The Liturgist

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@Paidiske and several other members have encouraged a thread in which those of us tasked with preaching can post for evaluation our sermons before we preach them, and also those we have just preached. Since I waited until it was Sunday morning in most of the world before getting around to posting this I expect we will initially have more of the “just preached” variety, but since I think I am not alone in doing weekday services, and since many of us also take a whole week to sculpt and refine a Sunday sermon, I think we can start with that ... immediately after we rest and recover from our work today.

All classes of sermons including anonymized or otherwise ethically posted sermons for funerals, christenings, weddings and other such services are encouraged.

And everyone is welcome: liturgical ministers, aliturgical pastors, and the members, attendees, congregants, laics, choristers, altar services, ushers, and secretarial staff of our churches. The idea is 360 degree review, by our fellow clergy, whether you are an Anglican archbishop, a Baptist preacher, a Catholic deacon, a Russian priest, a Methodist elder, a Congregational minister, or a Non-Denominational pastor, and most importantly, by the people who have to sit (or in the case of Russian Orthodox Christians, stand) through our sermon. Because we, as clergy, wish not to bore but to edify, to preach the Gospel and not empty the church, and to engage the mind rather than causing our people to slumber.
 
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Paidiske

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It's a bit nerve wracking to go first, but here you go: a link to a sermon for the fourth Sunday of Advent. Grace

A little unusual for me in that about half the length is actually in story form, rather than reflecting on the text very directly, but I got some feedback that people felt that this helped them to think about the themes in a different way, so while I wouldn't want to do that very often, I feel okay about doing it very occasionally!

So... Christmas... I've got the shepherds at midnight and the prologue to John's gospel for the morning service. Must admit I haven't quite figured out what I want to do with those yet!
 
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Dave-W

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Would Drashim be ok here too?

They are short teachings based on the Torah/haftara/New Covenant readings of the week - in our congregation they are about 5-7 minutes long. As an elder I take one per month, usually the 2nd Saturday.
 
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The Liturgist

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Would Drashim be ok here too?

They are short teachings based on the Torah/haftara/New Covenant readings of the week - in our congregation they are about 5-7 minutes long. As an elder I take one per month, usually the 2nd Saturday.

Of course.
 
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It's a bit nerve wracking to go first, but here you go: a link to a sermon for the fourth Sunday of Advent. Grace

A little unusual for me in that about half the length is actually in story form, rather than reflecting on the text very directly, but I got some feedback that people felt that this helped them to think about the themes in a different way, so while I wouldn't want to do that very often, I feel okay about doing it very occasionally!

So... Christmas... I've got the shepherds at midnight and the prologue to John's gospel for the morning service. Must admit I haven't quite figured out what I want to do with those yet!

Christmas? Christmas! Aww crikey (as you might say, but probably don’t), I done forgot! No really...I did the Fourth Sunday of Advent, but relaxing this afternoon between services, I was thinking about the Coptic Orthodox Christmas service and the Russian Vesperal Divine Liturgy I am planning on attending on Jan 6/7th, because the Julian Calendar, and the Coptic Calendar on which it is based, are more than a week behind ours. They differ only in that the Coptic monks are named after Egyptian dieties; right now we are in the month of Khiak, which for Copts is now synonymous with Advent rather than the sacred bull Apis or Hapi-ankh, which has probably turned up as a villain in Stargate SG-1. Hathor, was a terrible villain in Stargate, and the month of Epip may refer to Apophis, the principle antagonist. But I am even less of a qualified Egyptologist than Roland Emmerlich (ok, I am more qualified than Roland Emmerlich, but lets face it, my cat makes a better Aegyptologist than Emmerlich), so who knows.

Moving on, I realized in my distraction I don’t have a sermon, so I am going to do one.

By the way, I am going to include the entire liturgy we will be using, so people can see the context, and @Paidiske, if you were able without too much hastle to copy and paste your sermons into the appropriate parts of the Australian or BCP Holy Communion service, I would be, in the immortal words of Peter Ustinov playing Hercules Poirot, “Most Hghonored” (with an audible H”). The same goes for all other liturgical ministers. If you work in a liturgical church, and if its not too much trouble, please paste in at least the Common of your liturgical service, but anything that is in the Propers, like your lectionary readings, psalms, proper hymns, introits, graduals, Peokeimemna and Megalynaria etc for Eastern Orthodox clergy, as well as the hymns that will be performed, please provide them. If it is a long or well known hymn however, do not bother with the lyrics. We all know the contents of Joy to the World, or for that matter, Te Deum Laudamus, and also if you are using CCM, praise and worship music, Christian rock, et cetera, I really don’t want Hillsong suing anyone.

