Category Archives: Liturgy

Morning Prayer

18 Tuesday Dec 2018

Posted by in Church, Liturgy, Prayer, Worship

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My previous post was focused upon the utility of listening to the music and prayers of the Daily Offices of Worship. It was a baby step – a distant and tiny LED light leading the depressed and grieving out of their darkness. The North Star is not the brightest star in the sky, but with that tiny light, one can navigate the Northern Hemisphere.

This post revels in the JOY of the Daily Offices of Worship. It is a testimony of the personal resonances of my heart. Let me illustrate what I mean by the resonances of my heart.

Sympathetic Resonance

Years ago, I discovered something amazing and beautiful. After tuning my trumpet to the piano, I held the sustain pedal down while playing an arpeggio C, E, G, C on my trumpet. The piano came to life with every string in the chord resonating with the sound from my trumpet.

Scientifically, the sound waves from my trumpet pushed on all the strings in the piano. The strings that were tuned to the notes in the chord began to sympathetically resonate (passively vibrate in phase) with the sounds coming from my horn. So the chord I played in series – one note at a time – became a full chord ringing all at once in the piano.

When I stopped playing my trumpet, the piano chord beautifully rang for several seconds. Amazingly, ALL the potential strings that could ring at multiples of the sound waves rang too. Thus, the piano chord rang at several octaves above and below what my trumpet played.

This became a favorite activity of mine. I would play various major and minor chords making the piano sound great or awful as the sympathetic resonances sang along with my trumpet.

This works best when the piano is in tune.

Spiritually, I suspect that this is one of the roles of the Holy Spirit of God in the life of the Christian.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. [Romans 12:1-2 ESV]

Let me insert the language I am trying to emphasize,

…present your bodies [to be tuned] as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be [tuned] by the renewal of your mind, that by [tuning] you may [sympathetically resonate with] the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

I’m not doing deep exegesis, here. I’m merely using the concept of sympathetic resonance as an analogy to explain one way that God can fill and overwhelm our “hearts”, meaning our mental and emotional selves.

Now to the filling and overwhelming…

Morning Worship

The Venite – Psalm 95:1-7

I can remember singing these exact words in the Childrens’ Choir at Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Fort Worth, TX. I was in 4th Grade. God has been tuning my heart with these words for over 40 years.

Oh come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.
[Psalm 95:1-7 ESV]

Personal Reflection: Having a rock of salvation is extremely comforting. Psalm 62 speaks of God as a rock and a fortress – a place of supreme security. All the strong places are His, AND all the chaotic places like the sea are his, too. And we are protected as sheep are protected and cared for by their shepherd. Jesus said,

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. [John 10:11 ESV]

Benedictus

This is the Song of Zechariah. There are several “songs” in the Bible. They seem to be bold proclamations prompted by God’s spirit when significant events occurred. This sounds a lot like sympathetic resonance to me. God does something significant (this is the trumpet call) and his faithful sing out in resonance with his call (like the piano responding to the trumpet).

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel;
He has come to His people and redeemed them.
He has raised up a mighty Savior, born of the house of His servant David.
Through His holy prophets he promised of old that he would save us

  • From our enemies,
  • From the hands of all who hate us.

He promised to show mercy to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant.
This was the oath He swore to our father Abraham;
To set us

  • Free from the hands of our enemies,
  • Free to worship Him without fear,
  • holy and righteous in His sight all the days of our life.

[Now, Zechariah turns to his baby boy, John, and proclaims,]

You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High,
For you will go before the Lord to prepare His way,
To give His people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins
In the tender compassion of our God,
The dawn from on high shall break upon us

  • To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death and
  • To guide our feet into the way of peace.

[Luke 1:68-79 ESV] Bulleted lists were utilized for emphasis and clarity.

Personal Reflection: Clearly, the language of fear and being set free were relevant in Roman-occupied Jerusalem. But this language is relevant at all times. We are self-censoring in this age of cultural Marxism because we are fearful of our “enemies”. This fear of disapproval can be seen as silly when our Christian brothers and sisters are being arrested, tortured, and killed by actual enemies using actual violence. But fear is fear. Enemies are enemies. And hope is hope. This Song of Zechariah proclaims real hope in the impending birth of Jesus. Zechariah’s son John alerts us to the darkness and the shadow of death that is on us all. John prepares us to see the dawn (Jesus) who shines on us and guides us into the way of peace.

Prayers

Collect for Grace

O Lord, our heavenly Father, almighty and everlasting God. You have safely brought us to the beginning of this day. Defend us in the same with Your mighty power and grant that this day we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger, but that all our doings, being ordered by Your governance, may be righteous in Your sight; through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

Personal Reflection: Spontaneous prayer is good and we are encouraged by Paul to pray without ceasing. But these scripted prayers (called Collects) gather and summarize the prayers of God’s people, not just in aggregate on a given day, but also over time. This Collect for Grace was prayed over me essentially every Sunday of my life in Episcopal, Lutheran, and Methodist services. In all three denominational traditions, the same exact words were used meaning the prayer predates all of them. Amazing.

Thinking about the specific petitions in this prayer, I am comforted by the requests for protection. The phrase “ordered by Your governance” is one I have been recently chewing on. It could take a sovereign and fatalistic tone, which I struggle with. But it can also take a common grace tone, meaning that God in his grace to all mankind has established order in this world that is reliable. We are to seek His order rather than our chaotic sinful tendencies.

