"Sacred Sunday" - Rediscovering Traditional Worship in a Modern Church - The Neighborhood Church, Bentonville, AR

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tevo Christmann (00:00):
All right, we're recording. We're in.

Pastor Joe Liles (00:02):
Welcome to the TNC podcast. This is my podcast
voice. If you don't know, um Tomand I were talking earlier. He
told me never again to do mytraditional worship voice. I
don't have it, so I have apodcast voice, and it sounds
like this. Welcome to the TNCpodcast. Radio announcer. It's a
little right now, that way, next

time I should do that traditional Sunday, a
traditional Sunday, traditional

worship. Boy, you know what? Here, I'll give
it to you a little bit. I'mgonna start with you for our we
had sacred Sunday this lastSunday, a full Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America. ElW, which is Evangelical Lutheran
worship. Hymnal, right settingfor service, the full litter,
straight through the fullliturgy from the cranberry, from
the cranberry book, The El, W,so here is so now you get

(00:43):
Welcome to the TNC podcast,podcast. Voice, and then you get
normal talking Joe. Voice, righthere, and this is my leadership.
Voice, for a traditionalservice. Blessed be the Holy
Trinity, one God who forgivesall our sin, whose mercy endures
forever. Amen Almighty God towhom all hearts are open, all

(01:04):
desires known, and from whom nosecrets are hid, cleanse the
thoughts of our hearts by theinspiration of your Holy Spirit,
that we may perfectly love youand worthily magnify your holy
name through Jesus Christ, ourLord. Amen,

very boring parts. Yeah, that

was very boring parts, um, and so, no,
it's the one that's the startconfession and forgiveness,
right there. Tom, you did notlike that voice that

Tom Helmich (01:27):
seemed peppier than on the that seemed peppier,
yeah. Oh, okay. I think you

may have done more like, Almighty God, it
seemed

a little more like, a little more flat, a little

more flat. I listened to it, okay, on the
phone. But I was like, you'relistening to on the phone. Tom's

opinion of a traditional Sunday is that it
was a little flat, a little that

was, yeah, it and you didn't like the lights
behind on the stage because

it gave some weird shadows and some weird colors.
Okay? So, like, the people uphere were, like, the stage
lighting wasn't, you know, we'renot.

So how do you offer a tom? There's a little
intro into the message today. Sowe're going to jump in. As you
can see, Tom is back. Tom,you're not here for our
traditional son, because wherewere you in Dubuque, Iowa.
Dubuque, Iowa, which is the homeof Wartburg theological seminar.
How long have you been inseminary and corn? Seven years.
Seven years. And what happenedthis past Sunday, commencement

actually finished.
It was finished and graduated

June of 18, and

Commencement finish of 2025, have been
commenced. You have

been commenced. Commenced? Yup,
commenced. And we had acongregational meeting on
Sunday, yes. So you're nowcommenced. And called right,
called to the neighborhoodchurch, to the pastor of care
and education. I was lining

up, and there's no Pastor pockets in the Oh, yeah,
actually,

wait Tom, did you say a pastor pocket? What's
a pastor? Pocket? Pass throughpocket. Pass through pocket.
Okay, I've already called thatbefore, but I'm gonna go with it
through

the all to get to, like, turn on the mic or get to
your phone, correct? Yeah, unzipit and pull around to try to see
what the message was. It was thetext from the bishop. And when
did you receive that? Whileyou're at commencement, so we're
in the basement lining up tostart to process in nice and you
received that you were called,yep. And I look at it like, oh
and, and the guys besides, like,what's up? It's like, oh, the
congregation actually voted tocall me. And he's like, that's

(03:11):
they're doing that today. So,yeah, they're doing that today.
And my ordination is

Wednesday.
He's like, it seems a littletight. So that's great. So
commencement was wonderful.

Yeah, it was good.
It was good. There's some funnyparts to it. There's okay. It
was it was interesting. It wasneat. And it's done in the
Catholic Church, yeah, it's donein a Roman Catholic Church. A
Roman Catholic

Church. Did you like the lights there? That was
one. Was it? It was what?

