Opening the book—sermon series, audio and visual

We’re starting a new sermon series at UALC, called Open Book, an initiative to read and teach through the Bible.  So this Sunday will be Genesis 2.

  However, last Sunday, September 8, a few in-house details needed to be addressed as there are changes in scheduling taking place and worship services are being condensed or merged.  You can not change worship styles even in the same Lutheran congregation without causing some conflicts or hurt feelings.  Last night at dinner in a restaurant  for our church’s art ministry one of the spouses of a member declared how much he dislikes organ music and only enjoys what I call the “clangy bangy service.” (loud guitars, many amplification speakers, quartet leading—X-Alt)  Bill honors God in a different way than the Bruces who like liturgy, hymns, scripture and written prayers.  So Senior Pastor Steve Turnbull at the Lytham Road services (9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.) preached on this. http://www.ualc.org/clientimages/38787/ministry_guide-handout_pdfs/09-08-19_lrsermonnotes.pdf  I’m listening again to the audio, and can tell it wasn’t the 9 a.m., but essentially the same words for the 10:30.  http://tech.ualc.org/mp3/audio/190908STLR.mp3

To prepare for tomorrow’s service (Sunday September 15) I looked at (on-line) the Biblical story of the creation of the earth and Adam and Eve. What is so annoying about listening to it on-line while reading is the advertisements.  First, there was a woman’s blouse flashing on the left in teal and black.  I paused to close it, and it was quiet for a minute, then brought up a stationary ad of a dress, so I closed it.  Then a few seconds later it posted a car advertisement (we were looking at new cars yesterday), so I closed it.  Three interruptions in one Chapter! Cookies left along the way on my computer have told advertisers that a female who is car shopping is now reading Genesis 2.

Also, a professional actor is reading (in the NIV audio by Gateway), and although he has a wonderful voice, after a few sentences they all start to run together, so I find the audio of the reading done by our own layperson more pleasant.  Unfortunately, it isn’t available until the sermon is recorded.  To get around this, I can click on what was being read last week at Mill Run which will be the selection for this week at Lytham. http://tech.ualc.org/mp3/audio/190908ATMR.mp3

These on-line interruptions in my vision are similar to what I experience auditorily in some worship services—loud noises, odd music, abrupt changes, difficulty hearing what is being said due to fluctuations in voices (dropping voice at end of sentence) or people whispering behind me. Aural comprehension has always been a problem for me from the time I was told in school or at home I wasn’t paying attention or I was lazy, to this day when someone asks about a point in a sermon and I don’t recall a word.

Poetry and music—how the schools and churches fail us

Although this is a challenge for Catholic schools and churches, it applies to all worship leaders and educators: poetry and music. Even when I was in school 60 years ago, my mother complained that we didn't have enough poetry in our curriculum.

"First, get rid of the lousy poetry and lousy music. Stupidity is always a vice, says Maritain. Nobody says, “It doesn’t matter what movies my child watches, so long as he watches movies,” or, “It doesn’t matter what my husband drinks, so long as he drinks.” Get rid of it. Nobody but the church performers enjoys it anyway. Replace it with real hymns. Don’t think you can get those from the big presses, OCP and GIA and such, because they have mangled the texts and dragged them through the mud. Sing the poems, as they were composed.

Second, return to poetry. The time is short, and the reward immense. Fifty lines of Tennyson can be committed to memory; five hundred pages of Dickens, not so fast. Have every student in your schools learn, say, twenty poems by heart. And their elders, too, might join in – have a Poetry Night in your parish, with the stipulation that every poem be written in meter.

We are suffering from cultural dementia, muddied and dulled by the strokes of the modern. It is time, little by little, for recovery."

https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2019/02/23/recovering-from-cultural-dementia/?