The same goes for non-liturgical pastors, like most Baptists or Non Denominational ministers. If you can, provide the scripture verses you are reading in your service and the names of your hymns. Also, if anything else to provide context.

This also goes for @Dave-W ; I am a scholar of Jewish liturgy because of what I believe to be the ornate relationship between it and Christianity, and I would love to see what the services in your Siddur look like, as I have never seen a Messianic siddur, only English translations of a plain vanilla Ashkenazi Orthodox Siddur, a Karaite Siddur, and the Samaritan equivalent, the Defter (which is probably the rarest, most obscure and most valuable liturgical text in my library...if anyone else on CF.com can prove to me they know more about how the 812 Samaritans mostly living in Nablus and on Mount Gerizim worship, I will break a lifelong taboo and chomp down a carrot (I love the flavors cooked carrots, turnips and celery imparts, but I hate eating them raw).

But if this burden is too hard for anyone, don’t do it. But if you can, it will make me happy, and I will be more likely to positively review your sermon, because I have context, and context is king in this line of work. So, if apros pos to nothing someone posts, without telling us why, on a Saturday night, a sermon intended for a wedding on Tuesday, we are going to get confused. Or if someone posts on Christmas Day a funeral they have to do on Saturday. We don’t want to be confused. The occasion does matter, and the more supplemental material you provide, the more we can help each other.

Also, input and discussion of supplemental service aspects including hymn selection and liturgics is encouraged.
 
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I'm interested in the thread in general but I don't write out my sermons. I just use a few notes in outline with a few reference verses I may or may not use depending on inspiration, and then just go to town where the Spirit leads!

Today, I used the lectionary text of Romans 1:1-7 which is packed FULL of content that could inspire many different sermons, but since it is the fourth Sunday of Advent, I wove the concept of putting our TRUST in God and God always keeping his promises, with some emphasis on the promise made to David in 2 Samuel that was fulfilled in Christ.

Edit: Just read the post that just got posted and so thought I'd include the hymns.

The original plan was "What Child Is This" and "The First Noel" and "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" but a lady in my second congregation asked right before the service if she could sing something during the service, so of course I replaced "The First Noel" with her music.
 
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It's a bit nerve wracking to go first, but here you go: a link to a sermon for the fourth Sunday of Advent. Grace

A little unusual for me in that about half the length is actually in story form, rather than reflecting on the text very directly, but I got some feedback that people felt that this helped them to think about the themes in a different way, so while I wouldn't want to do that very often, I feel okay about doing it very occasionally!

So... Christmas... I've got the shepherds at midnight and the prologue to John's gospel for the morning service. Must admit I haven't quite figured out what I want to do with those yet!

I really like this and like your focus on repentance and the benefits thereof. It is stirring and leaves the congregation with something to reflect upon before Christmas. I give it an A+

My only other opinion, which I can’t fully express because of a lack of context, which is why I realize we need liturgical references, is that your sermon is hard to hear. And that is good, and gutsy, and appropriate for Advent and the other fasts. But, I would probably have talked a bit more about the rewards of grace once we are disabused of our delusions. But you might well have done that, and also the fact this was a Holy Communion service, I assume, would ensure this happened, because there is nothing more gracious than partaking of the Eucharist. If you had done this at Morning Prayer or Ante Communion in the old 1662 BCP, it would be the kind of sermon that stings, but since you did it in a Eucharistic service, that has the effect of neutralizing the message. And I think my approach of going into the rewards of grace would have to be done with great subtlety; you hint at it, and I would hint more strongly, but, if we turned your sermon into some sort of Thomistic* homily on the actions of grace, it would be spoiled and would lose its saltiness. And I love the saltiness.

*When it comes to grace, I reject the Scholastic theory reflected in Thomas Aquinas that grace is a creature, and probably because of my massive crush on the Eastern churches, instead embrace the doctrine of Gregory Palamas that grace is an uncreated energy of God.
 
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The Liturgist

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I'm interested in the thread in general but I don't write out my sermons. I just use a few notes in outline with a few reference verses I may or may not use depending on inspiration, and then just go to town where the Spirit leads!

Today, I used the lectionary text of Romans 1:1-7 which is packed FULL of content that could inspire many different sermons, but since it is the fourth Sunday of Advent, I wove the concept of putting our TRUST in God and God always keeping his promises, with some emphasis on the promise made to David in 2 Samuel that was fulfilled in Christ.

