Liturgy

Why is “Praise and Worship” music so uninteresting? Because it HAS to be.

August 21, 2010

If “Praise and Worship” music was even mildly interesting musically or lyrically, would I have a different attitude about non-liturgical worship? I doubt it; but it would make it harder, I suppose. Here’s a great bit from a certain John Jeremiah Sullivan (source unknown; I found it here), writing about a “Christian music festival,” on [...]

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Update: Placement of the Marriage Rite

July 14, 2010

A correspondent (a very capable liturgical scholar) sent me an email pertaining to my earlier post on the placement of the marriage rite in the daily office. He is in favor of keeping the marriage rite in the place where the LW Agenda has it (after the sermon). However, he gives these useful historical details: [...]

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Placement of the Marriage Rite in the Daily Office

July 7, 2010

I’m reviewing the draft of a wedding service folder for a marriage that will take place at Immanuel later this month, and thought I’d review the notes on the Rite in the Lutheran Service Book Agenda. There I discovered something surprising that doesn’t make a great deal of sense to me. Under “General Notes” on [...]

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Carry a laser through the darkness of the night

July 1, 2010

Note: This article was originally published in the July/August issue of Tidings, the newsletter of Immanuel Lutheran Church and School. Why Do We Worship the Way We Do? Part III: The Kyrie Topping both the pop- and rock-music charts in 1986 was a song by the band Mr. Mister called “Kyrie.” A high-school student at [...]

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Atheists Don’t Have No Songs

June 30, 2010

Brilliant. HT: Joseph Bottum at First Things

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Ad Orientem: Coming Soon to a Bumper Near You

May 28, 2010

Walking back to our car in the Safeway parking lot, Kassie and I saw this bumper sticker. I totally want one: Text: Ad Oreintem: Priest & People Turning Together Toward the Lord

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Litany of the Holy Ghost

May 19, 2010

We’re observing the Vigil of Pentecost a few days early at Immanuel, since we have a regular Wednesday evening service (usually Vespers or Evening Prayer). The following is the Litany that we will pray tonight. I don’t know its original source, but I found it in Daniel Reuning’s Historic Lectionary Resources. P Lord, have mercy [...]

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Cheerful He to suffering goes?

March 1, 2010

The following is an article I wrote for our parish’s newsletter, Tidings, published in March 2010. A favorite Lenten hymn of many is “My Song Is Love Unknown.” It’s one of my wife’s favorites, too, and I remember fondly one year while we lived in Illinois Kassie suggesting we work at memorizing it during Lent. [...]

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Singing and sadness

February 27, 2010

I was looking for this Luther quote the other day and couldn’t find it. Entirely unrelated, I was just reading in The Lutheran Study Bible on Job 36 and Serendipity! When sadness comes to you and threatens to gain the upper hand, then say: Come, I must play our Lord Christ a song on the [...]

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When do you genuflect in the Creed?

January 20, 2010

Not everyone genuflects (or, alternatively, bows) at the same place in the Creed. My practice has followed what Dr. David Scaer insisted was correct, that of genuflecting at the et homo factus est. Others genuflect/bow earlier, I suspect so that they can stand at the crucifixus (I stand at the et resurrexit), which is sometimes [...]

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