians ‘prone to excessive singing,’ as one Episcopalian wag put it. And our family is no exception. Rarely a day goes by that we don’t join in song at breakfast and dinner, giving thanks to God for good gifts and recalling our connection and duty to those who scrap by with little or nothing. We have small candelabra over the table, filled with four blue candles this time of year. As we light the candles we sing out together our Advent anthem, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” Early in life (by age 5 or so) our children had the verse down and considered its singing as synonymous as the arrival of weekly gifts from the Advent Bunny (not a Lutheran innovation, I assure you, but only further evidence of our love of the season and of the grandmother whose work the A.B. is—and you, dear reader, are sworn to secrecy on that).

We love all sorts of versions of the classic hymn setting of the O Antiphons by John Mason Neale. However, lately I’ve been drawn to versions that are completely fresh but harkens back to the simplicity of the ancient chant forms. An example is the Michigan singer Sufjan Stevens whose version is sparely set with banjo, flute, and a very melancholy voice. These influence how we sing the song around the table. Yet for the sake of young children, we’ve not shifted to working through all the antiphons. After working on this series, that will change next year! Furthermore, working on this series has brought to awareness how odd it is that in the sung versions following Neale’s version, O Emmanuel begins and ends the series. Actually, the O Antiphons begin with O Sapientia [O Wisdom] and end seven days later with O Emmanuel [O God-With-Us].

Witness of Isaiah

The most obvious background text for this antiphon is Isaiah 7:14, “The Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will call him Immanuel.” While the text in Isaiah is by most accounts difficult to interpret, its use in Matthew’s gospel is much less oblique. Matthew writes in 1:23 that “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God with us’).” It was a novel innovation in the history of God that the Holy one would become human, live out the full stretch of living, suffer and die with and for us. Only such suffering and dying could not be the last word for a God whose promise is sure; no, resurrection had to follow a first installment of the renewal of all creation.

Acrostic

This first installment of hope for the renewal of all creation is launched by the keeping of this series of antiphons. In a wonderful fit of humor and clarity, early Benedictine monks set the antiphons so that if one starts with the last title and takes the first letter of each one - Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia – the Latin words ero cras are formed, meaning, “Tomorrow, I will come.” And that tomorrow, dear friends, is Christmas eve, the eve of angels and shepherds, of singing Gloria and receiving good news of great joy. May that promise – ero cras – be your hope and promise this Christmas.

Read the rest from Ecumenical News here.

Within limits. When as an undergrad I got a job playing organ for the Lutherans (they paid the best), my parents went along with it only because their morning worship wouldn’t keep me from the evening Mass at Saint John’s University. (“It’s OK to take their money but not their message.”) When my father was thinking of having a Mass said for a deceased Lutheran farmer who was a good friend, the question arose as to why we should put out our good money for them, since they weren’t paying to have any Masses said for us. Ecumenism won out and I celebrated the Mass.

And so I follow with interest anything happening among my brothers and sisters in the Lutheran Church (note my generous shift in terminology). Most of them are  known as the GBLC -the Great Big Lutheran Church - or more properly as the ELCA, from the 1988 merger  which brought into being the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Any split in the Body of Christ is deeply tragic. And now the Minneapolis paper reports that 2% of ELCA congregations are leaving because of certain culture-war disputes. This week the PSLC (Pretty Small Lutheran Church), also known as the North American Lutheran Church, will begin to form itself in Ohio. The website GetReligion (in the sense, “Get my conservative view of religion”) wonders why the media give so little coverage to the Lutheran split, especially since their proportion of dissidents is higher than the Episcopalians’, whose difficulties have enjoyed wide media coverage. I think they have a point.

For a decade now Lutherans in these parts have had the Word Alone movement, which arose mostly to counter the dangerous catholicizing tendencies of the Lutheran-Episcopal agreements. (Ordinations would always have – gasp! – bishops.) The Word Alone folks came out with Reclaim: Introductory Edition, a step on the way to a complete Word Alone hymnal. (A confrere asked whether it would also include music, or just the texts.) But the hymnal was not to be. It seems that the kind of folks who set out to restore the correct version of Christianity have strong opinions about many things, and they don’t always match up. (As an aside, their liturgy uses the response “And with your spirit.”) The Introductory Edition is noteworthy for its mediocre service music, and also for its reprinting without permission of an illumination from the Saint John’s Bible. I think we’ll let it pass.