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father who art in heaven;
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven;
Give us this day our daily bread;
And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us;
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Personal Reflection: Luther devotes a large portion of his Small Catechism to expounding on the Lord’s Prayer. I have little of substance to add to Dr. Luther’s exposition.

On a trivial note, I’d like to mention why I like the archaic language of the Lord’s Prayer. I don’t pray in King James English, but I am a fan of leaving the Lord’s prayer in this form for the following reasons:

  1. It is most widely known by English speakers in this form, and can be recited corporately at a moment’s notice in times of celebration and duress. This has been a powerful reminder of the 400 year Christian heritage of the English speaking world that persists to this day.
  2. It reminds people of the 400 year continuity of these exact words. Destroy the wording and you destroy the continuity, unity, and fellowship of language.
  3. It prevents the revisionists from monkeying. Allowing a modernization of the words “art, trespass, Thy, and Thine” might be fine, but this trip wire sets off an explosion of efforts to “modernize the meaning” of the various petitions. Many see the concept of trespasses and sins as archaic and in need of modernization.

(As an aside, how many Lutherans does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: CHANGE‼?!???!???!?!     -Mea Culpa)

Benediction

The Lord Almighty bless us and direct our days and our deeds in His peace. Amen.

Personal Reflection: Again, one can read “direct our days and our deeds” in a controlling way or a gracious way. The director of a band does not control you. He does not force you to play your horn HIS way. He directs you to offer your music in an orderly way so that the whole family of musicians plays together, in tune, and in sympathetic resonance with His spirit.

Love to you all,

Darren

For more on my background, read what I believe and why and visit my About Page.

Passion for the Pain of Depression

05 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by in Church, Grief, Death, and Dying, Liturgy, Worship

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Disclaimers

  1. I am not a counselor. I am a chemist. But I have also been to graduate school and lost a child, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and a dear brother-in-law. So my perspective includes the hell of intense pressure and the pain of intense loss.
  2. A discussion on depression is best held in dialog, but this is a blog. Comment streams and late night blog binging is no substitute for face-to-face conversation, comfort, and warm hugs. Consider this blog post a remote hug, but find a real hug from a real person, soon and often.hug
  3. This is not a ToDo List. In my opinion, giving a ToDo List to a person suffering from depression is futile. I do offer some things to explore, though.
  4. Lastly, my views on this topic offer a Christian perspective. I know of no other perspective that gives the hope that the Christian perspective offers. Please don’t run off if you are skeptical of the Christian truth claims. See if you think there is any wisdom in my perspective. Eat the meat and spit out the bones.

My Observations

Depression is not just “feeling sad”.

I remember in 10th grade health class, the teacher was discussing barbiturates, alcohol, and other drugs classified as depressants. I thought depressed meant sad, so I couldn’t imagine why you would take a drug that makes you sad?!?!

Obviously, I was wrong. The depressant part meant specifically that it depressed the central nervous system. Some are general like alcohol, and others are quite specific like some anti-anxiety drugs.

This is as far as I can go as a physical chemist. Pharmacology simply has too many variables for me to conceive or to model.

I’m reluctant to list the symptoms of depression because you may be like me. Seeing the list causes me to feel many of the symptoms. But if you must, here they are.

Instead of a list, here is a humorous story that illustrates the point. One of my students, several years ago, came to my office hours after missing class.

He said, “Dr. Williams, I have a problem.”
“What is it?”, I asked.
“My givashit is broke.”, he said.
“Oh my! You have to get that fixed, immediately!”, I said as we both laughed.

We laugh, but we know that a broken givashit is not a laughing matter. It is sometimes a sign of depression or a panic coping mechanism. You simply cannot make a decision. And sometimes you don’t even care. You know this is a path that leads to destruction but you don’t give a ___ because your givashit is broken.

My Theoretical Musings

(My counseling colleagues are invited to correct or add to my musings in the comments section. Please contribute for the good of all!)

I have noticed that mental looping or stuck thoughts can break your ability to make a decision or to care about anything else. When I get stuck in an obsessive mental loop, I need something or someone to interrupt.

As a bona fide computer geek, I see the analogy of the operating system using interrupts to pause or to stop processes that are requesting CPU time. My Christian world view does not reduce the human brain to a CPU, but these analogies are still useful in my opinion.
You can’t get “into the machine” to stop a mental loop if you don’t have a reliable interrupt.

(Spoiler Alert: Music is a reliable interrupt system giving access to the parts of the mind that are “below” the looping executive and anxiety functions. Hence, music therapy.  )

How Do I…

  • Fix a broken givashit?
  • Stop obsessing about my obsessing about what I am obsessing about?
  • Break out of my negative mental loops?
  • Find a path out of this dull darkness of my soul?

This is a call to explore, not a self-help ToDo List.

A Passive, Intrusive, and Spiritual Path

The trail I’m hoping you will explore is passive, intrusive, and spiritual. You are able to “let it run”, passively receiving rather than actively giving. My suggestion is intrusive to interrupt the mental looping. It is spiritual because this is not a mechanical problem.

My suggestion is based upon my personal experience.

Daily Liturgical Worship

Daily liturgical worship is passive, intrusive, and spiritual.

Daily liturgical worship can be passive as the example below will illustrate. It can move to become more active over time, which is an amazing transformation. But start passively, one step at a time.

