Quiet Lutheran worship wars<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If members of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod have heard it once, they've heard their national leaders repeat this mantra a thousand times: "This is\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2009\/11\/quiet-lutheran-worship-wars\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Quiet Lutheran worship wars\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If members of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod have heard it once, they've heard their national leaders repeat this mantra a thousand times: "This is\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2009\/11\/quiet-lutheran-worship-wars\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Terry Mattingly\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-11-16T09:01:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"tmatt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"tmatt\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2009\/11\/quiet-lutheran-worship-wars\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2009\/11\/quiet-lutheran-worship-wars\/\",\"name\":\"Quiet Lutheran worship wars\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-11-16T09:01:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2009-11-16T09:01:07+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/#\/schema\/person\/76ce2260a572ff41a28fb285de9350f1\"},\"description\":\"If members of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod have heard it once, they've heard their national leaders repeat this mantra a thousand times: \\\"This is\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2009\/11\/quiet-lutheran-worship-wars\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2009\/11\/quiet-lutheran-worship-wars\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2009\/11\/quiet-lutheran-worship-wars\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Quiet Lutheran worship wars\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/\",\"name\":\"Terry Mattingly\",\"description\":\"On Religion\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/#\/schema\/person\/76ce2260a572ff41a28fb285de9350f1\",\"name\":\"tmatt\",\"description\":\"Terry Mattingly directs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. 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{"id":1741,"date":"2009-11-16T05:01:07","date_gmt":"2009-11-16T09:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tmatt.net\/?p=1741"},"modified":"2009-11-16T05:01:07","modified_gmt":"2009-11-16T09:01:07","slug":"quiet-lutheran-worship-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2009\/11\/quiet-lutheran-worship-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"Quiet Lutheran worship wars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

If members of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod have heard it once, they\u2019ve heard their national leaders<\/a> repeat this mantra a thousand times: \u201cThis is not your grandfather\u2019s church.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s certainly what musician Phillip Magness experienced when he took a sabbatical at Bethany Lutheran Church in Naperville, Ill., and began a research tour after the 2006 release of the Lutheran Service Book. Since he led the committee charged with promoting the new hymnal, Magness wanted to see what was happening in the conservative denomination\u2019s sanctuaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I found out is that we\u2019re a lot like Forrest Gump\u2019s box of chocolates,\u201d he said. \u201cIt says Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod on the sign, but when you go inside you have no idea what you\u2019re going to get. \u2026 Some of our churches are playing with the structure of the liturgy and some are playing with the content and our whole synod is trying to find out how to draw some boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

One pastor wanted to offer five worship services in five musical formats to meet the needs of what he perceived as five separate audiences in his church. <\/p>\n

The \u201cTLH\u201d service was for members still attached to the 1941 volume called \u201cThe Lutheran Hymnal.\u201d Then there was the \u201cValpo\u201d audience, which yearned for the \u201csmells and bells\u201d approach to high-church worship popular at Valparaiso University in Indiana. Then there were fans of the pop \u201cCCM\u201d music found in the \u201cContemporary Christian Music\u201d industry. The \u201cGen X\u201d crowd wanted its own post-baby boomer music.<\/p>\n

The fifth service? It would feature country music.<\/p>\n

These struggles are particularly poignant for Missouri Synod Lutherans, who are part of a 2.3 million-member denomination that occupies a tense niche between the larger, more liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the evangelical megachurch marketplace.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s crucial, said Magness, to understand that the churches linked to Martin Luther are part of the Protestant Reformation, but it\u2019s hard to pin a simple \u201cProtestant\u201d label on their approach to piety. Missouri Synod Lutherans, for example, have much in common with evangelicals, especially in terms of biblical authority and conservative morality. However, some parish leaders are not sure they want to make radical changes to modernize their worship services.<\/p>\n

Magness, for example, is one of about 30 Missouri Synod musicians known as \u201ccantors,\u201d an honorary title once held by Johann Sebastian Bach and many others in Lutheran history. Magness has created \u201c Liturgy Solutions<\/a>,\u201d a company that helps churches of all sizes maintain Lutheran traditions, while mixing old and new music.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that culture is not static,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to find the way to proclaim the church\u2019s message in ways that remain reverent and appropriate, yet sound fresh today. Otherwise, we\u2019d be singing chants in Latin every Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem is that many pastors resort to forming separate congregations that worship under the same roof \u2014 variations on a \u201ctraditional\u201d vs. \u201ccontemporary\u201d split. What is \u201ctraditional\u201d worship? That\u2019s whatever older church leaders were doing before new leaders decided to change what Magness called the \u201csoundtrack\u201d for worship.<\/p>\n

Sadly, these worship wars often drive off some faithful members, losses that negate whatever growth followed the changes that were adopted to attract newcomers.<\/p>\n

Magness believes that church leaders should attempt to work with all their members to create services that are faithful to the past, but not stuck in the past. A common warning sign that trouble is ahead, he added, is when pastors begin altering the words of crucial prayers and liturgical texts \u2014 even the ancient creeds.<\/p>\n

The bottom line, he said, is that dividing a church into separate, even competing, worship services rarely produces growth. At least, that isn\u2019t what is happening in the Lutheran congregations he has studied. <\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe the saints prefer a place where the real practice of the church \u2014 preaching the Gospel in its truth and purity and administering the sacraments rightly and reverently \u2014 are much, much more important than whether Jack\u2019s son gets to play his trap set in church or whether the patriarchal families get to pick all the hymns because they don\u2019t want to sing any new songs,\u201d said Magness, at a national worship conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do know this: the congregation that works out these issues the old-fashioned way provides a better confession of \u2018one Lord, one faith and one baptism\u2019 than the congregation that doesn\u2019t share the Lord\u2019s Supper together.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"