Not being Catholic, or even musical, I didn't know what OCP and GIA were, so I looked it up. The comments from the musical directors are hilarious.

https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/8615/what-is-your-favorite-gia-or-ocp-hymnal-/p1

Some worry that the Trumps didn’t sing the hymns or recite the creed at Bush 41 funeral

I am a Lutheran and our one congregation has 3 styles of worship, traditional, contemporary and loud rock, and I don't sing many of the praise/songs at some of the alternative services because I don't know them or I don't like them. Also, not all Christian churches use the Apostles Creed, and not all Christians are familiar with it. I've attended services where it sounds like a local committee wrote the creed of the day, and I don't say it. There are 35,000 (approx.) Protestant and non-denominational/Bible only groups, plus multiple rites within the Catholic tradition, many orthodox and Eastern Christian groups. Christianity is a very big tent, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-language and multi-liturgy or no liturgy, and there are no requirements to sing or recite anything, especially when in unfamiliar territory. The trick to attending a different service is to always sit in the back row and observe--which obviously the Trumps couldn't do.

Unfortunately, many in the media used the very lovely tributes to Bush 41 to slam Trump.  They just can’t help themselves.

Hymns of praise

 

We attend the traditional service at our Lutheran church (NALC) in Upper Arlington, Ohio.  There are two other types of services—one I call “happy clappy” which I’m guessing is mostly post-1960s songs and praise music without liturgy and the other “clangy bangy” with very loud guitars and drums, and we have two locations for one congregation. Right now we have a total of five services, but I can remember a time when we had 10, trying to suit all the tastes in worship style and preaching. Our traditional service at Lytham Road has a choir and the other two have praise bands with perhaps a quartet to lead the music.  The pastors rotate, so we all eventually hear the same sermons by the same pastors. Right now we’re in a study called “Gathered,” which is about worship.  Last week was on music (song) with sermon by senior pastor Steve Turnbull and yesterday was the sacraments by Aaron Thompson who is director of the high school ministry.  Lutherans have two sacraments—baptism and communion, but for 1500 years the Christian church had six sacraments, but Martin Luther cut them to two, and today many Protestant and Bible and non-denominational churches have no sacraments, only memorials.

So this all leads to the opening hymn of praise, “Praise the Lord! O Heavens. I always read the information about the hymn writers at the bottom of the page (I don’t like to read words on a screen, because I like to see the music so I can practice my dwindling ability to read music.) This one said, Text: The Foundling Hospital Collection, London, 1796.  One of the beautiful things I appreciate about the Internet is I don’t have to wait long to satisfy my curiosity. An antiquarian book dealer, Simon Beattie of London had one for sale and was discussing its history. You can go to his website for further explanation of the institution and its collection, and also http://www.intriguing-history.com/foundling-hospital-collection/  The hospital has a fascinating history which includes Dickens and Handel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundling_Hospital

The Foundling Hospital, Britain’s first children’s charity, had been established by Thomas Coram in 1739.  ‘The Hospital chapel, in use by 1749 and officially opened in 1753, soon became well known for its music as well as for its elegant architecture and adornments …  The singing of the children at ordinary Sunday services was a great attraction to fashionable London and became an important source of income to the Hospital through pew rents and voluntary contributions.  Music was specially composed and arranged for the Hospital chapel, and the success of the singing led to a demand for this music, which was met by the publication of a book called Psalms, Hymns and Anthems; for the Use of the Chapel of the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children.  It is generally known more informally as the Foundling Hospital Collection’ (Nicholas Temperley, ‘The Hymn Books of the Foundling and Magdalen Hospital Chapels’, Music Publishing & Collecting: Essays in Honor of Donald W. Krummel (1994), p. 6).  [from Beattie’s blog)

This hymn is in the 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship and the Lutheran Service Book and Hymnal of 1958, which notes the text is by John Bacchus Dykes, 1823-76, which wouldn’t work with the copyright of 1796.

Praising God for a great Sunday

What a great Sunday. Church at Upper Arlington Lutheran (Lytham Rd.) with liturgy, wonderful hymns (O worship the king, Rise up, O Saints of God, Beautiful Savior), challenging sermon by Joe Valentino, the Lord's table with anointing, and the choir singing, "Oh, how I love Jesus "(arr. Lloyd Larson). Then it's lunch and study with our church fellowship group, and a cello quartet recital later in the afternoon at Highlands Presbyterian church.

http://www.beckenhorstpress.com/o-how-i-love-jesus/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutheran_Book_of_Worship

