I’d like to welcome any friends and neighbors who have joined us today.  And I want to use this space, along with some of the space in the bulletin, to guide you through our Worship service.  Which may or may not be familiar to you.

The first word I’d introduce to you would be liturgy. Now every church or denomination has a liturgy even if they don’t call it that.  A liturgy is simply the normal order of how the worship proceeds. Things don’t even have to be overtly religious to have a liturgy.  Pregame sporting events have a liturgy from low church simple singing of the anthem followed by kindly applause to high church presentation of the colors by fully uniformed officers, a soloist singing of the anthem, followed by a low altitude fly-over of the stadium by an American bomber. After which the appropriate reply is a full-throated cheer and chanting of USA USA.  Life is full of liturgies.

Low church liturgies these days are modeled after the 18^th and 19^th century revival tents. Congregants gather.  A band warms people up steadily increasing the volume and emotional pitch. The band then turns it down a notch for one last song.  The Preacher comes out, reads a verse or a passage which will be the text of his preaching.  He then proceeds to preach.  There may or may not be an altar call.  At the end the band comes back out for one wrap-up song. And then there is a dismissal.  High Church liturgies – or what might today be called High Church but not long ago would have simply been church – all stem from a 2000 tradition that probably goes back to the Jewish Synagogue.  You can get a bit of that flavor in the gospel of Luke when Jesus goes to his hometown Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4:16).  The liturgy you will experience today in this Lutheran church would have been quite low church mid-century.  It would have been called a simple service of the Word as we are not celebrating the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper today.  This congregation follows a rhythm of the Sacrament on 2^nd, 4^th, any 5^th Sundays or any specific Holy Days. 1^st and 3^rd Sundays are for the Word alone. All of that following a church year calendar.

The service opens with a Hymn of Invocation. An invocation should tell you both what God is being worshipped here in this service and is the opening prayer of the gathered believers. Today that invocation is both specifically to the LORD Jesus Christ and a Trinitarian invocation. And the request is for His presence to move our hearts to continued faith.  Immediately after the invocation is the Corporate Confession and Absolution. For most of church history, confession and absolution would have been private and would have been expected in the week prior if you wanted to receive communion.  I’m just old enough to remember my parents having to declare for communion.  Within the Lutheran Church corporate confession has become the standard.

The Lutheran Liturgy – today our simple Service of the Word  – proceeds in three large steps: Scripture, Preaching and Prayer.  The first step are the various readings of the Word of God and congregational responses. From the entrance Psalm (the Introit) with its response of the Gloria, to the assigned readings with the response of the public confession of the creed and the Hymn of the Day. The rhythm of the liturgy is often Call and Response in big ways and in small.  You will see that Call and Response in a small way after each reading.  This is the Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

We are gathered to hear God’s Word and we first do that in the Words of Scripture which are for all peoples of all times. Our specific readings are assigned.  We follow something called a lectionary. That lectionary each week has a specific Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel reading.  The use of a lectionary ensures that I the preacher don’t harp on the same thing every week but preach “the whole counsel of God.”  The sermon or preaching is to be the Word of God for this people gathered today. And then in the simple service we turn to prayer and blessing. Other weeks we would celebrate the Sacrament before the sending.

That is a quick overview of how a Lutheran service flows. We hear the Word, we interpret and apply the Word for our lives, and we ask God for his care and blessing. It might seem a little formal, but not everything  – maybe especially the things of God – has to be in an informal register.  The vestments I wear are not meant to mark me personally out, but are the dress of the office.  The colors of the various hangings that make the sanctuary beautiful follow the colors of the church year.  Right now, being in the Season of Pentecost which is the season of the growth and mission of the church, they are green. Come back in Advent they are blue. Christmas is white. Festivals an audacious Red.  What the liturgy and everything around it does is attempt to create a sacred time and place. A place to withdraw from the world and encounter God. To hear God in his word and his promise.

Thank you for worshipping with us today.

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