Flexibility

More Worship Words to Wrestle With

Flexibility

One of the strengths of liturgical worship lies in its yearly repetition and recurring patterns that establish the rhythm of worship in your parish. The familiar words and actions allow us to concentrate on worship without counting the steps of the dance, as C.S. Lewis said. But as worship planners, we work to ensure that repetition doesn’t become repetitive and that the rites don’t become ironclad rules. Liturgical worship is not meant to be a straitjacket for the worshiping church, but to provide the framework on which we build congregational worship life.

So what are some areas and examples of flexibility in liturgical worship? Here are some simple suggestions that the reader might consider implementing if found fitting for the local context.

Musical Style

Several years ago, a couple of snowbirds stopped in Sharpsburg for worship on their way to Florida. When I met them in the line after service, the man leaned in, as if we were co-conspirators, and said, sotto voce, “We’re from Wisconsin. We’ve never been to a contemporary worship service before.” I had to break the news to them that they still hadn’t—that the service was Matins and had been in use by the Church for many centuries. They were befuddled because the service had been accompanied by guitar, flute, piano, and windchimes. They were unfamiliar with that kind of variety in instrumentation and made the mistake of thinking liturgical worship is about style rather than text and content. What they heard was a style fresh and new to them adorning a form with long use in the Church.

They made the mistake of thinking liturgical worship is about style rather than text and content.

One of the best ways to express flexibility in liturgical worship is through style, instrumentation, and the settings of the service. Mozart may have called the organ the king of instruments, but that doesn’t mean it has to be the only instrument in Lutheran worship. Adorn the liturgy with as many instruments as you have. Liturgical worship lends itself to the varied musical resources of any congregation. In the past few years at least 22 different types of instruments have been used in worship at our congregation. Whatever God provides you in terms of an instrumentalist can be brought to bear in the flexibility of the liturgy and hymnody of the church.

The new hymnal project’s Musician’s Resource (nph.net/musicians-resource) is a powerful tool to help. Simply search on hymn number, tune, or the like, and you will find various settings for the hymn prepared for your instrumentalists. Musician’s Resource will eventually provide instrumental resources for every hymn in the hymnal. If you have a pianist and guitarist, the resources will help you provide a fresh sound inside of familiar forms. All of the hymns in the hymnal will have one or another type of guitar setting, some matched with a keyboard setting, others not. If you can build a liturgical ensemble (e.g., piano, guitar, percussion, wind instrument), you will find materials ready to purchase and download for suitable hymns.

Are your instrumentalists less experienced? Check out the easy lead sheets (Musician’s Resource–Packages)—arrangements with fewer chords that are easier to play that work in tandem with Easy Hymn Accompaniments—Piano Edition (NPH, 0303068).

Many of the newer hymns in Christian Worship are well suited to be accompanied by piano, guitar, and some hand percussion. Try it, and you will see that the addition of rhythm instruments makes those hymns much easier to sing.

Maybe your context will have brass ensemble, strings, and timpani for Easter festival service, or maybe what you have is piano, guitar, and cajón. The beauty of liturgical worship is the flexibility to feature any or all of them, and between Christian Worship, Service Builder, and Musician’s Resource, you will find the right resources for your context.

Canticles and Settings

We usually think of the Ordinary as the part of the liturgy that doesn’t change (“Gloria,” “Kyrie,” “Sanctus,” etc.). Providing variety in the Ordinary can be accomplished by introducing new settings of the service, such as Setting Three. But, teaching new service settings takes time and effort. People may complain because they don’t know the new “Gloria,” or that it’s hard, or that it’s just not the Common Service. The temptation for the worship planner is to abandon the flexibility that liturgical settings offer and settle into the same settings for the liturgy Sunday after Sunday.

In Service Builder you can find resources that will allow a huge amount of variety.

But in Service Builder you can find resources that will allow a huge amount of variety in your liturgy with minimal introduction for the congregation. In fact, if your congregation can sing “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains” (MISSIONARY HYMN) and “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” (HAMBURG) you could introduce a brand-new setting of the service this coming weekend.

Service Builder provides The Service Settings 6-10, and all the canticles are based on hymn tunes. You can choose the origin of hymn tune service (American, German, British, Scandinavian, Evening), or mix and match, and you will be given several hymn tune choices and accompanying texts for the “Gloria,” the “Sanctus,” and the “Agnus Dei.” These settings provide a lot of flexibility. For example, there are 38 versions of the “Gloria,” each based on hymn tunes—some very familiar; some less so. Service Builder allows you to quickly assemble a service and service folder that will provide immediate variety in a very accessible form.

