Misnomered Worship

First of all, let me say this: Contemporary Worship is a misnomer. If it is happening in your lifetime, it is contemporary. I don't have another suggestion for it, unless I go with the term I once heard--"contemptable worship."

You know what? I don't mind guitars, non-keyboard instruments, even drums (!) in a worship service, but (you knew there was a but) provided it is done properly in a manner in which worship in done in my church. Sorry to break the news to some people, but Lutherans worship like Lutherans. Otherwise we would be whatever group we were trying to emulate by our worship. How we pray is who we are. We are Christ-centered, cross-focused (thanks, Todd) people. We worship that way.

So I heard some seminary students talking about worship. One said that when they first moved here they visited large mega-Lutheran-which-won't-openly-admit-they're-Lutheran church (apparently they abide by the "don't ask, don't tell" policy when it comes to denomination affiliation--but I digress) because they had contemporary worship. "Oh it was great," he gushed. "They had like 50 people up there." Okay, fine. I can appreciate music done well, but he had to go on. . . "So my field work church has been doing the liturgy from time out of mind, and they begged me to start a contemporary service."

Pardon me, what's wrong with the liturgy? What's wrong with doing things from time out of mind? I mean, people have been eating and breathing since creation, I don't see anything wrong with continuing those activities. You know what? The liturgy works just fine and has for thousands of years. You can't tell me we were any smarter (based on the dumbing down of America, we're not) than our ancestors that we can just throw it out. It's funny, no, ironic, that our culture which takes so much stock in "heritage" that we have entire "heritage" festivals will throw out the quality old for the cheap new just to say it's new, which, like it or not, Kum By Yah is NOT new.