Hypocrite "Christian" men

ViaCrucis said:

For what it's worth, more traditional--liturgical--services are a bit more robust than that. The traditional Christian liturgy is divided into two halves, the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Altar. Throughout there are some hymns, not all in one chunk, but throughout the whole service, along with various types of prayers, the Scripture readings (an Old or New Testament reading, a Psalm, and the Gospel reading), the sermon usually doesn't go more than 15-20 minutes. The Peace comes after the Liturgy of the Word, we confess the Apostles' Creed, we recite the Lord's Prayer, the Lord's Supper is celebrated, the final prayers of the day, and a benediction and dismissal. At my church almost everyone stays around afterward for coffee and snacks, and we just talk and discuss the things going on in our lives, we pray for one another, care for one another, and that fellowship time after the service usually lasts another hour. So the service itself might only last an hour, but we fellowship for another hour after the service. But we aren't a big church, there is only an average of 20-30 people every week, including the children.

The traditional Liturgy, and the community fostered in a relatively small/moderate sized congregation, along with a deep love and commitment to God's word is a deeply good thing. I look forward to going to church, my needs are met. In God's Word and Sacraments, in the love and fellowship of the Body, in genuine people who care for others and want to follow Jesus. This is soul-medicine.

-CryptoLutheran

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I'm glad this is working for you. I must admit I grew up in a secular environment. So words like "sacrament", "benediction" and "liturgy" are foreign to me. I feel like I would be lucky to make it through a single service without half the congregation running me out of the place with torches and pitchforks.

It probably doesn't help that I've already been excommunicated before from a (supposedly) non denominational Christian assembly.

It's true that it can take some time to learn how to participate in a more liturgical form of worship, and that can be difficult (been there, done that). But I'd have to agree with @ViaCrucis that for many of us it's time very well invested.

ZephBonkerer said:

I'm glad this is working for you. I must admit I grew up in a secular environment. So words like "sacrament", "benediction" and "liturgy" are foreign to me. I feel like I would be lucky to make it through a single service without half the congregation running me out of the place with torches and pitchforks.

It probably doesn't help that I've already been excommunicated before from a (supposedly) non denominational Christian assembly.

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We usually leave the torches and pitchforks at home as they don't do much good at church.

The reality is that these words, like all words, just exist because they communicate something. We say "liturgy" because ancient Jews and Christians did something together when they gathered for worship, so instead of saying "doing something together for worship" we say liturgy, from a Greek word meaning "public work" or "the work of the people", it simply speaks to our coming together and doing something, specifically worship. Sacrament is another simple word, this time from Latin, and means "a sacred thing", early Christians saw that in certain things which God gave us, such as Baptism and the Lord's Supper, God was doing something sacred. Greek Christians called them "mysteries" while Latin Christians called them "sacraments"; it simply refers to things God does and gives us which He uses to communicate His love and grace to us. A benediction is also from Latin, and literally just means "a good word" as it's a blessing.

All of these things are just ways to talk about what we see regularly happening in the Bible.

You wouldn't be run out, or judged. The truth is that while traditional churches often are perceived by many as tight-laced, it's not an actual reflection about what Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox, Anglican/Episcopalian, etc churches are actually like.

I've been to and experienced judgmental and "rules" oriented types of churches, and they aren't for me. For a lot of reasons.

I'm not saying you should start going to a Lutheran or Episcopalian or Catholic church, I just want to put it out there that there is an alternative to the "American" style you mention, and it's one that goes all the way back to the time of Jesus and the Apostles, and there just isn't going to be judging, or gossping, or anything like that. Because that's just not how things are at most of our churches.

It may have been more true a hundred years ago when the "Mainline Churches" were more "socially relevant", but that's just not the case anymore. American Christianity isn't dominated by the old Mainline, being part of a traditional and established church tradition doesn't come with any social privilege anymore. Nobody comes to Emmanuel Lutheran because that is socially beneficial, it's not 1950 anymore.

-CryptoLutheran