Daily liturgical worship is filled with simple melodies and singable tunes that echo in the mind all day allowing beneficial mental loops to interrupt negative and unwanted mental loops.

Daily liturgical worship is spiritual providing spoken and sung scripture with spoken and sung prayers that eventually become a part of your mental furniture.

Modern Christian practice (not just modern worship, but modern unscripted prayer, and modern “what does it mean to me” Bible study) has left us with no structure or form. It feels like there are no comforting chairs to sit in, no desks to study in, and perhaps no boundaries or walls to our spiritual imaginations. This is not freedom. This is lostness. These structures and pieces of furniture take time to build, but WE don’t have to build them. Jesus is the carpenter, and He uses his Word to build these holy places in our soul.

What IS Daily Liturgical Worship?

The early Christians continued the Jewish practice of reciting prayers and Scripture during certain hours of the day, which means this practice goes back over 2000 years.

How can this be a passive practice? Well… with Amazon Prime, you can download the CPH Album Evening and Morning: The Music of Lutheran Daily Prayer.
CPH-daily-prayer

I have listened to Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Compline on my phone nearly every day since June 2018. I have interspersed Matins, Vespers, and the Litany on special occasions or when I felt like it.

Are you worried by the word Lutheran?  Don’t be. These readings, Scripture, and tunes go back to pre-Lutheran, pre-Eastern Orthodox, and even pre-Roman times. The Lutheran part of this is the compilation of these ancient services into the Lutheran Service Book published by CPH.

You can listen to these services passively when commuting, when anxiety strikes, when you want to pray but don’t know how or what to pray, when waking, when lying in bed before sleep, when you are praying for sleep to come, and when you are seeking the will to get out of bed.

Not now, but down the road as your motivation returns, this worship can transform over time from passive to active practice. Get a copy of the LSB from CPH and follow along when motivation strikes. But don’t force it at first. Just listen to the love and encouragement that Morning, Evening, and Compline Worship brings.

An unexpected benefit to your personal private consumption of this eternal beauty will be when you run across a congregation that is using elements of these worship services. Your soul will soar as you hear and participate with others in these ancient readings and songs. I’m sure you will be amazed when you find patches of this fabric of worship in Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, and even Eastern Orthodox services. It always catches me by surprise when I visit a friend’s church and find some ancient tune, song, chant, prayer, or reading that is common among our different traditions.

The interrupts are effective. The simple melodies of these selections of daily liturgical worship are from a bygone era. Some are quite ancient. All of them are capable of comforting you throughout the busy day. I find my mind humming them often during mental downtimes at work. Their haunting tunes are comforting to me. Their ancient origin connects me to the past and the text gives me hope for the future.

This is most important:
Daily Liturgical Worship is Spiritual.

Jesus, the carpenter of our souls tells us,

“God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24)

And Jesus prays to the Father on our behalf, asking Him to

“Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” (John 17:17)

These rituals of daily worship are almost 100% Scripture – using truth to worship Truth. They contain the spirit-filled proclamations of Mary (Luke 1:46-55), Zechariah (Luke 1:68-79), and Simeon (Luke 2:29-32) and many ancient prayers of the church.

The Whole Point

The whole point of this blog post is captured at the end of the Song of Zechariah:

“In the tender compassion of our God,
The dawn from on high shall break upon us;
To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death;
And to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Meditate on that. Are you in darkness? Are you in the shadow of death?
I know you are because we ALL are. We ALL need Jesus to guide our feet into the way of peace.

I pray that the daily practice of worship and prayer will help Jesus guide your feet as it helps Him guide my feet. These wonderful, beautiful, and healing words bathe my soul daily.

Closing Analogy

Does this get old? Does the novelty wear off? Of course it does. How could novelty not wear off? What did you expect?

This practice is more like bathing than swimming. Swimming is recreational and novel. Bathing is often mundane and necessary, but it is also refreshing and life-giving.

catbath

We (many of us) bathe daily. Why not worship daily?

Let us invite the passion of the living and active Word (Heb 4:12) to renew our minds, daily. Hear what Paul says:

“Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” [Romans 12:2a CSB]

Hear what Jesus says:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” [Matthew 11:28-30 ESV]

Hear what Paul says, again:

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).

We pray.

Be present, merciful God, and protect us through the hours of this night, so that we who are wearied by the changes and chances of life may find our rest in You; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. [from Compline]

Love to you all!

Darren

Check out my musings on Morning Prayer, next.

For more on my background, read what I believe and why and visit my About Page.

Amazon Prime and Liturgical Worship

26 Sunday Aug 2018

Posted by in Liturgy, Worship

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You would be hard-pressed to estimate my excitement when I saw the following album in my Amazon Prime Music App.

CPH-daily-prayer

This is an excellent recording of the Daily Offices – prayer services that fill the day with worship and praise. First, let’s define some terms using the Liturgical Glossary of the LCMS…

Daily Office
Services of prayer offered at established times each day. Already at the time of Jesus, set times for prayer were customary (Acts 3:1). By the sixth century, eight services of prayer, which included psalms and readings from Scripture, were observed in the monasteries. Since the Reformation, this schedule has been simplified to three times of prayer: Morning (Matins), afternoon/evening (Vespers), and close of the day (Compline).

Liturgy
In the Lutheran Confessions, liturgy is defined as “public service” in the sense that the proclamation of the Gospel and administration of the sacraments is God’s service done on behalf of his people. Sometimes the word is used to denote an order of service, though the more specific terms “order of service” or “ordo” are preferred.

