There is a God has left a new comment on your post "An Update « Light from Light.Ichabod Not Invited o...":
"It cannot really be a matter of indifference to a Christian congregation when the order of service used in her midst shows so much similarity to a heterodox order as to confuse visitors. One may hardly argue that such adiaphora do not matter one way or the other, when it has happened that a weak brother has been offended. And a Lutheran congregation cannot justly divorce herself, not only not from the doctrinal, but also not from the historical side of its Church. It is a matter of expediency, as well as of charity and edification, that every Lutheran pastor and every Lutheran congregation have outward significant symbols of the inner union, of the one mind and the one spirit....
"This is true especially of the morning worship in the Lutheran Church, commonly known as The Service or The Communion. For this is not, as some people have supposed, a haphazard combination or a fortuitous conglomeration of heterogeneous material, but an artistic unit with definite and logical parts, a “spirituo-psychological, well-ordered, and articulated whole,” as [Friedrich] Lochner says [Der Hauptgottesdienst, 41]. The order of service is a beautiful work of art, presenting a gradual climax of such wonderful dignity and impressiveness that the mere presence [of people] in such a service should result in the edification of the faithful." - Paul E. Kretzmann, Christian Art in the Place and in the Form of Lutheran Worship [Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921], pp. 395-96.
***
GJ - On a few years ago everyone assumed that the liturgical service was the standard one for all Lutherans. Moreover, if someone wanted to introduce changes in his congregation, he needed to speak to fellow pastors about it.
Thanks to the constant promotion of Enthusiasm by the leaders of the olde Synodical Conference, that argument has been reversed. If someone objects to copying the Enthusiasts now--with women pastors, no liturgy, no creed, entertainment, coaching sessions disguised as sermons, slurping pop and munching popcorn, plagiarizing false teachers, and pop music--that person has to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that such practices are wrong.
This rot began 20 years ago, when the Boomer pastors chose to say nothing rather than object to anything that might hurt their careers and future synod-paid trips abroad.
I recall VP Kuske, Floyd Luther Stolzenburg, and Roger Zehms starting Pilgrim Community Church with the stated purpose of being as unLutheran as possible (no sweat for those guys). They also warned WELS members to stay away from the services and any thoughts of joining the mission. The purity of Schwaermer doctrine and practice is terribly important to Enthusiasts, who do not trust the Word. The irony is - they utterly trust in their own methods.
How can the Holy Spirit's power in the Word compare to their marketing methods?
The Schwaermer DPs and their appointed clones, the CPs, start from Bob's perspective. Bob is a United Church of Christ minister I knew at Yale Divinity. He was appalled at the idea of the liturgy and creeds. He said, "The best part of worship planning each week is having something completely new. Yours is boring."
We were friends, so he put me on his parish newsletter list later. He published one letter from a member, proud of what she said, "I love going here. It doesn't matter what anyone believes."
The United Church of Christ is nothing more than aged Congregationalism, mixed with a few mergers, the tail-end of Pietism, where only do-goodism is left. The UCC has no doctrine to speak of (except world religion) but plenty of social activist positions to wave at people. Go to the far Left. No farther than that. They are the leading edge.
I decided to use the UCC as an example of non-liturgical worship because that is exactly where Jeske and his Groeschelites are taking their poor, deluded members. Anti-confessional doctrine, worship, and practice lead directly to Unitarianism. Few actually become UCC. They stay where they are in their mega-hives or mini-hives, so distant from the original confessions of their own group that they no longer recognized what they have become.
Does Deputy Doug Englebrecht realize he has become a power-mad Enthusiast? He has retained the time-tested bullying tactics of WELS, but united those methods with the concepts learned from Paul Copycat Kelm, Wayne Mueller, Larry Olson (DMin, Fuller Seminary), David Spoiling the Egyptians Valleskey, VP Huebner, and many more.
These Enthusiasts are looking for variety, but the liturgical service changes every week, with many possibilities within that framework. A hymn service can replace the parts of the liturgy. Various settings can be used. But these are wasted words when Schwaermer have their tongues hanging out for the pit band, female leadership, wearing work clothes on stage (aka the chancel), and smelling the aroma of popcorn rather than wine drifting across the worship area.