No, it was well lit. You could see everything.
Oh, my God,

this is so good. I love it. I'm gonna make
the lights all funky for you,Jordan nation, just to mess with
you a little bit, it's gonna begreat. Yeah, I'm gonna have them
flashing different colors behindyou as we go. It's gonna be
fantastic. And we only had onelight set up to on Sunday. There
was no change, no moving, right,because I wanted to do these
stained glass windows. Man, it'slike stained glass, so I didn't
want them to change at all, andI didn't want any dramatic

(03:57):
behind it, frosted glass. It'slike a frosted glass, but it's
the closest thing we

could get to stained glass. It's not glass at
all. Didn't pass the

vote, no.
Stained glass does not pass thevote, no. And then who else do
we have joining us in thepodcast? So we've heard that Tom
is on the podcast as host toTom's right. We have Table,
table, Director of worship andmusic at the neighborhood
church. Incredible. And then wehave to my left, Roseanne.
Roseanne, Roseanne, below, whatis your title here? Director of
Operations. Director ofOperations. That is absolutely

(04:27):
wonderful. So we are joining youon the podcast today, and we had
on Sunday, sacred Sunday. Andsacred Sunday is the first time
we've ever done this in live thechurch. We've had a series
before. Now people will recalland they will tell you they
recall this, we've had a seriesbefore that we called, not your
parents church, and we did aSunday calling back to the days
of choir, to the Alps, to thestoles, and said, Hey, this is

(04:49):
the church we grew up in. Andthat was a day, and really the
same way we treated it now, nota day to make fun of or light of
how the traditional church orhow we grew up in church. But
really to honor the traditionsthat we come from and how they
still have a place in today. Andso with that, Tom, you were
gone. It would have beenwonderful for you to be here,
but you're up at commencement.
So Bishop Becca came in from theArkansas, Oklahoma Synod, and

(05:12):
she came in and preached for usand helped preside. We had
acolytes. The youth stepped out.
Youth loved it. So we said, Isaid, I need two acolytes per
service, which is four, and Ihad six kids raise their hand on
Wednesday night. So I was like,Look, we'll do three acolytes.
I'll go find another candlelighter with the bell snuffer,
is what they call it. And sothey were very excited. They
practiced on Wednesday night.
They came in, they were highlyscared of their light going out

(05:34):
on the way down and and I loveit, because legit fear, it's a
legit fear, it's a legit fear.
And they had to walk all the wayfrom the back in our fellowship
or all the way forward. And Iforgot that fear. So like,
before service, I'm like, yeah,just light them. Guys. Just walk
up. And their eyes were like,right now it's time. And I was
like, Yeah, and you guys can doit. And honestly, no lights went
out. They did great. They satdown on their chairs. It was
absolutely wonderful. We hadbulletins on Sunday. Can I just

(05:56):
want to do a small shout out toany church secretary,
administrative assistant,whatever has ever happened that
anyone who's ever touched thelife of a bulletin in their
entire life, much more respect.
Much more respect. It took mesix to seven hours to put that
bulletin together and copy itand get it put in a booklet

(06:19):
form, get it to fit on thestinking page because it's a
half folded sheet, make it looksomewhat reasonable, bold all
the parts where the congregationhad to respond and then print it
correctly, which took 17 triesto

do this manually.
Or did you do it through Sundaysand seasons? Can you describe
doing it manually? Like did youjust type this out? Or did you
do Sundays and seasons. I It's a

mix, right? So I designed it in Sundays and
seasons, and then that gave meall the language, right, that I
could easily copy over and like,the image on the front is
Sundays and seasons from the dayEaster, 5c and so the much
respect. And I just want to sayI personally apologize for all
the times that I did not thinkthe bulletin was that

big of a deal. So st, Luke or Secretary Linda,
yeah, spent most of her life inthe newspaper industry, yes, and
which is good, because she cando that like in she knows it,
because she knows it. That washer whole last career was doing
that. Otherwise, yeah, it's apain in the butt. Yeah,

