Blessing

Yesterday, I experienced a blessing by attending a different church service here in town. Stop screaming and let me explain…

My music group was invited to one of the member’s churches to play two songs. We all kinda thought the two-song limit was strange but we went with it (reason will be apparent soon). It was a Lutheran church.

I need to share a little more background.  I grew up in a Presbyterian church and then an evangelical church.  My wife grew up in a Lutheran Church, MO Synod.  When we got married, I joined a Lutheran Church, Mo Synod, and I had to go through something like catechism classes.  In my opinion, the Lutheran Church and especially the MO Synod (although I think the WI Synod may be even more conservative), is pretty close to a Catholic Church environment (reformed by Martin Luther’s treatise). The ECLA is the more liberal synod of the Lutheran denominations.

Yesterday, I arrived to this church at 9:30 for the 10am service. I was ushered up to the music department office. The director of music was excited to meet me because he had heard what instrument I was bringing and wanted to see one in person. This was his opportunity to geek out and tell me about the acoustics of the building, the type of their main organ and their secondary organ, and that he had to rush off to work with the children’s choir. The actual service had a performance by the children’s choir, the bell choir, us and 3 hymns and 2 liturgical songs that the congregation sang.  To say the service was slanted towards the music would be an understatement. We were warned that the balcony, were we were, was set up to be ready to play was mic’d so we should not talk to each other lest they broadcast the conversation to the whole congregation.

In total, I thought the pastor, did a pretty good job tying the old testament reading from Jonah with the Gospel reading describing Jesus’ call for about half of his disciples and even tied in her personal experience as a young person out on a boat where their sister was able to catch fish and they weren’t.

The one thing I’ve always liked was that they had a children’s service, a mini message for the kids in front of the entire congregation.  The message was trying to get the kids to write things on a piece of paper they felt made it hard to like people such as a person who was a bully.  They then collected the slips of paper and put them in a folder entitled people God loves and forgives (or something very close to that). The message to them was that if God can forgive someone, you can too.

After the fact, I looked at the online service recording and not only did they have one camera pointed towards the balcony, they had two and panned us as we were playing.

To move beyond the positives, I was a little overwhelmed with the amount of music in the service.  I love the praise aspect of music and believes it is a valuable aspect of worship but so much of the service was devoted to music, I think they may have had to cut corners to squeeze it all in. 

Secondly, I have mixed feelings about a strict liturgical service.  You know the kind where the pastor speaks and after each line, the congregations replies in unison with something like “and also with you.”  Little things like reciting the Lord’s Prayer make it slightly uncomfortable if you were raised with slightly different words.  Growing up Presbyterian, it will always be “debts and debtors” to me (MO Synod Lutherans say “trespasses and those who trespass against me” and yesterday, it was something slightly different still).  Anyway, liturgical based services and, I believe, the governing body of the synod determines the liturgy form and format for all churches.  This probably made a lot of sense - when a large portion of the members couldn’t read - but hopefully that time has passed.

Third, and this was concerning to me given my conservative perspective, in both the children’s service and the corporate prayer, mention was made about being mindful of our ecological impact. Don’t get me wrong, I think we should be good stewards of the earth but there are lot of things that are much more important especially with all the things happening in the world today. Including that in the children’s service was way beyond their understanding and struck me as indoctrination.

When it comes down to it, I thought my experience was a blessing because it showed me that too much music wasn’t always a good thing and, on those days, when I wish the church had this or that, I need to remind myself to be “glad for what youse’ is and not what youse’ is not.  Folks that do this are the happiest lot” (bonus points if you know where that is from).

“Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” - Philippians 4:11-13 ESV

“Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we can confidently say,’“The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’” - Hebrews 13:5-6 ESV

“But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” - 1 Timothy 6:6-10 ESV