Worship planners could also consider seasonal canticle replacements. During the Season of Epiphany in Year C, try replacing the “Gloria” with the first three stanzas of “Christ Begins” (CW 385). Put a note in the service folder that this newly composed hymn has stanzas that walk us through the season. Stanza 1: the Baptism of Jesus (Epiphany 1C); stanza 2: the Wedding at Cana (Epiphany 2C); stanza 3: Transfiguration (Last Sunday of Epiphany C); refrain: the Season of Epiphany. Piano and rhythm instruments are a great fit.

During the Season of Easter CW suggests that the “Gloria” can be replaced with “This is the Feast” (CW 938 or, available only in Service Builder, CW 963). We have instead used “At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing” (CW 675) in the setting by Phillip Magness that is meant for a liturgical ensemble (Hymns for the Contemporary Ensemble, Vol 2, CPH, but currently out of print). We last did this with piano, guitar, string bass, clarinet, and percussion. Let loose your liturgical ensemble on this piece, and you will find a text that’s been used for a millennium, a tune used for two centuries, and recently composed setting that combine into a great sing for the Season of Easter. You could have an amplified cantor lead the singing, but after a couple of weeks your congregation will need no help.

Four times each year a month will have five Sundays. Have a small group learn and lead an alternate service setting used whenever a fifth Sunday occurs. We use Morning Prayer (Matins). Utilizing the small group or choir to lead it makes introducing it simple. Using it four times annually results in it feeling both fresh and familiar. Check out Morning Prayer (alternate) in Service Builder. It offers Marty Haugen’s folk style setting that could be led by a liturgical ensemble (and could make snowbirds think they have been initiated into contemporary worship).

Communion

When a congregation reaches out with the gospel corporately and its members individually, unchurched families will join the worshiping assembly. We have all had those moments when a person that you’ve invited comes to church for the first time—and it’s a communion Sunday. If possible, we would prefer if someone’s first time at worship doesn’t exclude them (rightly) from an action in worship that all the other adults are doing. Especially when your congregation invites the community to join worship at an outreach event, we can be kind and thoughtful hosts and ensure that we schedule fall festivals, church picnics, and other invitational events on a non-communion Sunday.

However, two of the dates that have the highest likelihood of an unchurched or dechurched person attending for the first time are Christmas and Easter. Of course, on these two high festivals, we should not fail to offer communion, but you could consider a modified schedule. In Sharpsburg, Christmas Eve is a service we invite our community to join us, and so it is a non-communion preaching service, but we celebrate Christ’s mass on Christmas Day.

Our Easter celebration starts with Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday evening. We celebrate the Sacrament in that service and then leave Easter Sunday as preaching services. Members who want to receive the Sacrament on Easter are invited to join us at the Vigil. (Some churches offer the Sacrament at the Easter Dawn service.) We have found this practice ensures celebration of the Sacrament on the high festivals while being visitor friendly. It has the added benefit of growing attendance at the Vigil and Christmas Day services.

The Propers

Lectionary-based preaching brings a wealth of blessings to the congregation. When the lectionary sets the path for public worship, my congregation is protected from my whims and wants as a worship planner. It means I don’t get to pick out the parts of Scripture I want to talk about and ignore the parts I don’t. It ensures that broad sections of Scripture will be expounded. It offers balance between preaching on events in the life of Christ and teachings from the mouth of Christ. The Church Year instills a pattern to congregational worship life reminding us that there is a time and season for everything under heaven: a time to prepare, to celebrate, to anticipate, to mourn, to grow.

That being said. . . don’t forget that the lectionary is a guide, not a ceremonial law. Sometimes it pays to do a little picking and choosing. Christian Worship models that in its suggestion that congregations observe the festival of Reformation on the last Sunday in October and All Saints on the first Sunday in November rather than on their actual dates of Oct 31 and Nov 1. However, that means the readings for Proper 26 (Sunday on Oct 30 – November 5) would never be used. In the upcoming Year C that means you always miss out on the Gospel featuring the story of Zacchaeus, paired with Romans 5:6ff. (“When we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly”) and Micah 7:18ff. (Who is a God like you who. . . will tread our sins under foot and cast our iniquities into the depths of the sea”). That’s a fantastic set of readings that deserves to be preached with regularity. Proper 25 faces a similar fate most years.

Next year I will use Propers 25 and 26 earlier in October, replacing Propers 23 and 24 on October 12 and 19, 2025. This maintains the end time focus outlined in The Commentary on the Propers: Year C beginning with All Saints and running to Last Sunday. The next Year C will use Propers 23 and 24 again.

Some texts are just too important to miss. So are some festivals.

