Necessary Roughness

Pastor Stiegemeyer touches a nerve:

Actually, it wouldn’t kill us in the fly-over country to lighten up a bit. I don’t mean water down the doctrine or eliminate tradition. I mean realize that joy is OK. It’s alright to like going to church. It’s not just an uncomfortable duty like having your teeth cleaned. Uh, Christ Jesus is alive. The Eucharist is the antidote to death. The Gospel is good news of free salvation. So keep your eyes down, mumble that 347 stanza hymn, and don’t let anyone catch you smiling or laughing in the house of God.

Heh.

If I’ve paid attention to the service and sermon and heard the proclamation of sin and salvation, then I should be completely grateful. Hearing that your sins are forgiven and will not be counted against you is worth treasuring.

Yet I bristle when someone asks if I “enjoyed” church. I fear the use of feelings as a metric to determine whether God’s Word has done its job. Flip among TBN, Daystar, and other religious channels (though for now EWTN seems to be an exception), and you see people enjoying services that bear little resemblance to Christ crucified for sinners. So whether or not I enjoy a service or is not criteria for whether it was truly good.

That all said, I will freely admit that we Lutherans sing the dirge. We can take a good hymn and crush it. I think there are several things we can do to avoid this:

• Sing everything else. Granted, there aren’t any settings for confession, absolution, and the readings of the day. I’ve been in some services, though, where everything is printed in the bulletin and read. Kids have a harder time interrupting the service when everyone is singing. Singing everything also keeps the voices warmed up.
• Organists: Lead. I’m sure those of you with piano training have been used to being called an accompanist and following someone else. In church, the congregation follows you. If you try to let the congregation lead, they will slow down to meet you, and you will slow down further to meet them. After the first verse “A Mighty Fortress” becomes “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” Please, take the bull by the horns, as the Texans say.
• Musicians: Share and Delegate. The organist doesn’t have to lead every hymn (gasp). Borrow a high school horn player or woodwind that can be heard over the congregation. If you’re blessed with an exceptionally strong soloist, use him or her. If the organist/pianist has more sweat talent (like me) than built-in real talent, delegating songs makes for less practice time.
• Congregation: Sing the mood of the words. Whether today you sing the words:

  And take they our life,
  Goods, fame, child and wife,
  Let these all be gone,
  They yet have nothing won;
  The Kingdom our remaineth.

  or:

  Were they to take our house,
  Good, honor, child or spouse,
  Though life be wrenched away,
  They cannot win the day.
  The Kingdom’s ours forever!

  Anything less than fortissimo is unacceptable. Let the organist lead. Find the tempo from the lead-in and follow it. Do not bend the organist to your will. Mean what you sing.

I love Reformation Day because it lends a little bit of catholicity to Lutheranism. You know “A Mighty Fortress” is going to be sung. I can’t wait. I may even enjoy the service.