Edit: Just read the post that just got posted and so thought I'd include the hymns.

The original plan was "What Child Is This" and "The First Noel" and "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" but a lady in my second congregation asked right before the service if she could sing something during the service, so of course I replaced "The First Noel" with her music.

First of all, welcome to the thread!

That was really nice of you to allow the lady to contribute to the worship, If the request of a congregant can be accomodated, we should do so. Sometimes we can’t. Now if its because they are a really bad singer, that can be awkward, but we could comfort them by reading @Paidiske’s sermon.

Now, regarding your sermon, I love the theme of trusting in God and God keeping his promises. This is extremely apt for the last Sunday in Advent. I like it!

Now you are on the RCL, I assume, and I threw away my copy when I left my last position with the UCC and planted an independent Congregational church plant, and am actually for right now using the one year lectionary from the Methodist Episcopal Book of Worship of 1965.

So you read, according to Google,
  • First reading
    • Isaiah 7:10-16
  • Psalm
    • Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
  • Second reading
    • Romans 1:1-7
  • Gospel
    • Matthew 1:18-25
I really like how you zeroed in on Romans. I like to exegete all lessons when I can, but whenever I am on the RCL, I prefer to focus on the epistle much of the time, because as I expressed in another thread, I find the RCL’s use of one primary Gospel each year to be tedious. But a lot of people love the RCL, and I have to respect this. I like the “Year D” unofficial supplement which focuses on John and contains some striking and unexpected lessons.

The Methodist Episcopal lectionary of 1965 gives me an Old Testament, two “Acts of Praise” which tend to be Psalms or Canticles, but I often change it if these propers are not to my liking, a Second Reading, and a Gospel, but in a one year format closely following the old BCP lectionary and in turn the ancient Roman lectionary. But for the evening service, we are using the 1662 or 1928 BCP Evening Prayer lectionary (whichever one has better material), and if we add a Eucharist to that service, we might switch to another.

So for my service this morning, which followed the Book of Worship to the letter, had these lessons:

Isaiah 7:10-14
Titus 2:11-3:7
Matthew 1:18-25

The Acts of Praise were no. 31, Light Dawns for the Righteous, which is classic Psalmody, a canticle composed of several Psalms, which I can share if there is interest, and no. 56, the canticle Benedictus (Luke 1:68-79, from the Coverdale Bible, which you can find in the 1662 or 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

So I was very happy about the propers this morning. I was less happy about my allergies, which impeded my delivery of my sermon and caused me to truncate it slightly, but I am feeling better.

I will shortly post the text of my sermon once I have bracketed those portions which of necessity were omitted.

I need a Reader or lay preacher or lay servant who can preach for me when my voice malfunctions. I am going to designate one of the people from each service for this role, as Emergency Backup Homilist. I have already designated Readers for the Old Testament and the Epistle, because I personally can’t handle it when people read the lesson unprepared. I don’t mind having children reading the lessons;* but throughout my career, I have encouraged youth readers, but they have to rehearse and commit the scripture to memory, or at least be able to articulate it and read the words, and one of my readers right now is a youth and is doing brilliantly, which of course would make him ineligible to read the homily.

*What really bugs me is when a minister just calls on a child, shoves some Scripture in front of him, and expects him to read it, and the poor kid struggles to pronounce certain words they aren’t yet using in their regular vocabulary or otherwise has a hard time, and also can’t project, and makes newbie mistakes, for example, if there is a microphone, they will get too close to it or “eat the mic.” We have a responsibility to prepare our youth for their contributions to the liturgy, and to make sure the parents fully support it and will also help, and that the youth gets a treat for his contribution, as a symbolic representation of divine grace. I have regular and diabetic chocolates for this purpose.
 
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bekkilyn

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First of all, welcome to the thread!

That was really nice of you to allow the lady to contribute to the worship, If the request of a congregant can be accomodated, we should do so. Sometimes we can’t. Now if its because they are a really bad singer, that can be awkward, but we could comfort them by reading @Paidiske’s sermon.

LOL. She actually has a great voice, so no issues with the bad singer yet. Maybe I should bookmark @Paidiske's sermon just in case it happens in the future though. :)

Now, regarding your sermon, I love the theme of trusting in God and God keeping his promises. This is extremely apt for the last Sunday in Advent. I like it!

Thanks! I didn't even really prepare for that emphasis going in, but that's what ended up coming out!