I went to print this at our printer, and I
send them the printing, and Isaid, Hold on a second. That's
not going to be right, because Ijust did straight through like I
normally would if I was doinglike a funeral service, right?
Well, but a funeral service isonly one page front and back, so
I can just print it straightthrough, right? It's great. And
I just take the first page andmake it the last page, and we're
great, right? And I did that,and I was like this in my head,

(07:36):
I had this conniption where lifefailed me. It's like my mind
went blank. I was like, I have13 pages of bullets, and there's
no way this flips in thatmanner. And I was like, it's
like, page 1278, and, yeah, doyou know what I had to do in
order to get this to work? I hadto print out the whole document,
cut every page, and then tape itto pages in order, so that I

(07:57):
could see actually, where thesethings went in a booklet format,
so I could figure out how toposition it on, you know, to
visually way, oh, my way. Like,

I think, I think there's a software solution for
that, actually. Oh, there

probably is.
But for our one time of year,Sunday, yeah. And here's the
other hard part, we do not havethe service built like, so all
of our services aretraditionally pretty built out
right ready to go. So designingthe service, even for Sunday,
just in a simple presentation,was two three hours just to put
the service together, right, toget that going, which is great,
because I use it for yourWednesday too. So it actually
doubles up a little bit, whichwill be nice. So, so yeah, we

(08:32):
had sacred Sunday. Bishop camein, which was really wonderful.
So just an experience. This wasa full el W Lutheran worship, we
had chanting of the canticles,and then we had a responsive
readings, which is great. We hadthree readers come up and do
that. They were awesome. Andthen we went through communion
from trays, which was amazing.

(08:54):
So we did all these kind ofdifferent parts. Everyone is
robed. Choir was robed. Acolyteswere robed. Censures, all the
things, right? Which one arelevel one, not level zero,
because I'm called a level 0.5.
Yeah. Point five, yeah, levelone. So I just want to
experience Tom, you weren'there. You watched online. We'll
get that experience last. But Ijust want your experience from
table and Roseanne, how wassacred Sunday for you,

(09:15):
experiencing it as a whole.

Roseann Bowlin (09:19):
So for me, my long term Catholic memory made
me tongue tied, okay, becausewording is different. Yes,
correct. And so I got I stumbleda few times, but it was so fun,
and watching the Acolytes comeup was so precious, nostalgic.

(09:39):
Yeah, they were, that's

all they were, that's all they were looking at.
Was just a light on the handleletter,

yeah, so, but it was, it was a precious
experience.

Nice for me.
Okay, so you, I mean, I'mhearing nostalgia for you. Oh,
yeah, right. So definitely,that's great. That's great.
Okay, would you do it again?

Unknown (09:59):
Yeah? How soon? Oh, once a

year. Oh, sure, sure. Oh, once a year is
sure, okay. That's great. Okay.
I think it landed for peoplewhere they're very excited to
experience it, and then theykind of went through it, and
they're like, Okay. And thenwhen we don't do it, this is
yeah. And okay, so table, whatwas your experience? Have you
ever been through a traditionalworship like that before? No,

I've been to, I've been through worship in a
Methodist context, where there'ssome call and response and stuff
that's wrote, but not a fullnothing with full regalia. I
mean, the only thing I've beenwith full been to full together
is weddings at Catholicchurches. Oh, yeah, so that was
fun, yeah. What was your, whatwas your takeaway from it? I
mean, on my end, it wasterrifying because, yeah, not a,

(10:41):
I'm not a professional pianoplayer, right? I only dabble.
And so it took you seven hoursto put together a bulletin. It
took me 20, yeah, to learn allthis stuff. Yeah, which that's
not, it's not usually, yeah, howit goes, yeah, very stressful,
yeah, but,

oh, thank you.
It was the music. Was just, itjust fit. No, absolutely,

I think, I think there's a lot, there's a
lot of good right, in liturgicalworship like that, there's, we
do get to read big chunks ofScripture, which is nice, like
it's important, it's food, youknow. And then we get to make
sure that when we meet, we havea moment for confession, we have

