A FINE EXAMPLE

This past Friday my wife and I had the pleasure of attending the wedding of Erica Grass and Rev. Stephen Rosebrock at St. John's Lutheran Church in Wheaton, IL. It was a beautiful wedding, and a fine example of how a wedding can truly be a Christ-centered, cross-focused service of worship. Of course, given who got married and where, I'm sure none of our regular readers are surprised to read this!

But in the performance of the liturgy itself there was a fine example of liturgy-as-pastoral-care I would like to share. We were blessed with the Lord's Supper at this particular wedding, and so I had a chance to experience how one of the the local pastors, Rev. Joshua Genig, presides over the Eucharist. His pacing was exquisite: unhurried but never stodgy, with clear diction and reverent tone. It was literally a musical experience to hear him offer the Eucharistic Prayer (a.k.a. "Prayer of Thanksgiving"). Then, after the Lord's Prayer, he chanted the Words of Institution beautifully, pausing to reverence each kind and then holding up the host and the chalice to present our Lord's body and blood to the congregation as he shared the Peace.

In so many Lutheran parishes - even confessional ones! - pastors hurry through the communion liturgy. Perhaps they are worried about time. Perhaps the familiarity of it makes them less careful. Or perhaps they just think it is long. And yet what message do pastors send when they preside in a hurried way? Is it really worth the extra 30-40 seconds they might pick up by taking a faster 'clip' through this part of the service? I think not.

And, ironically, people are more likely to feel like things are going long when the pastor speeds up - whether in the Prayer of the Church or in the communion liturgy. When pastors act like they are running out of time, the assembly gets the message and grows impatient. Far better to keep cool, and keep focused on what is really going on.

May all pastors savor the moment and allow the church's liturgy to serve the people well. And thank you, Pastor Genig, for letting the living voice of the Gospel in the liturgy have its way with us.

Isn't It Great When They Sing?

A different "they" this time. This time I'm thinking about the people in our parishes who don't get very involved and may not even come every Sunday. If we the British Parliament, we'd call them "the back benchers". Generally they don't sing much.

But I must say one of the things that give me the greatest satisfaction as a Cantor is when I see and hear these folks singing the liturgy and the hymns. I just love it! Every parish has her singers, but a parish that has lots of 'ordinary folk' singing the Lord's song is one that cherishes music as integral to our life together in the Gospel. Sure, a percentage of stereotypical 'back benchers' would do so without a cantor's service in the Lord's ministry, but the percentage has gotten higher at Bethany and, observing many of these same folks over the years, I can see how the Lord has used the cantoral office to help the Word dwell richly in many people who'd never even think of joining a choir.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Here are a few examples:

1 - The 8th grade boy who'd been coming more often to church with his family because he was headed to confirmation. Hymnal was open for every hymn, including the communion hymns. He was sitting up straight and singing right along on all the stanzas.

2 - Pastor noting several times this year how much he enjoys the acolyte's singing. That's right: most of our acolytes sing out, even though they are not seated next to parishioners who might give them "the security of numbers". Last Sunday he mentioned how much he enjoyed a couple of them singing harmony with him.

3 - Visiting Pacific Hills in Omaha many years ago (1994) and hearing a visibly blue collar mother & two teenage daughters sing the liturgy robustly behind me with untrained, yet sincere voices. They clearly had a Lutheran piety. My chat with them afterwards confirmed that they considered themselves in no way to be candidates for any involvement in church choir or anything. They just sing the Lord's song because of the faith the Lord has given them. (Ably nurtured in this by the organist there at the time, Charles Ore).

Yes, faith sings. Isn't it great to hear it?!

The Bulletins They Drop Off

For our friends who are cantors and pastors, I'm sure you find in your office mailbox periodically a 'gift' that I receive every few weeks myself: the bulletin from another church. Now, sometimes it is dropped off by people who know your intellectual interest in worship planning. And, as Bethany has become more confessional that is pretty much what I get these days. But often in my first years here and during my years in Peoria, you'd get the "bulletin with an agenda": the bulletin intended to show you about that 'perfectly good LCMS church' that does things in a way that is "so much more" (insert word of choice here). And, cantor, you are such a fine musician so can't you see how we could be doing these (insert word) things here at our church if we didn't insist on doing the same things week after week?!

I won't go into the details on the latest one, from a large LCMS church in the Minneapolis area. Suffice to say it is the same old thing the Ablaze! synod-within-synod gets week after week: confessions of sin that focus on one little sin that may or may not apply to everyone; absolutions that include penance (now go and do...); lay readers reading the Gospel; one or two readings; 75% CCLI music; Choir singing Gaither music; "Children's Ministry Video Montage", little communion liturgy; a 'worshippers exchange greetings' rather than the sharing of the Peace.
And no such homespun liturgy would be complete without a clunky innovation meant to show how 'relevant' they are in their creativity: the second Gospel acclamation was changed to "Praise to You, O resurrected Christ!" (Just to make sure people are paying attention, I guess. Had to make sure they knew it was still Eastertide. How special!)

At least this service preserved the four-fold shape of Preperation, Word, Sacrament, Blessing. And they actually said the Apostles' Creed (no time for the Nicene, evidently) instead of some newfangled "Affirmation of Faith". And the service conluded with an Aaronic Benediction. So, in the world of LCMS Ablaze!, these are the liturgical conservatives.

The LCMS is in desperate need of ecclesiastical supervision.