Now you are on the RCL, I assume, and I threw away my copy when I left my last position with the UCC and planted an independent Congregational church plant, and am actually for right now using the one year lectionary from the Methodist Episcopal Book of Worship of 1965.

So you read, according to Google,
  • First reading
    • Isaiah 7:10-16
  • Psalm
    • Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
  • Second reading
    • Romans 1:1-7
  • Gospel
    • Matthew 1:18-25
I really like how you zeroed in on Romans. I like to exegete all lessons when I can, but whenever I am on the RCL, I prefer to focus on the epistle much of the time, because as I expressed in another thread, I find the RCL’s use of one primary Gospel each year to be tedious. But a lot of people love the RCL, and I have to respect this. I like the “Year D” unofficial supplement which focuses on John and contains some striking and unexpected lessons.

The Methodist Episcopal lectionary of 1965 gives me an Old Testament, two “Acts of Praise” which tend to be Psalms or Canticles, but I often change it if these propers are not to my liking, a Second Reading, and a Gospel, but in a one year format closely following the old BCP lectionary and in turn the ancient Roman lectionary. But for the evening service, we are using the 1662 or 1928 BCP Evening Prayer lectionary (whichever one has better material), and if we add a Eucharist to that service, we might switch to another.

So for my service this morning, which followed the Book of Worship to the letter, had these lessons:

Isaiah 7:10-14
Titus 2:11-3:7
Matthew 1:18-25

The Acts of Praise were no. 31, Light Dawns for the Righteous, which is classic Psalmody, a canticle composed of several Psalms, which I can share if there is interest, and no. 56, the canticle Benedictus (Luke 1:68-79, from the Coverdale Bible, which you can find in the 1662 or 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

So I was very happy about the propers this morning. I was less happy about my allergies, which impeded my delivery of my sermon and caused me to truncate it slightly, but I am feeling better.

I will shortly post the text of my sermon once I have bracketed those portions which of necessity were omitted.

I need a Reader or lay preacher or lay servant who can preach for me when my voice malfunctions. I am going to designate one of the people from each service for this role, as Emergency Backup Homilist. I have already designated Readers for the Old Testament and the Epistle, because I personally can’t handle it when people read the lesson unprepared. I don’t mind having children doing it; but throughout my career, I have encouraged youth readers, but they have to rehearse and commit the scripture to memory, or at least be able to articulate it and read the words, and one of my readers right now is in this group, which of course would make him ineligible to read the homily.

I'm glad you're feeling better! Last year, I completely lost my voice during a week of being sick.

You reminded me that I need to get a new scripture reading rotation going for 2020. My congregations read Psalter, NT, OT, and Gospel every Sunday, though I will read whatever passage is associated with the sermon and will have a hymn in between their readings and mine to break things up a bit. The reader has the choice with the Psalm to read directly from scripture or use the responsive reading from the Psalter that is in our hymnal. (I suppose they could even choose to sing from it too, though no one as of yet has chosen to do so for some reason. :) )

I tend to do the order for the readings as Psalter, OT, NT, Gospel or Psalter, OT, Gospel, NT, though whatever passage is associated with the sermon will be last no matter what order it would be in normally.

I have been using the RCL lately, but one nice thing about my denomination is that we are not forced to use the RCL or even any lectionary at all, so we can choose passages from RCL or any other lectionary, or just whatever scripture or theme we feel inspired to use! What I tend to do is pick out the general scripture readings from a lectionary for lay readers, and then a passage that may or may not be from a lectionary for the sermon and then will use a lot of other scripture during the sermon to emphasize points from the chosen passage.
 
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The Liturgist

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LOL. She actually has a great voice, so no issues with the bad singer yet. Maybe I should bookmark @Paidiske's sermon just in case it happens in the future though. :)



Thanks! I didn't even really prepare for that emphasis going in, but that's what ended up coming out!



I'm glad you're feeling better! Last year, I completely lost my voice during a week of being sick.

You reminded me that I need to get a new scripture reading rotation going for 2020. My congregations read Psalter, NT, OT, and Gospel every Sunday, though I will read whatever passage is associated with the sermon and will have a hymn in between their readings and mine to break things up a bit. The reader has the choice with the Psalm to read directly from scripture or use the responsive reading from the Psalter that is in our hymnal. (I suppose they could even choose to sing from it too, though no one as of yet has chosen to do so for some reason. :) )

I tend to do the order for the readings as Psalter, OT, NT, Gospel or Psalter, OT, Gospel, NT, though whatever passage is associated with the sermon will be last no matter what order it would be in normally.