MatinsThe first of eight daily prayer services that developed during the Middle Ages for use in the monasteries. At the time of the Reformation, these services were reduced to two: Matins in the morning and Vespers in the evening. Matins is a Middle English word that comes from Latin for “of the morning.”

Vespers
A Latin word meaning “evening.” Originally one of eight daily offices prayed during the Middle Ages, Vespers was retained at the time of the Reformation as one of two daily services, the other being Matins. Sometimes also referred to as Evening Prayer.

Compline (KAHM-plin)
Similar in nature to bedtime prayers, Compline is the last of the daily prayer offices that came into use during the Middle Ages. Prayed in later evening, the service is simple in nature and includes this appropriate antiphon for use with the Nunc Dimittis: “Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping, that awake we may watch with Christ and asleep we may rest in peace.”

Litany
In general, a responsory prayer with repeated congregational responses. In the Divine Service, the Kyrie is sometimes cast in the form of a litany, with the congregation responding to each petition with the words, “Lord, have mercy.” An expanded form of this litany is found in Evening Prayer. The most comprehensive form of the litany is the medieval version that was revised by Luther and still appears in hymnals today.

Chanting
A method of singing liturgical texts that are not metered (as in a hymn). Most chant consists of short phrases that are sung responsively between pastor and people. Psalms may also be chanted as well as parts of the liturgy (e.g., the Gloria in excelsis, The Lutheran Hymnal, p. 17).

The Lutheran Service Book (and the CPH Album) also includes Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer. Both are presumably included as alternatives to Matins and Vespers, respectively.

Now, the question you are probably asking, “Why would DW be so excited about this?”

There are several contributing factors:

  1. I was raised in a church that utilized a fair amount of chanted liturgy, especially the Venite. I have experienced even more chanted liturgy since joining the Lutheran Church in 1992.
  2. The popularity of chanted liturgy is waning, and I miss it dearly.
  3. I read the Benedict Option by Rod Dreher this summer where a bold apologetic for the disciplines of worship was made.
  4. And finally, I experienced two breath-taking chanted worship services at the Texas District Convention of the LCMS last June. This is explains my excitement when I found the CPH Album shortly after that convention.
  5. I felt a great need for more structure for my devotional life.

Therefore, I began in late June to listen to Morning Prayer in the morning during breakfast, pausing to read the Bible on my BlueLetter Bible App (My #1 recommended Bible App).

In the summer, I often drive home for lunch to get some extra family time. So I would listen to Matins on the way home. I would listen to Vespers on the way back to work. I’d listen to Evening Prayer on the way home from work at the end of the day. And saving the best for last, I would listen to Compline with my head on the pillow at the very end of the day.

Did I do this EVERY day? No.

Did I get at least 2 in every day for two (going on three) months? Yes.

So what? Glad you asked…

Dispelling Myths

I am 100% Lutheran when it comes to the view of participation in works. Listening to these services, singing along with all my heart and with a full voice, and praying the prayers did nothing to aid my salvation. There is no works-based or participatory merit system in play.

So what do I “get” from it?

I experienced all the following thoughts and feelings at various times. I am sure these are common to many people when they encounter chanted liturgical worship. I’ll outline them very briefly.

Curiosity

I was curious about the various prayers and canticles. I was pleased to recognize many of them as hymns of praise directly from Scripture like the Magnificat, the Nunc Dimittis, the Benedictus, and the Venite.

Magnificat (mahg-NIF-ih-kaht)
The opening word in the Latin text of the song of Mary from Luke 1:46—55, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” This New Testament canticle has been sung at the daily service of Vespers (Evening Prayer) for some 1,500 years.

Nunc Dimittis (noonk di-MIT-iss)
Latin for “now dismiss.” These are the words spoken by Simeon as he held the 40-day-old Jesus in his arms (Luke 2:25—35). One of the New Testament canticles, it was traditionally used in the daily service of Compline and as an alternate to the Magnificat in Vespers. In the Lutheran Church it is also appointed for use following the distribution of the Lord’s Supper.

Venite
Latin for “oh, come.” The title for the song of praise taken from Psalm 95 that is sung at the beginning of Matins/Morning Prayer. The first line reads, “Oh, come, let us sing to the Lord.”  (Above, from the Liturgical Glossary)

The Benedictus
(also Song of Zechariah or Canticle of Zachary), given in Gospel of Luke 1:68-79, is one of the three canticles in the opening chapters of this Gospel, the other two being the “Magnificat” and the “Nunc dimittis”.

Nostalgia

As mentioned my earliest childhood memories of church were of singing the Venite in particular. The tune in Matins is exactly the same as the one I sung as a small boy in the Episcopal Church in the early 70’s.

Connection to the Past

I feel a deep connection to the body of Christ – his church – singing words and tunes that predate all the schisms that have occurred throughout the centuries. Ancient vs Modern, East vs West, Protestant vs Catholic – we disagree on creeds, councils, and popes, but we still sing the Magnificat and other canticles to tunes that have been in use for well over 1000 years. Amazing.

Novelty

Some of the song tunes were familiar, but many were not. It was very enjoyable to learn them over time. If singing along, I would mess many of them up. But I knew that over time I would get better. Taking a long view helped. It is a new and interesting exercise – practicing the liturgy, daily. In fact, that is what a DISCIPLINE is. It is “an activity or experience that provides mental or physical training.”

