Tag Archives: LCMS

Survey Says: LCMS Worship Practices & Attitudes

The LCMS Reporter website posted an article (no longer available) earlier today on the newly released LCMS Worship Practice & Attitudes Survey (no longer available).  The survey compares the responses of the Top 5% congregations (highest percentage and number of adult confirmations in 2006) and a random sampling of congregations on their worship practices and attitudes.

And the survey says . . . . nothing earth shattering.  I read through the 42 page survey results, yawned, and moved on.  A brief summary is:

For the most part, there are few statistically significant differences in worship practices between the two samples, and those differences are primarily related to elements of the different styles [of worship - my addition].

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The LCMS 100 “Song” Study: Part 1

Back in June 2008 I commented on the LCMS Reporter article that 100 “worship and praise songs” had successfully made their way through the Synod’s doctrinal review process (13 of them appear in LSB or earlier publications).  I’ve wondered about the delay to release the list, but it has recently been posted on the Commission on Worship’s website — go here to read their article and get the list.

This study has been motivated by a trend in parts of the LCMS to embrace the “praise and worship” genre of music.  The Commission was directed by convention resolution to provide “guidance and direction in the use of diverse/contemporary worship resources.”  Given the plethora of “diverse/contemporary worship resources” [there are over 200,000 songs available for use via the CCLI church copyright license], some guidance seems appropriate to steer professional church workers and laity toward resources that are in harmony with the Lutheran faith and confessions.

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Walther and Small Churches

In a culture fixated on bigger is better, it was refreshing to read a selection from C.F.W. Walther over at Mercy Journeys with Pastor Harrison on the relative unimportance of congregational size.

The highlight from Walther was this:

The smallest congregation is just as important as the largest one, and the largest is no more important than the smallest, because every congregation is great only because Christ is present in it.

I suggest that the LCMS Blue Ribbon Task Force on Synod Structure and Governance take a look at what Walther wrote.   Walther would differ considerably with at least one of the their “Proposals and Possibilities“.

“Allow congregations with more than 750 confirmed members to be represented by two additional delegates for each additional unit of 750 confirmed members or the majority thereof, with each pair of additional delegates to be one ministerial (ordained or commissioned) delegate and one non-ordained delegate.”

Walther says all congregations are equally important because of Christ.  Some in the Synod say larger congregations are more important.  Why?  Because they have more members and constituents.  It seems like this rationale would better apply to Electoral Votes for President of the United States than the church.

LCMS Approves 100 "Worship / Praise" Songs

In 2006, the LCMS through the Commission on Worship published its new hymnal Lutheran Service Book. Now it looks they have moved on to a new project – reviewing “worship and praise songs” for use in LCMS churches. According to a Reporter (official LCMS newspaper) article, 100 “worship and praise songs” have successfully made their way through the Synod’s doctrinal review process (13 of them appear in LSB or earlier publications). And more are on the way. In the future these songs will be sorted based on the church year.

And what are these 100 songs? The list has yet to be released — it isn’t on the Commission of Worship’s website. Evidently, they used CCLI data from LCMS churches to determine frequently used songs. I am interested to see what songs made the cut of the Synodical reviewers — what do these songs proclaim?

What bothers me about many “praise and worship” songs is what they often don’t say rather than what they do say. In particular, I recently reviewed a list of these types of songs to be used in a worship setting — out of the list of a dozen or so songs, Christ was mentioned once or twice directly, and a couple more times as indirect assumptions. Many tread lightly on sin and focus on the theology of glory rather than the theology of the cross. In comparison, I can randomly page through LSB and Christ and what He has done and continues to do for us is seen page after page. I assume there are some “praise and worship” songs that also do this, but these are not the norm from what I’ve seen.