I have been using the RCL lately, but one nice thing about my denomination is that we are not forced to use the RCL or even any lectionary at all, so we can choose passages from RCL or any other lectionary, or just whatever scripture or theme we feel inspired to use! What I tend to do is pick out the general scripture readings from a lectionary for lay readers, and then a passage that may or may not be from a lectionary for the sermon and then will use a lot of other scripture during the sermon to emphasize points from the chosen passage.

I strongly suggest you look at the Methodist Episcopal Book of Worship from 1964. You might have one collecting dust on a shelf in your parish somewhere. Look for a book with a bright red or dull purple binding, and you either have the 1964 Book of Worship, if it is thin, or the 1965 Hymnal, if it is thick. If you find an even older black book that says Book of Worship, you have found the rare 1945 edition, which is exquisite, but I don’t recall it having the lectionary or lavish propers of its 1964 successor (it does however have better orders of worship).

Growing up in a UMC parish in the 1980s, we were using the 1964 Book of Worship and corresponding Hymnal until 1994 or 95, when we got the much inferior (in my opinion) 1989 Hymnal and Book of Worship. And soon thereafter I stopped going. When the praise and worship music came out around 97, it was too much for this old Valley Boy. A capella or organ accompaniment only works for me (handbells can be nice, except when you have migraines, and the parish is small).

As a Congregationalist, I also have always had great freedom, but I use this only to select a rule for the congregation, which is then followed for as long as possible, because for reasons CS Lewis eloquently put in a famous complaint about worship services, I don’t believe I should make my people have to relearn the service, because they come to use the service, and their usage is impeded if I go fiddling with things.
 
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bekkilyn

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I strongly suggest you look at the Methodist Episcopal Book of Worship from 1964. You might have one collecting dust on a shelf in your parish somewhere. Look for a book with a bright red or dull purple binding, and you either have the 1964 Book of Worship, if it is thin, or the 1965 Hymnal, if it is thick. If you find an even older black book that says Book of Worship, you have found the rare 1945 edition, which is exquisite, but I don’t recall it having the lectionary or lavish propers of its 1964 successor (it does however have better orders of worship).

Growing up in a UMC parish in the 1980s, we were using the 1964 Book of Worship and corresponding Hymnal until 1994 or 95, when we got the much inferior (in my opinion) 1989 Hymnal and Book of Worship. And soon thereafter I stopped going. When the praise and worship music came out around 97, it was too much for this old Valley Boy. A capella or organ accompaniment only works for me (handbells can be nice, except when you have migraines, and the parish is small).

They may or may not have some older Book of Worship texts available. I don't think they do, but I haven't poked around in all the corners. One of my congregations really likes the contemporary music, so I tend to replace one of the hymns with something contemporary, but the other congregation is much more traditional, so I keep it to all hymns there and they have a regular pianist to accompany everything. (She won't be available for next Sunday or for the Christmas Eve service, so we'll probably just be a capella. When people worry about it, I just make a statement like, it says to make a joyful noise, not a joyful melody!)

As a Congregationalist, I also have always had great freedom, but I use this only to select a rule for the congregation, which is then followed for as long as possible, because for reasons CS Lewis eloquently put in a famous complaint about worship services, I don’t believe I should make my people have to relearn the service, because they come to use the service, and their usage is impeded if I go fiddling with things.

There were a few things I switched around for the order of worship when I came in as pastor, but then I keep it fairly consistent each week. For example, I felt obligated to move the offering nearer to the beginning to middle of the service because I really, really, really don't like having it after the sermon. So while I can use a great deal of freedom in choosing scripture, the order of worship will typically remain the same barring a special occasion or something that comes up, or an oopsie on my part, such as when I just forgot to have us sing the opening hymn and then spontaneously added it in later. :)
 
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*What really bugs me is when a minister just calls on a child, shoves some Scripture in front of him, and expects him to read it, and the poor kid struggles to pronounce certain words they aren’t yet using in their regular vocabulary or otherwise has a hard time, and also can’t project, and makes newbie mistakes, for example, if there is a microphone, they will get too close to it or “eat the mic.” We have a responsibility to prepare our youth for their contributions to the liturgy, and to make sure the parents fully support it and will also help, and that the youth gets a treat for his contribution, as a symbolic representation of divine grace. I have regular and diabetic chocolates for this purpose.