[1Co 9:26-27 CSB] 26 So I do not run like one who runs aimlessly or box like one beating the air. 27 Instead, I discipline my body and bring it under strict control, so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

Negative Emotions or Responses

It is important to point out the cons as well as the pros.

Pride

Pride is always a risk. It is also one of the most difficult emotions to guard against. Even the acknowledgement that it is a risk can lead to pride in one’s own self-awareness. This is a bottomless pit. Therefore, it is best not to “selfie” the Daily Offices. Focus on worshiping God, not on the act of worshiping God. And PRAY for mercy. The Holy Spirit can accurately diagnose and alert one’s heart to the rise of pride.

[Jhn 16:7-8 CSB] 7 “Nevertheless, I am telling you the truth. It is for your benefit that I go away, because if I don’t go away the Counselor will not come to you. If I go, I will send him to you. 8 “When he comes, he will convict the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment:

Boredom

Do the same thing long enough and the mind, especially the smart-phone-induced-short-attention-span mind, becomes bored. I know the words and tunes by now.

The well-known risk of rote behavior is real. So what is the remedy? Here are a few that I have experienced this summer.

  1. Check my motives. Why am I singing these songs of praise? Am I doing them to merely learn them? If so, then job done. But, if I am actually praising God, then they are merely a vehicle for my praise. This adds weight back to the practice.
  2. Move beyond the self-satisfaction of knowing the words and tunes. Now that I know them, I can meditate on them as I sing them. They become a deeper part of my thinking. THIS has allowed the words of praise to become MY OWN.

Don’t miss this. It took time and practice for these hymns of praise and tunes to penetrate my mind to a level that they became a part of me and how I worship God.

This fact alone is what bothers my conscience with the cut-and-paste bulletin liturgies of the modern church. I cannot deeply mean a prayer to my God that I have just been handed in a church bulletin. I need to chew on these prayers for months, years, and maybe decades before they become an inseparable part of my soul and my soul’s song to God. My favorite prayer is in the service of Compline.

Abide with us Lord, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. Abide with us and with Your whole Church. Abide with us at the end of the day, at the end of our life, and the end of the world. Abide with us with Your grace and goodness, with Your holy Word and Sacrament, with Your strength and blessing. Abide with us when the night of affliction and temptation comes upon us, the night of fear and despair, the night when death draws near. Abide with us and with all the faithful, now and forever. Amen.

It will take time for me to memorize this prayer, and I look forward to the task over time.

In fact, Luther in the preface to the Small Catechism entreats pastors and teachers to

…above all be careful to avoid many kinds of or various texts and forms of the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, the Sacraments, etc., but choose one form to which he adheres, and which he inculcates all the time, year after year. …

Is boredom a risk? Always. Are there fertile valleys on the other side if we would check our motives and cultivate a meditative attitude on what we are saying and singing? Yes.

Ending on a Positive Note

Unexpected Blessings

As I approach the car to head home, I now face a temptation to “move on”. I’ve experimented with the Daily Offices. It was enriching, but I’d really like to listen to another Issues Etc podcast.

Is this boredom? A quest for novelty elsewhere? Both? Not sure. I have skipped a few times to keep from being legalistic about these things. (Nice self-justification, there.)

Other days, I stayed the course and listened/sang through the service.

I have noticed repeatedly, that these tunes stick in your head for several hours and often days. I have also noticed repeatedly, that having words of praise rattling around in your head all day is a GOOD thing. These unexpected blessings are magnificent.

One of the first Bible memory verses I ever learned as a child was Psalm 119:11 “Thy word I have hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee.” I have thought all my life that memorizing a Bible verse was the same as hiding it in my heart. And to an extent I still think that is true.

I have come to see that these songs of praise have gone deeper into my mind, soul, and heart than any short or long-term mnemonically-memorized verse can ever hope to go.

These songs of praise and prayer are singing through my mind as I go about my work, When temptations arise there is a major mental showdown. It is very difficult to block out the beauty of the chanted daily offices so I can indulge in a petty yet dangerous diversion. Thy Word has been planted deep in my heart.

Sometimes it is tempting in the evening to just crash without a bath, but it is always better in my opinion to wash the day away. So now, when I approach the car and think, “am I going to listen to Matins on the way home?” I see it as taking a mental bath, and it serves its intended purpose by renewing my mind.

[Rom 12:1-2 CSB] 1 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

My participation in the Daily Offices has been a powerful experience in many ways. They are straight from the Scripture and appear to be renewing my mind. My hope is that they, with regular study of the Scripture, will fulfill Jesus prayer for me (and for you) in John 17.

[Jhn 17:17 CSB] 17 “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”

In Closing, I’d like to point out that since I have downloaded this album to my phone I have played snippets of it to three other people. All three lit up and wanted more.

It has been like dropping a spark onto dry grass.

I didn’t expect that at all. I thought I was a little off in my love for the ancient tunes and songs of the Daily Offices. Maybe I’m not.

Love to all,

Darren

Worship – within a larger context

18 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by in Campus Apologetics, Church, Liturgy, Ratio Christi, Worship

≈ Leave a comment

The latest article by Rod Dreher is worth pondering. I hope you will take 15 to 30 minutes to soak it in. He is interviewed by a college student, and thus, he is forced to give a sketch of his last many years writing and wrestling with the biggest issues.

