March 30th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
I arrived early at Lutheran Church of Prayer in Bakersfield. I caught Pastor Robert. W. Lutjens preparing pre-service announcements on PowerPoint slides. When the time came for church, the projector was turned off, and the screen was rolled up. He was gracious enough to allow some conversation time.
LCOP has TLH in its pews, but most services consist of bulletin material drawn from Creative Worship with some TLH hymns sprinkled in. The Creative Worship material actually impressed me with how much scripture was in it, but some of the way things were phrased gave the impression that “sins,” not including original sin, was our main problem. There was Corporate Confession and Absolution, slightly tweaked, and the three hymns were actually hymns, just two of them had their words exchanged to go with the service theme. Those two, not being in TLH, provided no music to read, which to me is like reading English without vowels.
They have raised money to buy the Lutheran Service Book, which is good news. They especially liked their TLH hymns lowered a step in key so they could sing it better. The organist was quite enthused about the amount of liturgical material they can use.
After worship, a layperson led a study from Bad Girls of the Bible from WaterBrook Press. This week they talked about the Samaritan woman at the well who had five husbands and was with another. The Gospel message could have been strengthened, but it was better than some studies I’ve seen.
Pastor Lutjens on Good Friday finished a preaching series from the point of view of various trees in the Bible, finishing of course on the cross itself. This Sunday he had one more tree sermon, but he focused this time on the living water that feeds the tree.
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