Let’s all say a prayer for Christian unity – within and between all the various denominational traditions in Christ’s one Church. Here’s a nice prayer for the church from the Word Alone Introductory Edition.

We pray for your holy church
gathered and nurtured by your Word
and sent into the world to be the body of Christ.
Give us always the mind of Christ,
that we may seek the lost,
bring good news to the afflicted,
bind up the broken hearted,
and proclaim liberty to the captive.

But what about the rest of us that use a western rite liturgy and adopted ICEL/ICET/ELLC translations in the heyday of liturgical renewal? We are Anglicans/Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, United and Uniting Church Christians, and Disciples of Christ. Some of us sing these texts every week, others once a month; some more frequently, some less. What about us, who have no plans to opt into this set of translations? What, then, shall we sing?

Oh, we have our denominational hymnals and supplements, to be sure. We sing our own stuff. But we sing yours too. Not an Episcopalian in the United States doesn’t know Richard Proulx’s Community Mass. Imagine my surprise when, attending a youth rally in New Jersey, we sang Matt Maher’s setting from Spirit & Song 2. In Chicago, on successive weeks and in churches of various denominations, I’ve sung Christopher Walker’s Celtic Mass, Michael Joncas’ Sing Praise and Thanksgiving and Marty Haugen’s Mass of Creation. Jan Vermulst’s People’s Mass and Grayson Warren Brown’s Mass of St. Paul seem to be favorites among middle-American Episcopalians, and Steve Janco’s Mass of Redemption gets at least an occasional singing in some New York Lutheran parishes.

And frankly, I like them all. I enjoy singing them, and ceteris paribus, I think they’re all fairly good ritual music for congregational singing.

Roman Catholics are sometimes surprised to walk into churches of the catholic-but-not-Catholic traditions and find Gather Comprehensive II, Journeysongs, Spirit & Song, and We Celebrate in the pews. For most of us, who love to sing, having a second or third hymnal available just enriches the repertoire. And because the publishers associated with the Roman Catholic church have music from composers that we simply don’t (for better or for worse), having additional hymnals is a happy necessity — and the same happy necessity holds true in keeping the octavos of various settings of the ordinary in the parish music library.

My point is this: keep the old settings around, at least for a while — and make them easily accessible on your websites and in your catalogues: don’t make us hunt or beg, like second-class Christians, and don’t make us bust our budgets trying to buy up everything we might want all at once. If there are settings you’re planning on putting out of print, let us — and let our denominational publishing houses — know: we just might buy you out.

In an ideal world, I’d also ask that the publishers make new settings available with the old texts. . . I’m afraid that would be too much to ask.

The alternative? Let’s just not go there right now….

The first thing you notice is that that word “book” is missing. It’s a new day. A church’s worship treasury is no longer contained only in a book. Yet, there is a new book. And the book continues to be valued by many.

The second thing you notice, as you explore the resources about Evangelical Lutheran Worship and its introduction, is that the words “comprehensive” and “exhaustive,” which were prominent in previous generations, have been replaced with “core” and “primary.” No longer is one collection of texts and music expected to serve all worshiping communities in all contexts at all times.

A little history

The story of Lutherans in North America is a one of immigration and merger. Lutherans came to this continent in waves of immigration from different parts of Germany and Scandinavia, settling in many parts of North America. Each group brought their own pieties, structures, and worship practices. Over the past few centuries, these small church bodies have gradually merged in various configurations. Most recently – 1988 – the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was formed from three predecessor churches, resulting in the largest Lutheran church in North America.

An interesting thing about this pattern of immigration and merger is that most of the formal mergers were preceded by cooperative work on common worship materials. For example, the ELCA was formed in 1988 following the 1978 publication of Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW). The American Lutheran Church was formed in 1960 and the Lutheran Church in America was formed in 1962. The Service Book and Hymnal had just been published in 1958. Similar patterns of working toward worshiping together leading to structural merger can be traced throughout Lutheran history on this continent.