Since I have kicked the wasp nest of worship here and here, I thought I’d excerpt his thought-provoking words on worship as a teaser to the larger article. Please savor the whole thing one morning this Christmas season.

My interviewer told me that there’s a strong tendency among his Christian peers to dumb down Christian worship — to make it instantly accessible to anybody, without having to do any work. He said he struggles to understand the anti-intellectualism of all this, especially as it manifests itself among college students. What’s more, they act as if anti-intellectualism was an egalitarian virtue.

This, I responded, is exactly the wrong approach. It’s not that they ought to be making worship more complex and demanding, necessarily, but this stance assumes that we stand over worship asserting the right to mold it to fit our preferences. You end up with a ritual that worships yourself, not God, whether you mean for it to or not. Similarly, if you see the Christian tradition that way, as a repository from which you can pick and choose this or that thing, and make a bricolage of it, you may soon find that you have decorated a temple to yourself.

Powerful words. Read the whole enchilada… It’s worth it!

Love to you all!

Darren

Skrewtape’s stamp of approval

28 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by in C.S. Lewis, Church, Liturgy, Worship

≈ 2 Comments

Imagine my horror, when I saw this on the dark web. It appears my post on worship has gone viral there after receiving the infamous Screwtape‘s personal stamp of approval.

At great personal risk, I have copied the text of Screwtape’s response to my post. I hope it will be beneficial to you. I know I learned a lot from reading it.

An image of my post on worship with Screwtape's stamp of approval

An image of my post on worship with Screwtape’s stamp of approval

To: My pathetic colleagues including the deficient Wormwood

From: the Inimitable Screwtape, Master of Daemons and Online Trolls

Another obscure post from another unknown blogger was brought to my attention. But it worries me slightly. Let’s use it as an example of how to avoid the good and focus on the bad. There is some risk associated with Mr. Darren’s self-righteous post, but I think we can manage it if we divert the discussions in the Parking Lot and bring in some resources from the Department of Discord.

Mister Darren starts off with some noxious clap trap about love, love, and more love. Do your best to divert anyone who happens along his blog post to skim over this part. Try to tease them into thinking this lovey talk is just the normal background noise of “churchiness” and not that he REALLY loves his church, his pastors (bleh I can hardly stand to type that word), or his youth. The word “love” stinks of the enemy, and real love is intolerable.

On to the juicy parts. I would have ignored this post altogether if Mr. Darren had not identified (accidentally, I’m sure because he doesn’t appear exceptionally bright) our two main techniques for deflating the power of worshipping the enemy – that is over emotionalism and under emotionalism. (Ugh! I hate admitting that anyone could actually worship … whatever!)

Cathartic excess and adrenaline has been one of our most effective weapons, and Mr. Darren has the gall to try to shine his little pen-light of a blog on our secret machinations. This has to be dealt with.

Likewise, he turns his little pitiful blog towards our bulwark of the disconnected recitation of mumblings that the enemy’s minions call the liturgy. He rightly points out that the words in those liturgical writings are noxious to us and are focused on the enemy.

But I’m not worried about the words in their liturgy or the words in their noxious praise songs. We have human nature on our side. And that is where I would like you to focus your efforts.

I am assigning Wormwood to lead this task. Hopefully, he won’t foul this one up.

Here is the plan.

If by chance someone stumbled upon Mr. Darren’s insignificant and pitiful blog, it is ok to let them read it. After they read it begin your work, thusly. Put the following questions into their ever-so-distractable minds:

  1. How many minutes are dedicated in a so-called worship service to their favorite categories: Contemporary vs Traditional vs Liturgical
  2. Did the worship committee pick EXACTLY the same number of contemporary songs vs old songs.
  3. Why is (organ, guitar, saxophone, trumpet, piano, drums) being used? NEVER let them listen unimpeded to the beauty of any musical offering! That beauty (bleh) is from the enemy and is very dangerous to us. Instead, get them to focus on every little missed note, off pitch, etc. These people are pretty pathetic so it is always easy to find distracting bits in the mix.
  4. Why is the pastor using that story, telling that joke, behaving that way, choosing that verse? This overly critical attitude of the “laypeople” is a new tool for us, and it is bearing some excellent fruit. Do your best to eliminate any respect of the pastors because they serve the enemy full time. There’s no telling what those fellas are up to. Especially dangerous to us are those pastors who pray together with each other and their leadership teams and who hold each other accountable. Our people cannot stand to be in the room when they are praying to the enemy, so we have difficulty knowing what they are planning.
  5. Why are we (or aren’t we) offering two worship services? We can operate effectively against the enemy in either of these situations so no matter what they choose to do, we can still distract the members to be bothered by the situation.

The one thing we CANNOT allow under any circumstances, and that is to allow the members of Faith Lutheran Church or any other church to ACTUALLY worship the enemy.

Although I couldn’t bear to read all the writings and analysis Mr. Darren pulled from the so called “holy” writings, I do know he got dangerously close to equating worship with selflessness and sacrifice. This is a very delicate situation, but Mr. Darren has given you the key to distracting a devout worshiper. Notice his martyrial tone. “I will be the one to sacrifice MY desires.” Oh brother! Take this over-dramatic selflessness and insert our secret sauce – pride.

If you can have the devout worshipers become proud of their devotion, then we can derail the whole enterprise.

