What does a worship service look like?
Trinity utilizes historic liturgical forms to guide our worship services. We try to make use of all of the various options in our hymnal as is appropriate to the day or the season. The liturgy takes its cue from the Sacred Scriptures. Many of the elements within the service are direct quotations or allusions to the Sacred Scriptures and are organized in such a way so that Christ remains the focus throughout our time together. He serves us. He is the host, we are the guests. To learn more about the individual elements contained within a worship service go to this website: https://www.lcms.org/worship/lutheran-worship
How do we think about worship?
These two quotes from Lutheran theologians will provide a wider view of how we think about worship. The first is from Martin Franzmann and the second is from Norman Nagel.
“Theology is doxology. Theology must sing… The song of the church must be an unending song. The church must cherish the best, but its song should not be a mere repetition of the song of the past. Then shall we sing with grace, with all the emphasis on God and a most unsentimental subordination of ourselves. We shall sing to the Lord. With our song we shall guide one another continually to the center and fountain of the Christian’s life and thus really teach and admonish one another. We shall sing in our hearts; the whole man will sing. We shall see then realized the ideal of all Christian song: the whole man with all his powers, with all the skills and gifts that God has bestowed upon him wholly bent on giving utterance to the peace that rules within him, wholly given to the purpose of letting the Word of Christ that dwells in him richly become articulate and audible through him to the upbuilding of the church and the glory of God. Then shall our theology be doxology.” — Martin H. Franzmann, “Theology Must Sing,” in Ha! Ha! Among the Trumpets (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1966), 92.
“Our Lord speaks and we listen. His Word bestows what it says. Faith that is born from what is heard acknowledges the gifts received with eager thankfulness and praise. Music is drawn into this thankfulness and praise, enlarging and elevating the adoration of our gracious giver God.
Saying back to him what he has said to us, we repeat what is most true and sure. Most true and sure is his name, which he put upon us with the water of our Baptism. We are his. This we acknowledge at the beginning of the Divine Service. Where his name is, there is he. Before him we acknowledge that we are sinners, and we plead for forgiveness. His forgiveness is given us, and we, freed and forgiven, acclaim him as our great and gracious God as we apply to ourselves the words he has used to make himself known to us.
The rhythm of our worship is from him to us, and then from us back to him. He gives his gifts, and together we receive and extol them. We build one another up as we speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Our Lord gives us his body to eat and his blood to drink. Finally his blessing moves us out into our calling, where his gifts have their fruition. How best to do this we may learn from his Word and from the way his Word has prompted his worship through the centuries. We are heirs of an astonishingly rich tradition. Each generation receives from those who went before and, in making that tradition of the Divine Service its own, adds what best may serve in its own day—the living heritage and something new.
Lutheran Worship, within its compass, seeks to carry forward the great heritage and add something new. The Common Service (Divine Service I), familiar to all Lutherans, is carried forward with no great changes and with some improvements where these seemed needed. This will serve the continuity of our worship with an order of long-proven worth. In addition there is a service in two settings that derives from the work of the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship (Divine Service II, First Setting, and Divine Service II, Second Setting). Divine Service III draws on our treasury of chorales and revives the historical Liedmesse, a typically Lutheran contribution to worship form in which chorales largely replace chant.
There is also continuity with our familiar Matins and Vespers. In some places a better musical setting has been provided. In addition there are the Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Prayer at the Close of the Day from the work of the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship. There are further orders for various occasions, so that altogether Lutheran Worship provides orders of service with a faithfulness to the Lutheran tradition and understanding of worship in the widest range of orders of service for English-speaking Lutherans.
In its hymnody each age of the church reflects what it returns to God for the great blessings it has received from him. Some of the Church’s song is always derived from a previous era.
The early church developed its music from the psalmody of the synagog, to which it added the strophic hymns of Greek and Roman converts. When the liturgy became the sole property of the clergy, there arose a need for hymns in the language of the people Thus there came into being the great body of Latin hymns introduced and promoted by Bishop Ambrose of Milan and his followers. In time these again became the property of the clergy and hierarchy. The Lutheran Reformation once more restored the Church’s song to the people in their native tongue. From then on the Lutheran Church became known as the “singing Church.” The song of this Church has weathered and withstood such influences as pietism, rationalism, modernism, and universalism in one form or another.
The hymns in Lutheran Worship draw on the vast treasury of Christian hymnody old and new, with words that speak God’s law and Gospel and express our faith’s response and with music that nourishes both memory and heart. Directed by the 1979 Convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod in St. Louis, the Commission on Worship offers this book for the enlivening and strengthening of worship, with gratitude for all those who have served the worship of our Lord and with prayer that it may be serviceable to him and his people for the saving Gospel’s sake.” — Norman Nagel, “Introduction,” in Lutheran Worship (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1982), 6–7.