One of the things I like about our parish is that one of our members organizes and trains all of us who are lectors. The adults who are going to read Scripture in a given month meet at the beginning of the month to look over the readings, talk about what might be difficult in the readings, and talk about the context and meaning of each reading; then we take the readings home and practice them. Once a month, children or teens read the Scripture passages; our lector trainer works a little more intensively with them, because some of them are too young to have much experience at public interpretive reading.

The system works well for us. Both children and lay adults get to be involved in the service, and rarely do we hear someone stumble over a difficult name or read something in a monotone. Nobody gets Scripture shoved in front of them unexpectedly. At most, maybe once or twice a year, someone will forget to show up when it's their Sunday to read, and then it's one of the most experienced lectors (usually the lector trainer herself) who steps in to read.

She has neglected to feed us chocolate, though. Maybe I'll suggest that for the next lector team meeting. :)
 
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They may or may not have some older Book of Worship texts available. I don't think they do, but I haven't poked around in all the corners. One of my congregations really likes the contemporary music, so I tend to replace one of the hymns with something contemporary, but the other congregation is much more traditional, so I keep it to all hymns there and they have a regular pianist to accompany everything. (She won't be available for next Sunday or for the Christmas Eve service, so we'll probably just be a capella. When people worry about it, I just make a statement like, it says to make a joyful noise, not a joyful melody!)



There were a few things I switched around for the order of worship when I came in as pastor, but then I keep it fairly consistent each week. For example, I felt obligated to move the offering nearer to the beginning to middle of the service because I really, really, really don't like having it after the sermon. So while I can use a great deal of freedom in choosing scripture, the order of worship will typically remain the same barring a special occasion or something that comes up, or an oopsie on my part, such as when I just forgot to have us sing the opening hymn and then spontaneously added it in later. :)

In the Orthodox church liturgical mishaps tend to include singing the wrong hymns, which is a big deal because unlike in our churches, all their hymns are defined in the propers. Also, the inevitable accidents with thuribles falling open and candlestands tipping over.

In my church I at least can put on a stiff upper lip and ignore any accidental deviations from the printed ordo. But I do refrain from making announcements in the service unless of vital neccessity. So there is little chance for me to say something like “By the way, you should be aware, as I have just realized, that our programs are inaccurate...”
 
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The Liturgist

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One of the things I like about our parish is that one of our members organizes and trains all of us who are lectors. The adults who are going to read Scripture in a given month meet at the beginning of the month to look over the readings, talk about what might be difficult in the readings, and talk about the context and meaning of each reading; then we take the readings home and practice them. Once a month, children or teens read the Scripture passages; our lector trainer works a little more intensively with them, because some of them are too young to have much experience at public interpretive reading.

The system works well for us. Both children and lay adults get to be involved in the service, and rarely do we hear someone stumble over a difficult name or read something in a monotone. Nobody gets Scripture shoved in front of them unexpectedly. At most, maybe once or twice a year, someone will forget to show up when it's their Sunday to read, and then it's one of the most experienced lectors (usually the lector trainer herself) who steps in to read.

She has neglected to feed us chocolate, though. Maybe I'll suggest that for the next lector team meeting. :)

The chocolate is only for young lectors. With the adults I don’t feel I should have to coach them through it. Actually, 80 years ago, I don’t think the kids would need as much help, because of greater family cohesion, and so on, provided the parents knew what they were to read, but, this is 2020. Which is on the whole good, because, no Hitler. 1940 would be an unnerving year in which to live, even in the US.
 
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bekkilyn

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In the Orthodox church liturgical mishaps tend to include singing the wrong hymns, which is a big deal because unlike in our churches, all their hymns are defined in the propers. Also, the inevitable accidents with thuribles falling open and candlestands tipping over.

In my church I at least can put on a stiff upper lip and ignore any accidental deviations from the printed ordo. But I do refrain from making announcements in the service unless of vital neccessity. So there is little chance for me to say something like “By the way, you should be aware, as I have just realized, that our programs are inaccurate...”

With hymns, I just tend to pick out hymns I like or that seem to coincide with the sermon in some way. Once I'd forgotten to update one my hymn selections in my personal order of worship notes and we ended up singing the same closing hymn as in the previous week, and I only realized in the midst of the hymn what I'd done and the pianist just went along with it all without a blip. :) (But then one can never sing "Rock of Ages" too many times, right?)
 
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The Liturgist

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But then one can never sing "Rock of Ages" too many times, right?