That’s enough for now.

Don’t mess it up!

-Screwtape

Worship – a layman’s perspective

21 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by in Church, Liturgy, Worship

≈ 7 Comments

Originally penned on 8/30/2015. Due to the controversial nature of this topic I have sat on it for nearly two years. It’s time to post it and begin the discussion as carefully as I am able.

UPDATE: Be sure to read the comment stream on this post and look at Screwtape’s reaction.

IMG_3534

My Quandary

I am in a congregation that I love, serving youth and young adults that I love, living in a neighborhood that I love, and in a denominational synod that I love.

What is missing from that wonderfully blessed situation?

Worship

I have experienced contemporary worship since I left for college in 1987. I know all the words to every Michael W. Smith, Twila Paris, Amy Grant, Rich Mullins, etc. worship song. Nobody can say I don’t know the contemporary music associated with contemporary worship. I am also familiar with Episcopal (1968 – 1987), Baptist (UT 1987 – 1992), LCMS (1992 – 1997), Methodist (1997 – 2004), and LCMS (2004 – present) theology, hymnody, and worship styles. And by visitation, I have seen Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Assembly of God worship services as well as the myriad of student worship gatherings for the Baptist Student Ministries, the Wesley Foundation, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and CRU.

I have become convinced that these worship methods are strongly targeted to the emotional side of Christianity. I have been told many times by well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ – layman, laywomen, elders, and pastors that “churches with young people have these types of services”. I have observed this as well. But I have also seen that the laypersons’ Biblical literacy, apologetic ability, and knowledge of the basic theological tenants of the Christian faith are in a pathetic state of decay.

These two trends are related.

“What you win a person WITH, is what you win a person TO.”

– Ravi Zacharias, Christian Evangelist and Apologist

No matter what congregation you are in, pay attention to the next worship music “set” and you will see “the buildup”, “the climax”, and “the afterglow” with an occasional echo of the climax and afterglow. It is a very effective emotional technique. It produces predictable results for those who are drawn into the experience. They get lost in the experience – some laughing, some crying, some simply drowning in the endorphins.

I understand. The world is a crummy, fallen, and heartbreaking mess. We are crummy, fallen, and heartbroken. We need an escape. We need to feel absorbed in the glory of our Lord and what He has done for us. We need to forget the world and our sinful selves as we rest on the Lord’s atonement.

However, escapism doesn’t help me truly deal with Monday-Saturday issues. The Sunday morning high helps me cope. I might even get a midweek booster shot on Wednesday nights. But being won with emotionalism, I am left with emotionalism.

(Please do not dismiss my next few points because of any prejudice on your part against words like Liturgical or Episcopal. That is called the Genetic Fallacy and it prevents you from listening to my POINT because you disagree with my BACKGROUND.)

My earliest worship experiences were in St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Fort Worth, TX. This church uses the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, and the liturgical portions were exactly the same Sunday after Sunday. Yet, it was deeply moving without being escapist. I learned to read the big words in those prayers as a child. I learned what inestimable meant. I learned what presume meant. I learned that I was a miserable sinner. It seemed fitting to have a formal “you” (Thou, Thy, and Thee) which was used for God (and God alone since we do not speak this way, today).

What made this worship meaningful to me? I wasn’t sure. After a few years in the Baptist church at UT I began to miss it. I was afraid my longing for it was merely nostalgia for my childhood. Then, I visited the Lutheran Church with my girlfriend (later we were wed there). I heard similar prayers and similar portions of the service with the same strange names – Agnus Dei, Te Deum, Hosanna, etc. Something clicked. I thought growing up that the liturgy of St Andrews was written in 1928. It was not.

Fast forward in my search. Seeing the same portions in the Lutheran and Episcopal service meant the service predated the split between those two. Later I saw the same upon visiting a Roman Catholic church, meaning the service predates the Protestant-Catholic split in 1500 AD. Imagine my surprise when I visited my Greek Orthodox friend’s church and saw the same portions of the service with even the same words in the Kyrie Eleison and Agnus Dei! This predates the East-West split in 1000 AD. I was finally able to pull the thread back to the 70 AD Liturgy of Saint James – brother of Jesus, leader of the first century church in Jerusalem.

  1. K. Chesterton was paraphrased by John F. Kennedy as saying,

“Don’t take a fence down until you know why it was put up.”

The passage he was paraphrasing is:

“There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, or that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion.”

What IS Worship?

At this point, it is appropriate to ask “What is worship?”

  • Is it a purely escapist emotional experience, a few readings, a message, and some cut-and-paste parts from a loose order of worship?
  • Is it a stiff and stodgy recitation of words written by the forefathers of our forefathers?

Let’s take a detour from opinions and go to the actual words of divine scripture.

From the Blue Letter Bible website

Worship in Hebrew (shachah, Strongs #H7812 is translated in the following manner: worship (99x), bow (31x), bow down (18x), obeisance (9x), reverence (5x), fall down (3x), themselves (2x), stoop (1x), crouch (1x), misc (3x)

Outline of Biblical Usage

  • to bow down
  • (Qal) to bow down
  • (Hiphil) to depress (fig)
  • (Hithpael)
  • to bow down, prostrate oneself
    • before superior in homage
    • before God in worship
    • before false gods
    • before angel

And in Greek (proskyneo, Strongs # G4352 is translated in the following manner: worship (60x).

