Liturgy in the Church
An Explanation of Liturgical Settings
How is liturgy chosen? Why do we use all these different settings? What is the plan behind different seasons having different settings?
Apart from the Pastor, Music and Worship Committee, and office staff very few people realize what goes on behind the scenes of planning a worship service. The Pastor carefully chooses the preaching text and theme based on the church lectionary, a three year cycle of Bible readings, as well as the church season (e.g., Advent, Christmas, and Easter). The Hymn Selection Committee chooses hymns and praise songs that are also based on the scriptures and seasonal themes. The Director of Worship, Music, and Arts Ministries is responsible for seeing that all of the artistic elements (music, visuals, and liturgical writings) fit together to create a worship service that flows smoothly from the Announcements to the Opening Hymn, to the Sermon, to Holy Communion, to the Benediction.
The service settings are carefully chosen to match the changes in the church year.
This has two major advantages. First, in addition to changes in the color of the paraments, hymns, and readings, the service settings help to distinguish the different seasons of the church year. This makes the choosing of service settings more purposeful. Secondly, there is more continuity. Pastor, musicians, and congregation get into a rhythm with one service setting before moving on to the next. Also, visitors who are unfamiliar with our liturgy will have a month or so to get used to one setting before moving on to another.
There are ten settings of the liturgy in the ELW (Evangelical Lutheran Worship). We recently used setting one for Advent and have used settings three, four, and ten. In addition, we have also used setting five from With One Voice ("Bread of Life"), "The Chicago Folk Service" by Art Gorman and "Now the Feast and Celebration" and "Holden Evening Prayer" both by Marty Haugen.
First, about the variety: Everyone recognizes that it’s good to have variety in most everything in life. It keeps things interesting and stimulating. We also recognize that constant change is not good. It’s unsettling and can be annoying. So we try to use settings through the church year in an orderly way. Once they’re well-learned, they are comfortable to return to even if we’ve been away from them for awhile. And they’re fresh again when not used constantly. The trick is to manage it all. Some of us appreciate more variety and some, less, so as with anything in the body of Christ, we consider our neighbors who may feel differently.
"Luther elevated the singing of the people in worship. He gave them hymns to sing and intended that their voices carry the liturgy. "
/ 08
By Kat Downs