Worship:
Time:
If you come to worship with us, you will probably want to show up on time... Most of the year (September - May) we begin worship at 9:30 am on Sunday morning. In the Summer, (June, July and August) we begin worship at 9:00 am. Sunday School runs September - May, and begins after worship on Sunday morning. Children are ALWAYS welcome in worship, in fact we think they are an integral part of the worshiping community. We do not view Sunday School as babysitting during worship, but as another dimension to the children's developing spiritual lives.
Currently we celebrate Holy Communion on the first, third, and fifth Sundays of the month, as well as on any holidays or other special celebrations. The fifth Sunday of the month, is typically a "Hymn Sing" Sunday, in which Pastor Andersen gives up any sort of control over hymn selection, and leaves it in the hands of the congregation; members shout out which hymns they want, for the opening hymn, hymn of the day, and sending hymn, and the organist does her best to keep up. It is good hymns and gives everyone the opportunity to sing their favorites - particularly the one's mean ol' Pastor Andersen NEVER picks.
Style:
At St. john Evangelical Lutheran Church, we celebrate worship in what would be called a "traditional" liturgical "high church" style. We don't do it that way because "it's the way we have always done it" or because it's what is printed in the hymnal (the hymnal provides LOTS of options) or because we don't have another option. We worship the way we do because we feel that it is the best, most authentic, most real worship that we can do.
We know that others choose to worship differently than we do, with praise bands, big screen TVs, and a dismissive attitude towards liturgy. That is great for other people, but we find value in the liturgy and traditions that have nurtured and supported Christians for 2000 years, and we don't think we can do better by throwing away 2000 years of experience and refinements.
That does not mean that our worship is what you would find in a house-church in Galatia 2000 years ago, or that it is what you would find in the Wartburg Church 500 years ago when Martin Luther celebrated the mass there, or that our worship looks like it did even 50, 20 or 10 years ago. The worship we do here, while being traditional, and liturgical, in style is thoroughly modern. We have adopted the regular use of the ELCA's newest worship resource "Evangelical Lutheran Worship" which is a modern resource, incorporating inclusive language, modern instruments for accompaniment, expansive uses of scriptural language, as well as including a variety of other liturgical reforms.
While some might characterize what we do in worship as "dead ritual" we would naturally disagree. We would agree that it is ritual, but living ritual. We understand the concerns about mindless (and mind numbing) repetition, but we also find value in repeating things often enough that they become a part of one's spirit. If you talk with many of our members, particularly our older members, you will hear them talk about times in their lives where they suffered trials and tribulations. You will also hear them talk about how during those trials and tribulations that there was a passage of scripture, or a refrain from a hymn, or a portion of the liturgy that spoke to them, and gave them something to cling to in times of trial. You will also hear people talk about the comfort they feel as a part of a church as they do the things, and recite the creeds that have been done, and confessed by Christians for generations; not just as one small congregation, or even a national or international denomination, but a part of a pan-denominational - pan-temporal single Christian church, through all time and all eternity with Christians of every time, and place, language and culture. Of course you won't hear most of the members using that sort of language - but if you listen, you will hear it. That is living ritual, and far more valuable to us than trying to reinvent worship every week.
Some might see it as doing worship the "old fashioned way" but we think it is also doing it the right way, at least for us.
Theology:
Without getting overly theological (and boring) when Pastor Andersen talks about the theology of worship he will often talk about the church like it is a car. He will suggest that worship is the engine of the church. It is the central component, the part which makes all of the others useful, and even necessary (no real need for having breaks or steering if you don't have an engine right?). Worship is central an foundational to what the church does. BUT - if the church doesn't have the other parts of the car, if the church is just the engine and there are no wheels, or breaks, or seats, (that is to say - if all the church does is worship, and it doesn't do ministry, or education, or fellowship etc.) then the car (the church) is just wasting gas, and not going anywhere. Then worship itself becomes pointless. The purpose of an engine is not to sit on a test stand, and rev pointlessly - the point of an engine is to accomplish work - to make a car go somewhere or do some other job. While worship is the central act of the church, it is meaningless without the other parts of what it means to be the church.
Put another way, Pastor Andersen will say, when he is asked about worship style, that while there are important considerations to be keep in mind about worship style - that the critical aspect of worship is not style - it is the result. "Feel free to worship any way you like" he says "provided that your worship leads you to something, inspires you somehow, that there is some result of worship." Pastor Andersen will sometimes ask people "What is the result of your worship?" What he is trying to get at, is that - worship should be something that inspires one to respond to the gift of salvation, though service to others, or in some other meaningful way. If it doesn't - if worship is just something that you do out of fear, or habit, or worse yet a desire to be seen by others as "good" then - what is the point?
So, where is the engine taking you?