Outline of Biblical Usage

  • to kiss the hand to (towards) one, in token of reverence
  • among the Orientals, esp. the Persians, to fall upon the knees and touch the ground with the forehead as an expression of profound reverence
  • in the NT by kneeling or prostration to do homage (to one) or make obeisance, whether in order to express respect or to make supplication
  • used of homage shown to men and beings of superior rank
    • to the Jewish high priests
    • to God
    • to Christ
    • to heavenly beings
    • to demons

Jesus linked service to worship in response to Satan’s temptation. The word for service he used is letreuo, Strongs #G3000 in the following manner: serve (16x), worship (3x), do the service (1x), worshipper (1x)

Outline of Biblical Usage

  • to serve for hire
  • to serve, minister to, either to the gods or men and used alike of slaves and freemen
    • in the NT, to render religious service or homage, to worship
    • to perform sacred services, to offer gifts, to worship God in the observance of the rites instituted for his worship
    • of priests, to officiate, to discharge the sacred office

It is clear to me from the outlines and the usages that worship is about bowing down, prostration to God, and service to Him and His wishes.

There is no hint of an emotional high. That does not mean it is emotion-free.

I have often been moved to tears through the words of the various liturgical settings in the Lutheran Church and still when I go back and visit my childhood church home. The distinction is this. The words moved me to tears, yet they were not designed to move me to tears.

The words in that service were not written to move me through any emotional arc. My emotional connection to them is rooted in what they move me to say about myself, what they move me to say about God, and what God has to say to me in His Word.

In “wordy” worship, I am being won “with words” and thus I am won “to words”.

When I need mid-week strength, I don’t need my worship song playlist. I can be fed with the pure Word of God – strengthened and uplifted by the encouraging scriptures that have been incorporated in the order of worship and committed to memory by a lifetime of recitation.

“Come unto me all who travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.”

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

“It is more blessed to give than to receive”

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten son, so that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but shall have everlasting life.”

And on, and on. (These scripture passages are at the beginning of Morning Prayer.)

One last point

Worship is about sacrifice, and sacrifice comes in many forms. For worship, we sacrifice sleep on the weekend, we sacrifice time, and we sacrifice our resources. Why is it when it comes to worship that we refuse to sacrifice our opinions about what matters in worship? Instead, we insist that WE are right and that OUR wishes are the only ones that will “keep the church alive” or will “bring in young people”.

It is unreasonable for me to ask YOU to sacrifice your opinions, wishes, desires, and yes, even emotional needs.

Unless a compromise can be found, I will do the sacrificing. I will continue to stay in a congregation that I love, serving youth and young adults that I love, living in a neighborhood that I love, and in a denominational synod that I love.

But when the cacophony and emotional arc begins I will sacrifice my preference and my need of meaningful and familiar words and hymnody. There will still be parts of the worship service that speak to me, in the readings, the sermon, the confession, absolution, words of institution, and the creeds. But even if the familiarity is taken away through weekly re-writes, I will continue to see this as my prostration, my worship, and my drink offering to the Lord. And if I get too hungry for the old words, I can always pull the LSB or Book of Common Prayer off the shelf at my house and have my own worship “service” alone with the Lord.

I do ask that I not be insulted by calling my worship “dead”. It is as alive as my Savior Jesus Christ.

Moving Forward with Hope

I appreciate our Pastors’ interest in opening the door to a discussion about worship. I would like to keep the ball moving.

Some objections to deal with up front.

The retort that people fall into a rote recitation is often used as an argument against using the service book for worship, but this is a problem with the worshipper not the words. Leadership should always encourage the congregation to engage the mind and heart when reading responsively.

The same observation can be made of people in praise services checking their phones or standing bored with their hands in their pockets during music sets. It is not consistent to use disengagement as a criticism of any form of worship.

The real issue for us is that there are two preferences in one congregation.

The Solution

The following suggestion would breathe new life into our congregation, because it is something that people have been asking for since 2005. For over ten years, many of us have been asking for a service that allowed us to know exactly what we were going to be doing and saying on Sunday morning so we could throw our full attention into worshipping our Savior.

This should not be seen in a negative light. This should not be seen as a defeat or capitulation to those immovable traditionalists. This should not be seen as creating two congregations. There are already two groups attending one service on Sunday morning and two different sets of voices on each type of music.

This should be seen as proactive service of the needs of those who need structure to their worship. This will also provide an outreach opportunity. I predict that the 8 am service will bring people in. I do not know of any no theologically conservative churches in Huntsville who have structured worship on Sunday mornings. Why can’t we provide this for the community? It is an unmet need that we can fill.

If you are worried about structured worship producing dead Christians, then I hope to allay those fears with my very life.

To worship one way or another is a matter of preference on BOTH sides. Please acknowledge that my preference is no less holy than someone else’s.

“19 Therefore, brothers, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way He has opened for us through the curtain (that is, His flesh), 21 and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. 23 Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24 And let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good works, 25 not staying away from our worship meetings, as some habitually do, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. ” [Hebrews 10:19-25 HCSB]

Flexibility in this area by providing two worship forms on Sunday morning will greatly “promote love and good works”, and will express the concern we have for people who are “staying away from our worship meetings” (physically or mentally).

Please receive this long text with the grace and love that went into writing it. I hold NO ill will, nor do I want a worship war. I want peace in the congregation, and I want to proclaim Christ’s love in many ways each week.

Darren