Ten hymns on aging and our “golden” years

http://www.hymnary.org/hymnal/ALY1976

I'm generally not a joiner, but as a age, I appreciate hymns and liturgy more. "The mission of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada is to encourage, promote, and enliven congregational singing." If the sermon, announcements and Sunday School lesson are a bust, and the layman reading the Bible passages mispronounces all the place names, hymns and liturgy are there for us to worship Jesus, the whole point of attending. This organization looks promising:  http://www.thehymnsociety.org/

Sing for Joy is the St. Olaf choir web site with beautiful choral music that follows the lectionary. http://www.stolaf.edu/singforjoy/

Misconceptions about worship

Here’s something American Catholics and American Protestants share—we are overly concerned about how we feel during worship.  It’s all about me.  No, it’s about the risen Jesus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkoaLfR_iCg#t=94

We Americans in any case rather have come naturally to think that in the liturgy we want to express ourselves, and if it doesn’t feel like us, then we don’t want to say it!

But the whole tradition of liturgy is not primarily expressive of where people are and what they want to say to God. Instead it is impressive. It forms us, and it is always bigger than any given community that celebrates it.

Father Jeremy Driscoll

Mystery visitors come to your church

Columbus used to have 2 newspapers, the Dispatch and the Citizen-Journal. I think it was the CJ that had a reporter who visited churches and then reported on the service and how he was treated. There are web sites that still do this--some quite humorous. Outreach magazine's final article is usually based on that. A recent issue had a mystery visitor who was not only not a Christian, but was a Muslim. Still, if I had visited "one of the top five fastest growing churches in America" that she did, I think my reaction would have been similar. The number one defining reason people chose a church is the worship style, i.e., the music. And it's probably the number one reason they leave. I have on occasion actually had to leave the building in order to protect my ears! Here's what this young Muslim woman wrote:

"The band looked like modern, alternative artists. There were guitars, bass, drums and keyboards, with words displayed on the screen. I felt a bit awkward singing along, as alternative music seems hard to sing along with."

Amen to that. Also very repetitious. We were at an event last night where I recognized the music, but thought it so boring my ears would bleed. It's not that it was loud. I think we've used it during cool-down in exercise class. One of the largest, most popular churches in Columbus uses this style. Then she described the message she heard:

"[it was] about getting baptized and the feelings you have before taking this step. The speaker was on the screen; he was not actually there. I found this impersonal. Several other movie clips were used throughout, and Bible verses were referenced. The message was not especially applicable to me as a Muslim, but I could see how it would apply to a Christian."

Not to this Christian. I just love sermons on baptism if there is a strong gospel message, and maybe an actual baptism--but feelings while being baptized? Not so much. I was about 12 and much concerned about what I would look like while wet and choking. Then she continues about the setting

"It was different for me that men and women were together because Muslims meet in separate areas of the mosque. Intermingling between sexes is frowned upon in my culture, especially in a religious setting. You could not talk to the speaker. No one came to talk to me. There was a small statement in the bulletin about a tent where first-time guests could receive a free gift, but I did not see this notice until after I came home. People seemed nice, but no one, except for the greeters at the entrance, acknowledged my presence. I wouldn't go back because it wasn't my idea of worship. I respect everyone there, but it really just wasn't for me."

In every Christian sanctuary or fellowship hall there is behavior that if off-putting for the stranger, especially the noise and talking during the prelude of traditional services. Still, if you are a visitor, you need to be respectful, as this woman was, of another's culture. We attended a tiny Lutheran church a few years back and a toddler was running up and down the aisles squealing, much to the delight of the members, but we were a little surprised. It turned out he was the pastor's son, and different members would just pick him up and kiss him and pass him along to the next parishioner. Once we understood, it was sort of sweet. Being a print person, I'm always reading the literature, and mentally composing a letter to their communications staff on how I would do it differently to help the visitor in their midst (an address of the church would really help, and it's shocking how often this is left off).

Our multi-campus church has three locations and nine services. I try to be friendly and welcoming, but often find out I have welcomed someone who joined 10 years ago, and just got up early that Sunday. Still, it's good practice.

In any case, it doesn't sound like this non-Christian heard the gospel--but then, neither did the members. And it's so important to remind the "regulars" why they have made the effort to gather and praise God.