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 Worship
Some basic thoughts...
Our Lord speaks and we listen. His
Word bestows what it says. Faith that is born from what is heard acknowledges
the gifts received with eager thankfulness and praise. Music is drawn into this
thankfulness and praise, enlarging and elevating the adoration of our gracious
giver God.
Saying back to Him what He has said
to us, we repeat what is most true and sure. Most true and sure is His name,
which He put upon us with the water of our Baptism. We are His. This we
acknowledge at the beginning of the Divine Service. Where His name is, there is
He. Before Him we acknowledge that we are sinners, and we plead for forgiveness.
His forgiveness is given us, and we, freed and forgiven, acclaim Him as our
great and gracious God as we apply to ourselves the words He has used to make
Himself known to us.
The rhythm of our worship is from
Him to us, and then from us back to Him. He gives His gifts, and together we
receive and extol them. We build one another up as we speak to one another in
psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Our Lord gives us His body to eat and His
blood to drink. Finally His blessing moves us out into our calling, where His
gifts have their fruition. How best to do this we may learn from His Word and
from the way His Word has prompted His worship through the centuries. We are
heirs of an astonishingly rich tradition. Each generation receives from those
who went before and, in making that tradition of the Divine Service its own,
adds what best may serve in its own day — the living heritage and something new.
 In its hymnody each
age of the Church reflects what it returns to God for the great blessings it has
received from Him. Some of the Church’s song is always derived from a previous
era. The early Church developed its music from the psalmody of the synagog, to
which it added the strophic hymns of Greek and Roman converts. When the liturgy
became the sole property of the clergy, there arose a need for hymns in the
language of the people. Thus there came into being the great body of Latin hymns
introduced and promoted by Bishop Ambrose of Milan and his followers. In time
these again became the property of the clergy and hierarchy. The Lutheran
Reformation once more restored the Church’s song to the people in their native
tongue. From then on the Lutheran Church became known as the "singing Church."
The song of this Church has weathered and withstood such influences as pietism,
rationalism, modernism, and universalism in one form or another.
- Introduction to Lutheran
Worship
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