Wrong. Now O Gladsome Light, or the Magnificat, or Nunc Dimitis, or Benedicite Omni Opera, or Te Deum Laudamus, or the Trisagion, or the Sanctus, or the Benedictus, or the Psalms, or the “O Antiphons” of Advent (which miraculously work as well in English as in Latin), or the Christological hymn “Ho Monogenes” or “Only begotten son and word of God,” or the metrical homiles of Ephrem the Syrian or Jacob of Sarugh, those have staying power. The chorales are good for Congregational singing, but most of the best ones were written by Charles Wesley, and are good mainly because John Wesley doctrinally edited them (Charles also snuck out a large number of hymns which you will not find in most Methodist hymnals which are doctrinally dubious).

Although, I will say with confidence you can sing Rock of Ages infinitely more times than “Jesus Christ the Apple Tree,” which drives me crazy, but I suspect the Ophite sect of the 2nd century would love it. But ultimately, while I love chorales for congregational singing, I honestly prefer to cultivate a choir and a precentor and succentor (protocantor and deuterocantor) who can handle greater musical complexity. If we do two congregational hymns and have the choir do the rest, I am content. I suppose this makes me less than the ideal Congregationalist; I would joke I am a Congregation-silence-thyself-and-listen-to-this-antiphon-ist. And even in my old job, I tended to intone the Gospel and as much of the service as I could get away with. I memorized the eight basic modes of Anglican plainsong/Gregorian, Kievan, Russian “Greek” chant, West Syriac chant (which is really easy), and also the two tones of Coptic Tasbeha, which is even easier, and @dzheremi can attest to its beauty. I can also chant from memory some Ambrosian Rite melodies, but unless you live in Milan and speak Italian, your ability to pick up Ambrosian eight mode chant is compromised. By the way if this sounds interesting, and it might not; I have to struggle to avoid boring my people to death with long impromptu digressions in my sermons into ecclesiastical history, comparative liturgics, and comparative church music, there is a brilliant thread on this in Traditional Theology.

But yes, I do like, nay, I love, your approach to the traditional service.
Because it happens to be my approach. The only difference between us is I flat out can’t do a service with a praiseband. Due to the rarefied aesthetics in much of the UCC this did not become a problem. And the beauty of a mission plant is that if it is successful and I remain here, and transfer to the CCCC or some other denomination, since this is not a UCC mission, I can positively keep it that way. Unless my congregation starts to hate me for it and pressures the Board of Governance** to fire me.

Shucks, if we’d had you I probably wouldn’t have left that parish. But if you have an organ, or even if you get a Hammond organ (which is cheap now; you can buy a $2000 keyboard with an integrated circuit that replicates precisely the electronic wavelenghs generated by the Tone Wheel in a Hammond Organ, and contains all the stops, and hook up extra keyboards to it, and pedals, and any speakers you like), please use that. But at all costs, avoid “Hybrid organs”, which feature a case consisting of a set of large beautiful pipes, but only use these a fraction of the time; they have a massive speaker/subwoofer array concealed within the pipework, instead of more pipes, and are basically giant synthesizers that can optionally vent an organ bellows under certain limited conditions.

They are also unreliable. I was at a concert by my friend Christoph Bull,* a “Bach walk” taking place at a Presbyterian and Roman Catholic church a few blocks apart which both had hybrid organs, sponsored by the manufacturer; the Presbyterians’ organ behaved alright, but the organ at the Roman Catholic church jammed on a note while Christoph was playing a Bach fugue, and kept playing this one note to his chagrin; the manufacturer’s rep jumped on the console to try to troubleshoot it, and if memory serves they had to pull and reset the breaker. This process took ten minutes. This was hilarious in a concert due to Christoph’s keen sense of edgy German ironic humor, but, in a worship service, you would not want that.

So if you have a member of your congregation repose to be with the Lord, and bequeath the church with funds for a pipe organ, for the sake of their memory and your parish, do not but a hybrid! You’re seriously better off with a Hammond organ (especially one integrated into a compact keyboard with an IC; it might not have a pretty wooden console, but, since the integrated circuit produces exactly the same waveforms the Tone Wheel produces if a Hammond is functioning correctly, and it it is not, this is painfully obvious, it is to be preferred, because it has no moving parts, whereas the Tone Wheels on original electro-mechanical Hammond organs can jam, the bearings can degrade, the connections can become frayed, and other Bad Things can happen).

