A mighty week with glad thanksgiving. . .

I spent July 8-12 this year in Seward, Nebraska, on the wonderful campus of Concordia University, with some of the most wonderful folks I know.  The occasion was the LCMS Institute on Liturgy, Preaching, and Church Music.  Held off its regular schedule by the pandemic, the whole thing came back with a mighty bang around the Psalms -- Songs of Deliverance.  Under the very capable leadership of the Rev. Sean Daenzer, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod’s director of Worship and IC chaplain, hundreds of parish pastors, church workers, parish musicians, university students, singers, seminarians, and others gathered for one of the richest experiences of worship, education, inspiration, and dedication our Synod has ever provided.  As one who has attended more than several and been on the planning of the last three, this was by far the most profound.  I cannot express my appreciation more deeply to everyone who participated except to say you should have been there!  It was one of the most significant events of my life and I am so very grateful to have been a very small part of it all.  While the list of those who were involved in the planning and execution of this great week is too long to print, I do want to single out the crew out of the LCMS office.  Pr. Daenzer, Dcs. Cara Patton, and Katie Rickords for their mighty work.  Kudos go to everyone who worked with them (including the very impressive printing of book, service orders, programs, etc., by the LCMS Department of Communications).  While you are still able, check out the record of these wonderful events on the LCMS Facebook page.  A particular shout out to my own friend and Cantor, Dr. Jonathan Rudy, who served as organist for the final Divine Service as well as arranger and presenter.  I would be remiss for failing to laud the wonderful hospitality of Concordia University and St. John's Lutheran Church in Seward.  It was more than a success -- it was all life-changing!  The Institute program is here.

My point here is not simply to say the thank yous to those who worked so hard to make this all come to pass (including singing and saying all 150 Psalms!!!) but to rouse the wider audience so that the next event (in three years) may be even bigger and better (as hard as the better part is for me to imagine).  We all have conferences around us and many are wonderful and practical and stimulating but this is a unique blending of those three foci of our life together around the Word and Sacraments -- liturgy, preaching, and church music!  From these flow out and return all we are and do as the Church.  Worship with its form and content in the liturgy and preaching and with its expression in the song of the faithful is not one of the many programs of the Church but her core, center, and beating heart.  Indeed, nothing we are or do that is worthy has its source outside of this and nothing we are or do has an earthly end outside of this.  We need to have mountain top events like this to provide inspiration and encourage for the work that goes on in the valleys and we need to provide mountain top events for the faithful within the congregation to enable and support the baptismal work of God's people in the home and in the world.  This is exactly the kind of week that should be on every church worker's agenda because its focus is precisely upon the faith received, lived, and witnessed beginning from the first strains of the preservice music on Sunday morning to the sending forth of the benediction and the echos of the postlude fade from our ears.  It is practical in the most important sense of that word and because of this it is also inspirational.

Our Lord speaks and we listen. His Word bestows what it says. Faith that is born from what is heard acknowledges the gifts received with eager thankfulness and praise. Music is drawn into this thankfulness and praise, enlarging and elevating the adoration of our gracious giver God. Saying back to him what he has said to us, we repeat what is most true and sure. Most true and sure is his name, which he put on us with the water of our Baptism. We are his. This we acknowledge at the beginning of the Divine Service. Where his name is, there is he. Before him we acknowledge that we are sinners, and we plead for forgiveness. His forgiveness is given us, and we, freed and forgiven, acclaim him as our great and gracious God as we apply to ourselves the words he has used to make himself known to us. The rhythm of our worship is from him to us, and then from us back to him. He gives his gifts, and together we receive and extol them. We build one another up as we speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Our Lord gives us his body to eat and his blood to drink. Finally his blessing moves us out into our calling, where his gifts have their fruition. How best to do this we may learn from his Word and from the way his Word has prompted his worship through the centuries. We are heirs of an astonishingly rich tradition. Each generation receives from those who went before and, in making that tradition of the Divine Service its own, adds what best may serve in its own day – the living heritage and something new.

 – Lutheran Worship (1982) Introduction by Dr. Norman Nagel

There is another reason why this conference was so successful and why it is so important to be on your radar for the coming future.  This included a host of new names and faces among the preachers, presenters, players, and planners as the cause is raised up by the next generation.  We were privileged to hear from and to receive from many newer to the stage of talent within the Missouri Synod and it showcased the wide and deep back bench we have among those whose gifts, talents, abilities, and dedication were put to work so effectively.  We need to be encouraged by the many young faces right down to the children's choir and altar servers and up to the staff at the IC and including the names and faces of those whose work figured so prominently this year.  We are not remembering a past without also giving cause to hope for the future and this is another reason why this event was so impressive.  God bless you all no matter what side of the altar rail you serve.  

Finally, let me say this.  The Divine Services, the Matins, Morning Prayer, Psalm Festival, Vespers, Evening Prayer, and Compline offices, and the singing were enough of a reason for any to go and find themselves filled with renewed hope and enthusiasm.  How wonderful it is to be in the House of the Lord surrounded by the voices of the faithful lifted in praise of Him who died and rose again!  My goodness, I cannot tell you how many times I felt lifted up and strengthened by the mighty music of the organ, choir, instrumentalist, bell ringer, and congregation.  Even without all the sessions, the worship is enough.  And that is how it ought to be in our churches.  The privilege of being named by God as His own in baptism, nurtured in the faith by the living voice of His Word, restored from our sin by His absolution, and fed and nourished upon the Body and Blood of His Son is our highest gift and blessing.  Our response is pale in comparison to His generosity of love and grace but it is not nothing.  Strive for our best for His glory on every level of what we do but especially within the context of the Divine Service.  Ultimately that is the first and best and last lesson gleaned from a glorious week with glorious fellow members of Christ's body the Church in Seward, Nebraska.  Don't miss it next time!