Some texts are just too important to miss. So are some festivals. Not every church is going to celebrate Epiphany on January 6 when it falls on a Tuesday. Not every church is going to celebrate Ascension on the Thursday 40 days after Easter. But every church should have those readings and celebrations in their worship life. Celebrate Ascension (observed) on the following Sunday. Each year you could alternate assigning the Sixth Sunday of Easter readings from Easter 6 and 7. All six of the Gospels (ABC) are from the Gospel of John and are Jesus’ words to his disciples in the upper room.

Observing Epiphany on the following Sunday gets a little more complicated. First, you’ll have to explain how the 12 Days of Christmas became 17. Then you’ll have to decide how far you are willing to deviate from the Church Year. Epiphany 1 is Baptism of our Lord—another festival we don’t want to miss. If you observe Baptism of our Lord on Epiphany 2, then the Gospels you miss annually are the beginning of John’s Gospel (“Look the Lamb of God”; the calling of Andrew and Peter, Phillip and Nathanael; and Cana, and the first of John’s seven signs).

Consider this: When Christmas 2 falls on January 4 or 5 observe Epiphany in place of Christmas 2. This keeps you in line with the calendar throughout the Season of Epiphany. When there is no Christmas 2 or if it falls before or after January 4-5, then observe Epiphany on the following Sunday, in place of Epiphany 1 and slide all the Epiphany Sundays forward, removing the last one before Transfiguration. This practice ensures the infancy narratives of the Christmas season will be preached regularly.

Our congregation will observe Epiphany on January 5, 2025, and January 4, 2026, by replacing Christmas 2, and all the remaining Sundays are as appointed. But in 2027 Christmas 2 falls on January 3, so we will observe Epiphany on January 10, Baptism of our Lord on January 17, Epiphany 2 on January 24, and so on. This means that we will miss out on one of the Gospels at the end of Epiphany. It also means we are one Sunday off from the rest of Christendom for a few weeks. In Years A and C, the end of Epiphany Gospels have several pericopes from the Sermon on the Mount. Choosing to drop one of those works well in Years A and C. Year B is tougher sledding.

Occasionally when a minor festival falls near a Sunday, observe it. Preach St. Barnabas on a Sunday in June.

And as long as we’re breaking lectionary rules, consider breaking another. Occasionally when a minor festival falls near a Sunday, observe it. Preach St. Barnabas on a Sunday in June and thank God for the “son of encouragement” and the work the Holy Spirit did through him. Schedule St. Michael for the Sunday near the fall equinox, and as the days grow shorter and the nights darker remember that we are not alone in the spiritual battle. The sanctoral cycle drove not only worship life but also the civil calendar in the western world for centuries. Could it find a place in your congregation’s worship life?

“Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old” Matthew 13:52.

By Jonathan E. Schroeder

Pastor Schroeder serves as the chairman of the WELS Board for World Missions, first vice president of the South Atlantic District, and pastor at Faith, Sharpsburg, Georgia. Past service includes pastor-at-large on the WELS Synodical Council, moderator of the Institute of Worship and Outreach, executive committee member and chairman of the scripture committee of the WELS Hymnal Project, and editor and an author for the series Commentary on the Propers.

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This article points to the wealth of resources available from the Musician’s Resource. At two WELS national leadership conferences some of this material accompanied old, heritage Lutheran hymns (along with some modern songs), for example, “Why Should Cross and Trial Grieve Me” (CW 831). Some participants were overheard commenting, “Those don’t sound like old hymns at all.” “Right, quite fresh and appealing.” Not that there is anything wrong with sounding old. In the realm of heritage furniture, we call priceless and highly appreciated items antiques. Antique does not mean obsolete or irrelevant. And so the Church—and even at times the wider culture—can value old hymns like “Of the Father’s Love Begotten.” Note how frequently this 13th century tune is heard in modern arrangements at Christmas.

For the benefits of flexibility plus continuity throughout WELS and not only in a single congregation, see the discussion of flexibility and one couple’s transfer to various kinds of WELS churches in Foundations, page 219 (NPH, 0303055).

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Devote Yourself

1 Timothy 4:13: “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching.”

Coming this fall, WELS Congregational Services will offer a new newsletter called Devote Yourself. This newsletter will focus on providing ministers of the Word with helpful articles and practical approaches to teaching, preaching, and leading worship. This new newsletter will be an email subscription-based resource that replaces the current electronic newsletter, Teach the Word, as well as the mailed newsletters of Preach the Word, and Worship the Lord. Delivered on a bimonthly basis, you will find similar articles and helpful content that you have enjoyed in the past. The electronic version will not only save on printing and mailing costs but will also make it easier to include links and videos. The articles in Devote Yourself will also be posted on welscongregationalservcies.net. Watch for more information on the launch of this new newsletter resource.

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