Doing my asterisks in reverse this time:***

*** Rest assured, my sermons do not have footnotes, despite the overpowering temptation to include them. “Now, if you recall what I said five minutes and thirty seconds ago, this was actually an allusion to the Roman Emperor Theodosius II and not Theodosius I.”

** Different Congregational churches have different methods of oversight, including Presbyterian style elders, a Consistory, a Vestry, and so on, but these are as a rule democratically elected by the people. This is actually good, if you teach your people well and involve them in the traditions of your parish; I hypothetically prefer an Episcopal Polity like that of the UMC, the ELCA, the Episcopal Church and other Anglican churches, and of course the Eastern churches I like so much. We need to find an EO priest to join this thread, by the way, because when it comes to sermons, they are the masters of brevity and doctrinal relevance. The thing is, Orthodox Christians, except in the Coptic church, often don’t care that much about the sermon, except at the Paschal Divine Liturgy on Easter at midnight, and in that case the sermon is standardized; it was written by St. John Chrysostom about 1,612 years ago, give or take fifteen years.

*Christoph Bull is the organist at First Congregational in Los Angeles, which joined the UCC in 2017, which surprised me, because having been friends with their recently retired senior minister for a while, I was certain they were UCC. First Congregational boasts the largest church organ in the world, a spectacular array of pipes, well maintained, and Dr. Bull is one of the best organists I know, along with Dr. David Rothe, Mr. David Nunes, Dr. Jurgen Wolfe (not to be confused with Jurgen Wolff the actor).
, formerly of the Nicolholaskirche in Leipzig, not to be confused with the more famous, but less pretty, Thomaskirche; the organ at Nicholaskirche is probably my favorite of any church, and I used to have a recording of it, next to the brand new (well, vintage 2001-2002) Bachorgel at Thomaskirche. But the organ at Nicholaskirche absolutely trounces the 19th century Sauer Organ at the Thomaskirche. It’s also slightly older I believe, but like all organs, in most cases, you find that the consoles and hand operated bellows have been replaced more than once, indeed, hand operated bellows are now something of a rarity because we have electric motors to pressurize the bellows at the flip of a switch. Dr. Rothe prefers mechanical bellows, but likens it to sailing a ship; you have to coordinate your timing with the prevailing wind, in this case generated by your colleague working the pump levers.


Here is a poor quality video which nonetheless hints at the majesty of the Nicholaskirche organ. I used to have a recording on CD, but I lost it in the pre-iTunes era.:doh:
 
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The Liturgist

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They may or may not have some older Book of Worship texts available. I don't think they do, but I haven't poked around in all the corners.

Duuuude, you gotta poke around the corners. That is where all the awesomeness in an older parish church, cathedral, or especially a monastery,* is hidden. I once found an entire fully furnished chapel, with a properly vested altar, that everyone had forgotten the existence of. Also, one of the nine giant chapels of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow according to Russian sources from the time of Ivan the Terrible, miraculously appeared during the consecration of the church. I am not sure I believe them, since this could have been some elaborate ecclesiastical intrigue to placate a Czar who was not without cause referred to as “terrible,” and the chapel fits perfectly into the site plan, but, as I was not there, I cannot deny the possibility of such an occurrence.

There are some interesting things in Russian Christianity, like the legend of the sunken city of Kitezh.

*The trick there is getting permission from the guest master or the abbot to go exploring, and also persuading a monk who has the keys to open up normally locked auxiliary buildings and secondary chapels.

By the way @Paidiske, you were a cathedral canon once, what was that like? Yes, I know, we are off-topic, but this thread will survive especially when I post the sermons I intend to preach tomorrow and later. Primarily because everyone will have to get in line to denounce me for being the world’s most boring preacher. :p
 
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Paidiske

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By the way @Paidiske, you were a cathedral canon once, what was that like?

Ah, sadly, nothing so exalted! While I was an ordinand I was a cathedral verger/administrative assistant to the precentor. The experiences of those three and a half years were incredibly rich and can't possibly be done justice in one post, but I will say this much; cathedral ministry - especially when, like ours, the cathedral is in the middle of a city - is incredibly diverse. I dealt with everyone from prime ministers and governers-general to the homeless folk who slept on our steps. The variety of liturgical events in a place like that is much more than just about any ordinary parish. (Where else would an ordinand learn how to deal with the secret service in planning a state funeral? That sort of thing). It gave me an exceptionally strong grounding, both pastorally and liturgically, for when I was ordained and working in a parish.

By the way, I will eventually respond to other comments above, but probably not in the next 24 hours or so, it now being just after midday on Christmas Eve!
 
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