ELCA Liturgical Review Policy

ELW was the first major project of its kind since the formation of the ELCA. Therefore, it was the first significant test of this church’s Liturgical Review Policy which guides such work. The policy requires transparency and extensive participation. Both of these criteria were evident in the development of ELW.

The policy states that “the three general criteria for judging material for public worship and liturgical use shall be fidelity to the Word of God, consistency with the Lutheran confessions, and respect for the nature of the liturgical assembly as the gathering of God’s people.” After extensive detail about how the process may unfold, the policy concludes with stated Degrees of Endorsement:

A. Interim
1. Provisional
2. Proposed
3. Other
B. Market-specific
1. Available
2. Recommended
C. Encouraged
1. Commended
D. Authorized
E. Other endorsements

What’s interesting is that ELW (and LBW before it) does not carry the “Authorized” status. That designation is reserved for the rites for making pastors and bishops, which carry with them requirements from our full communion agreement with the Episcopal Church. This church’s primary worship resource (at this time, ELW; although LBW still maintains the same designation) is “Commended” for use.

Lutherans maintain a high value for “evangelical freedom,” making it nearly impossible to require many specifics in regard to worship practice. This is both a blessing and a challenge, and no two Lutherans would agree which is which.

Development of ELW

Work on the new primary worship resource (to become ELW) began officially in 2000.  However, a great deal was already happening during the 1990s that influenced the project, including:

• Revised Common Lectionary (approved for ELCA in 1994),
• With One Voice (a supplemental worship book and song collection; 1995),
• The Use of the Means of Grace: A Statement on the Practice of Word and Sacrament (1997),
• Libro de Liturgia y Cntico (Spanish language worship book and hymnal; 1998),
• This Far by Faith (African American resource; 1999), and
• Worship and Praise (a collection of “contemporary” song; 1999).

Worship Jubilee 2000 was a large Churchwide gathering that officially kicked off the Renewing Worship project. “Renewing Worship” was the umbrella title for many layers of work over the next 6 years, resulting in the publication of ELW.

The first task was to develop Principles for Worship, as a supplement to The Use of the Means of Grace, in four specific areas: language, music, preaching, and worship space. This work was done by large consultative groups representing the diversity of this church. The Use of the Means of Grace and Principles for Worship were the foundation for all aspects of the Renewing Worship project.

As is true with all stages of this project, drafts of the principles were made public to the entire church for review and comment. Many people and congregations took advantage of these opportunities, rarely resulting in a unified opinion. It was, however, always valuable input to the project. Unfortunately, many chose not to engage the project until the final product was available.

Smaller editorial teams were gathered to do the more detailed work of actually producing materials (rites, texts, and music) in various areas:

• Holy Communion & Related Rites,
• Holy Baptism and Related Rites,
• Church’s Year,
• Daily Prayer,
• Life Passages,
• Hymns and Music, and
• Liturgical Music.

Each of these teams, surrounded by a larger and more diverse developmental panel, created material that was distributed to the whole church for trial use and review.

As all this work was unfolding, many opportunities for conversation about the project, as well as video and online resources for study and conversation, were made available. In addition, there was an open call for contribution of materials, designated reviews in addition to open reviews, intentional input from the Conference of Bishops, Church Council, the network of seminary liturgy professors, and so forth.

One additional team was at work throughout the whole process. The Resource Proposal Group was charged with the task of taking all reviews, opinions, factors, contexts, and ramifications into account and make the official proposal for content.

As required by the ELCA Liturgical Review Policy, it was a process of great transparency and participation.

Endorsement

Receiving the work of the Resource Proposal Group, through the Church Council, the 2005 Churchwide Assembly gave the official go ahead. This resulted in the publication of Evangelical Lutheran Worship, in print and electronic formats, in 2006. The 2007 Churchwide Assembly formally received the new resource and gave it the “Commended” status.

Content

It is interesting to note how differently people respond to the exact same material. For many, it appears that not much is new. It’s the same format of previous books, the historic liturgy is intact (with some fresh language and music) and the church’s year is well represented in hymns and songs. This is either reassuring or disappointing. Another can view the same material, noticing only the changes to texts and tunes, making them feel like everything is new and the rug has been pulled out from under them.

