October 10, 2001

Monthly Meeting set for October 27 at Resurrection Lutheran Church, Spring – Saturday, 9:30 –11:30 a.m. to continue our work of developing a regional website for Missouri Synod Lutheran churches in our area. Plan to be with us. We need your help.

Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy –The elders of Resurrection, Spring, met with Dr. Al Franzmeier on Sunday, Sept.30, to discuss the development of a new process of study and spiritual growth for the congregation. Following is the item that appears in Resurrection’s newsletter this month:

Ask yourself, "How much time do RLC members spend 'as family' each week? Then consider how busy life can become as we over commit to the point of exhaustion. Do you allow your Lord time to refresh you? Do you often recall the fact that the Lord steadfastly waits to give you relief? Do you remember that the Lord has set aside an entire day for the purpose of serving all of His people, equipping them for the coming week?

Sabbatical comes from Sabbath, which is a day of Spiritual Renewal. The Sabbath was created by God for us, His people, and we recall from the third commandment: "Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work….the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it."

'Holy' means separated, set aside by God for a special purpose. With this in mind, the Board of Elders is continuing to pursue a Spiritual Renewal process by which "Our Congregation Will Reclaim The Sabbath." In order to achieve this, we at Resurrection will need to "Re-Center our lives on the Sabbath.” Your prayers and participation are needed as we continue our journey following a course of actions that will peak in mid-year 2003.

CrossTies is developing study and devotional materials, based upon the Beatitudes, for this purpose. We will be training congregation leaders to train and develop other leaders in the congregation. The entire process will continue through 2002. It will climax in 2003 when Resurrection’s pastor, Rev. Steve Sohns, returns from a four months personal sabbatical.

It is our intention to make this same process available to other congregations once the details of this pilot program have been worked out. Watch the Crosstiesministries.org website for details.

Saddened by Exciting Styles – Elder, Bible Class teacher and attorney, Larry Harvey has posted an article on our website. In his concluding paragraphs he writes :

I am sure that almost all, if not all, contemporary Services occurring in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod contain at least parts that clearly point to Christ Crucified such as the sermon or the absolution. But if those parts are surrounded by other portions of the service, such as “praise songs”, or if other portions have been deleted, what central thought should we anticipate actually being heard and celebrated by the people in the pews? This is particularly true if we have made the decisions based upon the preferences of unbelievers, people who do not even know the true Christ. “Praise songs” present a particularly difficult challenge since they have such a high emotional impact on people. It is not sufficient to simply test the words sung against the Scripture, although many would not even pass that test, in that even correct, but simple, forms of the Gospel encapsulated with popular melodies, pop culture instruments, praise band leadership, and the like may still place the focus on the emotional fervor generated above everything else. Are praise songs being measured by whether they get people to clap, raise their hands, rock their bodies in place or the like or whether they serve to connect people to the cross? If the Old Testament reading is omitted, are not people being told that the Old Testament contains only law, or history, or some lesser message than the New Testament? Will that omission by itself not speak against the Gospel message of the Old Testament? Will the omission of a creed not lead people away from the church of the prophets and the apostles, the church of the ages? Will the omission of the invocation not lead people away from the understanding that the Service is truly the public assembly of believers celebrating their unity in Christ? Does not the omission of time-tested liturgy diminish the importance of doctrine, the sound teachings of the Scriptures? Do bulletins that type out only the confession spoken by the congregation, without printing out the absolution not diminish the true Gospel’s message of by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ’s vicarious atonement alone? All the portions of the Service separately must be examined and the whole of the Service must be tested to truly identify the intended focus of the assembly.

We know that sinful man desires only to worship himself, prefers darkness over light, death over life, falsehood over the truth. As we decide about the style of worship, we must be mindful of all the temptations to sin that are at work in the gathering of people who remain sinners and saints. True worship requires continued true teaching and testing against the one source and norm for all our teachings and practices, the Holy Scriptures. Does the entire Service lead worshippers into Christ Crucified? If not, then the Service should make us sad, however “exciting” its appearance or how good the intent. We must always be asking “Do they know whom they worship?