See also past and current Facets    

Asking Good Questions

It’s now inescapable — we have crossed a new threshold in the ELCA. With the introduction of Evangelical Lutheran Worship  (ELW), congregations across North America now have resources of renewal and opportunity to connect to the world God loves so much. How shall we receive this good news?

In the ELCA, our identified purpose for renewal has been focused on freeing our language to reflect our diversity, incorporating a wider representation of biblical images, broadening the range of musical expression, and recognizing that the shape of Lutheran worship can be “customized” to express our location (urban, suburban, rural), social-economic setting, or ethnic differences and interests. For the sake of this article, let’s consider these criteria for renewal as “openings” — not windows that we peer through with no intention of interacting, but as doors of opportunity we can walk through together.

Faithful participation in what God is doing often requires us to get outside our own thoughts and preferences, beckoning us to learn so that we can better serve our neighbor. I know for myself that I am not always aware of my neighbors’ needs. Sometimes I have to stop and ask them what they need. In the same way, as we receive ELW into the context of our congregations, we may need to ask one another some important questions — questions that move beyond a Yes or No vote for purchasing a new hymnal.

These questions will eventually lead to suggestions regarding worship practices and style, but they begin by helping us probe deeper issues that intentionally connect us to the Spirit’s leading. We ask and answer because we believe that God is interested in the give and take of faithful life together. We trust that God is listening and receiving messages from us. The only way we can participate with God is to cultivate the essential habit of communication — that is, listening and receiving messages from God.

When we gather for worship, we are making room for these forming, renewing words to be exchanged. We express our particular experience, and the Spirit helps us practice forms of speech we are still growing into.

We talk to God, and God also speaks to us. We are heard ... and challenged. We are ashamed ... and forgiven. We are equipped…and sent. When we show up for worship, we don’t create the song of praise. We join our voices with the continuous song of praise sung by believers from every time and place. At its best, worship doesn’t just reflect where we are. It moves us further along as we mature in the life of faith.

In a climate of worship renewal across denominational lines, ELW is now the primary resource that forms the central core of Lutheran worship communication. Its content is rooted in our faithful commitment to worship as primarily an enactment of a divine-human relationship, an encounter between God and the gathered community. And that worship is intimately related to life in the world. We practice certain attitudes or speech patterns in worship that we need to take with us into the world.
ELW is a new door through which we are invited to walk into an ever-expanding, faith-forming experience for all of God’s people. ELW is now our guide to illumine our journey as the Spirit urges us to reach out to one another and the world in which we live. ELW is a tool to help us shape Christian worship that is more than a meditation on a profound idea (though it may be packed with profound ideas), more than a catalyst generating a particular emotional state (though it may be profoundly emotional), more than an event designed to attract enough people to pay the light bill (though it may be attractive), and more than an aesthetic “high” (though it may be profoundly exciting).