The content and format of ELW does follow previous Lutheran books closely.

• Calendar, propers, prayers
• Holy Communion (with ten diverse musical settings)
• Holy Baptism (and related rites)
• Lent and the Three Days (appearing in the pew edition for the first time)
• Life Passages (healing, funeral, marriage)
• Daily Prayer
• Assembly Song (psalm, service music, hymns & song)
• Additional resources (daily lectionary, article on the role of scripture in worship, catechism)

Among the principles that are most evident in ELW is the desire to expand the images used in liturgical language, rather than replacing existing texts. For example, at the beginning of Confession & Forgiveness before the Holy Communion liturgy, there are two options:

In the name of the Father, and of the  +  Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
or
Blessed be the holy Trinity,  +  one God,
who forgives all our sin, whose mercy endures forever.

Flexibility is a hallmark of ELW. It’s really not new. The introduction to LBW spoke of the “freedom and flexibility” in Lutheran worship.  ELW, however, goes to greater lengths to help make this clear. For some this is refreshing and welcome. For others, it is simply baffling and confusing.

As a tool for helping this happen, each section of liturgical material is preceded by a Pattern for Worship, showing the basic logic to the pattern of the rite with some prioritization of primary and secondary elements. Along with this are “soft rubrics” which, rather than simply give directions, are worded to also teach about the meaning or intent of an action.  For example, at the Gospel Acclamation the rubric reads, “The assembly stands to welcome the Gospel.”

The ELCA stands at the ecumenical epicenter in North American Christianity, being in full communion with six different denominations, as well as being engaged in many more dialogues and ecumenical partnerships. This means that ELCA Lutherans are often worshiping with Christians with widely divergent traditions. Those experiences often shape expectations regarding worship practicing. Therefore, in the ELCA today, is would common to find ministers wearing full Eucharistic vestments, sprinkling water in remembrance of baptism, censing altars and Gospel books, and so forth. On the other hand, it is common (sometimes within the same congregation) to hear bands leading medleys of praise songs, ministers wearing street clothes, with texts projected on screens. The spirit of ELW embraces the possibility of all of these options within the common, inherited framework of the liturgy. Sometimes this works. Sometimes there is work to be done.

In previous generations, it was often felt that the covers of a worship book functioned as a fence of sorts, and everything within it was somehow appropriate “Lutheran worship.”  Those who tired of the restrictions, however, found themselves hopping over the fence and disconnecting themselves from the rest of the church and history. The challenge before us is to help planners tear down the walls while hanging on to a solid core, stretching their assembly as far as they are able and in whatever direction is appropriate for their unique context.

Reception

Evangelical Lutheran Worship made its debut in October 2006. In the year following, each of the 65 synods sponsored numerous one-day introductory events, led by synodical pastors, musicians and lay people who had been prepared by a churchwide team. Over 300 of these events were held with over 40,000 people attending. Each congregation also received an introductory kit with a wealth of text, audio, and video files to aid with introduction locally.

As of this time, three years later, 1.2 million copies of the pew edition have been sold.  The best  guess is that approximately 50% of ELCA congregations purchased the pew edition. It is impossible to know exactly how many congregations are using ELW. Many may be using supplemental materials with ELW or, perhaps, ELW is serving as a supplement to something else. Many are using the electronic version, with or without the books in the pews. It’s hard to know exactly.

The anecdotal stories of introduction and reception continue to be the best gauge to “success.” It’s no surprise that a project like this is very controversial for many. (Perhaps that’s true in other denominations, as well?) Although we do get our fair share of disgruntled Lutherans, the good news is that for someone to bother to get upset, they must actually care about worship! However, there have also been countless voices expressing gratitude not only for the finished product, but also for the transparent and participatory process. It is a joy to hear from those who, Sunday after Sunday, continue to discover new treasures (and some old ones).

Since Evangelical Lutheran Worship was designed to be an open and ongoing project, we work and wait and wonder what will be the next development in worship, while continuing to form faithful, connected Christians gathering around God’s Word and Christ’s Meal each Sunday.

Scott C. Weidler
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Associate Director for Worship and Music