Why Do We Worship the Way We Do?

Liturgical Worship

The reasons for liturgical worship

One of the first things you'll notice when you worship with us at St. John's is that we are a "liturgical" church. In other words, we follow a regular pattern of worship in which the congregation responds to the worship leader in jointly spoken phrases or songs that vary little from week to week in each season of the church year.

This is different from many churches that pride themselves in being spontaneous in their worship. In such churches, the content of the service depends entirely on the pastor's efforts in creating a new worship pattern each week.

Which is better? Or which is right and which is wrong? First of all, we need to realize that the Lord prescribes no particular order of worship or style of worship. This is part of our freedom as New Testament Christians.

God does want us to hear and learn his Word and to share in the Sacraments. Therefore, Christian worship revolves around these things.

While it may seem ideal to have spontaneous worship in church, in reality there are more benefits to using the set patterns of liturgical worship. When you come to God individually in prayer and worship, you can be spontaneous and free, but when a group worships, spontaneity can end up in confusion.

And what often happens in non-liturgical worship is that worship wanders aimlessly through the random contributions of the worshippers, or the pastor falls into using the same pattern of worship week in and week out anyway, rather than putting in the hours it would take each week to develop worship forms that are both new and meaningful.

The benefits of liturgical worship

The regular Sunday worship, based on the historic liturgical worship services that developed out of the earliest Christian worship, not only connects us in spirit to fellow believers who have used those same worship patterns throughout the centuries, but also gives the congregation opportunity to sing and say meaningful thoughts through the whole service.

Once you've worshipped with it a few times, it has the advantage of familiarity. And with changes in the church year, we use different orders of worship that focus on the theme of that part of the church year and remind us of how our unchanging God leads us through the changes in our lives.

And liturgical worship offers something out of the ordinary—a sense of mystery as we join with each other in worship forms whose structure date back hundreds, and even thousands, of years. It reminds us of those who have paved the way for us and of those for whom we will pave the way for in the future.

And it focuses us on the mystery of a God who has done the unimaginable for us, sending his Son to suffer our punishment so that we can call a perfect and holy God our Father.

The parts of the liturgical worship service

Although liturgical worship services may vary somewhat from season to season in the church year, they have the same structure at their core.

We prepare to meet our God

We prepare ourselves with song, or with responsive singing that focuses on the season of the church year. The pastor calls on God by invoking the name of "the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," and leads us in confessing our unworthiness to approach God as we confess our sins.

Then the pastor reminds us that God has forgiven us our sins through the sacrifice of his Son, Jesus Christ, and declared us worthy to approach him.

We enter into God's presence

With responsive readings and songs of praise, we enter into God's presence and prepare to hear him speak to us through his Word.

God speaks to us

We hear God speak to us in the reading of lessons from Old Testament, Epistles, and Gospels and join in responsive reading or singing of one of the Psalms. Then, in the sermon, the pastor expounds on a short section of Scripture help us understand more fully what God has done for us and how that affects our lives.

We respond to God's grace

After the sermon, we offer ourselves to God. We reaffirm our faith in God by joining in one of the Creeds that has long reflected the beliefs of God's children. We offer of the blessings that God has given us by returning some of those blessings in our offerings to God. And we come to God in prayer, placing our needs, our fears, and our lives in his hands.

Our Lord gives himself to us

Earlier, our Lord spoke to us in his Word, strengthening our understanding. Now Christ gives himself to us in a very personal way, giving us his body and blood, which he willingly sacrificed to save us. In Holy Communion, there is no mistaking the personal nature of what Christ did for us. As we eat and drink the bread and the wine, we also personally receive Christ's body and blood.

We receive the forgiveness that comes from Christ's sacrifice—personally and individually. Where God earlier spoke to our minds, he now speaks to our hearts, saying, "Yes, I really did do all this for you."

We thank God and go out to serve him in the world

Having tasted of God's blessings, we offer him thanks, and express our willingness to serve him in our daily lives. And with God's final blessing through the pastor, God sends us out to do just that.

The seasons of the church year

The church year is helps us to focus on different aspects of Christ's life and what it means for us. Each season and each week has a slightly different focus that helps us consider the whole range of God's love for us and his purpose for us.

Advent

The church year actually starts four weeks before Christmas with Advent. Advent is a time of anticipation as we prepare our minds and hearts for the amazing story of God giving his Son to be one of us.

Christmas

With Christmas, begins the brief Christmas season that focuses on this amazing gift.

Epiphany

The festival of Epiphany occurs twelve days after Christmas, the traditional date of the visit of the Wise Men to the young Jesus. The festival itself reminds us how God came not just to save his chosen people, but the entire world. No one is excluded from receiving the salvation that Christ came to give.

The weeks following Epiphany season form the season of Epiphany, in which we focus particularly on the truth that Christ dwells among us. We study his life and remind ourselves that he is still very intimately present with us now.

Lent

Lent begins forty days before Easter and is the most somber season of the church year. In it, we focus on Christ's willing sacrifice for our sins. We ponder the sinful nature that had separated us from God that had made Christ's sacrifice the only possible way of bridging the gap between us and a Holy and perfect God.

Lent culminates in Good Friday, the most somber day of the church year, when we focus on Christ's suffering and death to pay for our sins.

Easter

But only days after that low point of the church year, comes the high point. Easter celebrates Jesus' resurrection that sealed our salvation. No, this was not some mere human who died in a misguided attempt to change people's minds. This was the Lord of Life, whom death had no power to hold.

In his resurrection, Jesus displays his power over death, a power that he has used to destroy death's power over us, as well. The forty days that follow Easter focus on this change that Christ has made in our lives and climaxes in the celebration of his Ascension, in which Christ returns to his heavenly kingdom to prepare for us our home with him there.

Pentecost

Ten days after Ascension, we celebrate Pentecost, when Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to empower his disciples to spread the Gospel to all the world. Pentecost is the longest festival of the church year and focuses on how God works in us and through us.

We, too, are Christ's disciples, empowered and equipped by the Holy Spirit to carry out God's work in the world. We see the many ways in which God equips us and what his purpose is for us.

Just as the church year began with a season of preparation for Christ's first entrance into the world, Pentecost ends with three weeks of preparation. In those final three weeks of the church year, we focus on Christ's return to take us to himself in heaven.

And so the church year comes full circle. It begins with us preparing for Christ and it ends with us preparing for Christ. And well it should. For as we study all the aspects of Christ's life and what it means for us, one thing becomes clear: whether we continue in this life or find it ended, we belong with God, and we await the fullness of that relationship that we will enjoy with him in full in heaven.

St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church
Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS)
610 Broadway Street, NE
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55413
Phone: 612 379-4296 | Fax: 612-379-4971
stjohnsschool@comcast.net