How We Worship
Be a part of God's saving story
For Lutherans, worship matters. In fact, worship lies at the heart of
how we understand ourselves together. While some of the approaches to
worship may differ from one congregation to another, we hold certain
things in common.
There is a basic pattern for worship among Lutherans. We gather.
We encounter God’s Word. We share a meal at the Lord’s
table. And we are sent into the world. But we do not think about
worship so much in terms of what we do. Worship is fundamentally about
what God is doing and our response to God’s action. Worship is an
encounter with God, who saves us through the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Think about it like this. God’s Spirit calls us together. God speaks to
us through readings from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible,
through preaching, prayer, and song. God feeds and nourishes us in a
saving way. And God blesses us and sends us in mission to the world.
Taken together, the Word
proclaimed and the sacraments
-- both Holy
Baptism
and Holy
Communion
-- are called the means of grace. We believe that Jesus Christ is
present in these means through the power of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes
we describe worship as a “gathering around the means of grace.” This is
a way of saying that we trust that God is genuinely present with us in
baptism, in preaching, and in sharing the bread and wine of Holy
Communion. In that sense, Lutherans believe that God’s presence
permeates all of Christian worship.
The cross is the central symbol that marks our worship spaces and when
Lutherans worship, singing fills the air. The voices of all the people
joined in song and the participation of all the people in the worship is
a witness to our conviction that in worship we are being drawn in to
God’s own saving story.