A Captivating Worship Experience

The cover story of a recent synod publication contains an article exalting a congregation of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod which has developed “a captivating worship experience.”  They’ve achieved this by “breaking down the typical church stereotypes” and offering something that “doesn’t look, sound, or feel like a traditional or contemporary worship service.” 

<sigh>

“There is always an unthinking group that permits itself to be blown to and fro by all kinds of doctrinal winds, as a feather is blown about by air currents. This group always falls all over itself adopting innovations, as though the most modern were always the best. There are also the ever-changing weather vanes and the limber-necks, pedagogues and preachers who with delicate noses smell the direction of the wind, who are adept at twisting and turning with every change, and who, under the pretense of offering newly discovered and original truths, yet preach only that for which the ears of the people itch.”

H.C. Schwan, “On Preserving Unity While Avoiding Either Faddishness or Sluggishness 1890 Synodical Address,” Matthew Harrison, At Home In The House Of My Fathers, 542.

Change is not always good.  Being “novel” and “different” is not always good.  The great danger here is that if you work really hard to not look like a church, you just might succeed.  

In terms of the Divine Service, the church needs to keep her nose clothes-pined to the wind of the culture, not incorporating every faddish desire of the heart, no matter how emotional or uplifted it might be, but instead holding fast to the Word of God. 

“Oh, that we would take this to heart, that we would keep our eyes glued on the Word of God as a sailor keeps his eyes glued on the compass, so that no one be turned aside from the goal, so that we avoid shipwreck and finally attain the goal of our faith!”

H.C. Schwan, “On Preserving Unity While Avoiding Either Faddishness or Sluggishness 1890 Synodical Address,” Matthew Harrison, At Home In The House Of My Fathers, 545.

We don’t need “a captivating worship experience,” we need that which we cannot get from a live band or a down-to-earth Pastor or a worship service that strives to be “relevant,” we need forgiveness, life, and salvation.  Let’s build a worship service around receiving those from the only place where they’re given: Word and Sacrament.  Oh wait, we already have that. 

If, as the article says, the purpose of this “captivating worship experience,” is “for the people that have strong faith and want to express that faith,” then I say let them. 

Let the strong in the faith go and express themselves and confide in their experience, their novelty, their prayers, their struggles, their exertions, their self-denials, feelings, sensations, and sanctification. 

But for those of us who are weak.  For those who struggle in this life.  For those whose world had come crashing down around them, let us confide in that which God has done for us and which He communicates to us by means of His Holy objective, clear, external Word and Sacraments.

Thankfully, God's grace isn't novel, it doesn't change with the culture, it doesn't look different from age to age.  It's sure and certain, and it's for those who are weak in faith!