A Birthday Ambush

Hello, Fine Tuning readers! This post comes to you not from Phillip or Stephen, but from Phillip's wife Cheryl. I am boldly co-opting my husband's blog in order to wish him a very happy birthday! I invite you to offer him your best birthday wishes as well, either here or at my blog, where if you do visit you will be rewarded with a pictorial look at Phillip through the ages.

To my dear husband: SURPRISE! And happy birthday! (I love you.)

More About Youth

I have had the pleasure of engaging children in music making many times over my years as a church musician (and I still do as a music teacher). When there is time and ability to teach them, they can learn just about anything and sing it with a good deal of success. Kids do not identify music as "difficult" unless you or their parents tell them it is. Despite the many success stories about the high level singing of children, parents still have a hankering to hear their kids sing their favorite praise and worship choruses or songs that are known as "typical" kids songs. I won't start to name titles, but there's a lot of nauseating music out there written "just for children."

A pastor friend lamented the fact that, after successful efforts to engage his youth in learning the hymn, "All Mankind Fell in Adam's Fall," a parent came out with this line: "They're only children. Can't they just sing 'Jesus Loves Me?'" I have observed that often the thing that comes between children getting good exposure to the catechetical hymnody of our Lutheran heritage are their parents and Sunday school teachers. It does not matter that the kids were having no trouble with "All Mankind Fell...". It does not matter that the pastor has proven the kids to have been be successful singing substantive music on several occasions previously. The parents cannot seem to wrap their mind around the salutary effects of this.

Folks, this is just wrong. Kids have NO TROUBLE learning music that adults may find daunting. The scholarly evidence is abundant and well documented, as is the anecdotal evidence. The resultant success of teaching young children substantive hymns is everywhere if one bothers to look. I can tell you stories as can many pastors and church musicians. Many have written eloquently on the subject. You find this phenomenon occurs across denominational barriers. You find it as a foregone conclusion in secular music education as well. Yet, despite the overwhelming testimony and even when successes occur in the parish, parents and teachers often resist this activity. There are many reasons for this and they are not pretty. One may be that the Sunday school teacher or the parent is not familiar with the music the pastor wants the kids to learn, so they are intimidated to teach it. Another may be that they do not like the song, so their personal preference stands in the way of the kids’ catechesis. Or, they are far more interested in seeing little Barbie or Billy up there in front of the congregation, so entertainment becomes the objective. Or they just want to "celebrate," or "recognize" the children in the service. There is much more to say, but, maybe another time.

Parents and Sunday school teachers need to quit imposing their pet tastes on the children entrusted to them. Let pastors and church musicians catechize these young people using, among other things, the music and texts of our rich Lutheran hymn heritage as it was always intended. Our young people these days are going to have many distractions that would threaten to get in the way of their catechesis. Parents, teachers, don't you be one of them!

The Liturgy Solutions Setback

As many of you already know, Liturgy Solutions has suffered a setback that was totally unpredictable. There has been a message on our home page in an attempt to bring our clients up to speed about what our future plans are. Our database on the server that was our host was lost by the host company. There have been no back up files made available to us. We are now on a new host company, our site having been transferred there by our web master. We are poised to load up all our product files on the new database. We were happy to discover that the product files themselves were not lost, but rather the database that organized them. This will save us some time as we get our site up and running again. Without explaining every detail, it would have been worse if we had to rebuild the site from files in our respective computers. The fact that they could be transferred to a new server assists us, perhaps only a little, but we'll take what we can get.

Now it is up to Phillip and me to get things going again. We may get this done quickly, but with our respective schedules it may take us a little time. Either way, we hope all our clients will be patient with us and be assured of our commitment to providing you with all the fine music we have brought you these past few years and much new in the years to come! Thank you all for your support of Liturgy Solutions!

Speaking of Youth

By the way, that last Sunday I blogged about (with much music provided for the congregation by our youth ensemble) resulted in an interesting report from a parent.

It seems her 8th-grade boy came into church and noticed the three microphones, the guitar, the monitor, and the small amp for the bass guitar, and got his mother's attention. Now before I tell you what he said, let me share with you that this young man is one whom our ecclesiastical advisers at the synod and district offices would tell us to LISTEN TO: he's public school, Hispanic, dresses in a hip but not outlandish way, is not super-involved in the youth group, and carries himself in a cool, detached way.

But his response was not what the Baby Boomers who run Ablaze! (the LCMS church growth initiative) expect. He looked at the guitars, the kids, and the mics, turned to his mother and said: "We're not going to become like Uncle Ben's church, are we?!"

Frankly, I'm not surprised. The research on youth & worship music confirms this: young people understand the difference between what is appropriate for different occasions, and don't expect every part of their life to have the same soundtrack. Just like the rest of us wear different clothing and eat different foods at different occasions, so do young people understand that the Divine Service is not a place for entertainment, but a place for reverence.

Once we had the service, mom reported that her son was no longer concerned. Church was still church. Our piety didn't change. As I wrote in my last post, Bethany doesn't become a different congregation just becasue our youth sing or because a guitar gets plugged in.

And yet the LCMS as an institution doesn't understand this. They think that somehow we have to change our piety if we're going to 'reach people for Christ'. Why don't they understnad that there is nothing in our piety that works against evangelism or missions or nurturing the faith in the next generation?

Frankly, I think the real obstacle here are pastors, parents, and teachers who don't embrace who we are. Anyone who works with kids knows that if you are positive and sincere in your joy about something, the students will buy into it.

No, the problem isn't the kids. The problem is church leaders. They either are deceived into thinking that somehow Lutheranism is incompatible with youth - or maybe some of them just don't believe in it themselves.