(11:27):
a moment for intercession. Imean, there's a reason these
things were thought through,right? Like, what are the
elements of worship? What needsto be there? And that's why they
designed it. And in a sense, itmakes a whole lot of sense,
because we we plan worship allthe time, yeah, and at one point
you might expect it to startrepeating, and for you to
continue to adjust it andperfect it. And since the church

(11:51):
is 2000 years old, you'd expectthis has been done by now. Why
are we still planning sothere's, so there's like, it
makes, it makes it makes a lotof sense that there's, like, a
lot a lot of thought put put toit. And there's also the the
didactic, sort of pedagogicalaspect of the chants themselves.

(12:12):
Because I don't remember exactlyeverything that we said, but I
don't think I'll ever forget inpeace. Let us pray to the Lord.
Lord, have mercy. Lord, havemercy. Gets ingrained into your
brain. And just like BishopBecca said on Sunday, the
little, little four year old kidsinging the canticle, yeah, she

(12:33):
was serving pretend tea to herdolls. You know that's like,
that's, it's something thatreally music. Music has that
role in our lives, pedagogical,role of teaching. So I
appreciated that aspect thatsaid it's a little boring. Oh

man, yeah, it's a little boring. Yeah, I
agree. No. I mean, it's a greattakeaway from what worship is,
right? And then I'll kind of gothrough my experience to the so
I've led traditional worship ahandful of times, right? Coming
through seminary, actually more,way more than a handful of
times. I let it for an entireyear for 52 Sundays, yeah. So

(13:09):
I've led traditional worship,right? I love me. Don't do every
Sunday, every Sunday. So I didevery Sunday for 52 Sundays,
right? I was in a two partparish for my internship, and I
was in a very rural,matriarchal, habitual, very
traditional congregation inBooneville called Faith
Lutheran. And then I was inSaint Luke, where you're at now,

(13:30):
right? With pastor, Don Brewer,incredible supervisor, awesome
and, and so, yeah. So both theseexperiences, I led in worship 52
Sundays. And so led throughevery part of the seasons,
everything. And then inseminary, I preached at
different congregations as asupply pastor in seminary. So I
went out to all the differentrural congregations in Iowa, did
the same thing when I got here,too, preached in all the

(13:52):
different congregations. So soyeah, I've, I've probably had
100 different times, leadingthrough liturgical worship and
and with that, it was so funny,because I was sitting in there.
And in the times when I thinkboring is one way to describe
it, and the times when the airfelt dry or the space felt like
it didn't have life, those arethe times that you hear me now

(14:14):
and even in our worship, and arelike, hey, we need something
behind this in order for us tocontinue to pull through
service. And I felt that againand again, and I'm like, Oh my
gosh. So kind of affirmedeverything, of, like, how we've
designed worship, as theneighborhood church, right, in
order to, like, come from thiselement, honor the traditions
that we have, but then also kindof pull us through, where people
feel pulled through the service,right? Like they're invited into

(14:37):
the space where we're takingthem on a journey all the way
throughout the service untilthey're sent back out, right?
Not in any space. We're like,ooh. Like, what are we doing
right now? And yeah, there weretimes in that service where I
was like, Oh, wow. Like, we'rein and then there's really holy
moments like, yeah, exactly whatyou said. I love the Curie,
right? Love, this is the feast.
Like I would do those in ourworship today, like they're

(14:57):
wonderful. And. And then, yeah,love responsive Psalm. That's a
beautiful thing to do, right?
That comes in. Love the toneswhen we do that. So, I mean,
there's some great parts aboutit. Love Reading the Nicene
Creed. I remember growing upreading that a lot more, and I
don't, I don't really have,like, the exact memory of it,

(15:19):
but begotten, not made, right?
Eternally begotten of the like,there's just lines there. I'm
like, so good. Yeah, it's justwonderful. God from God, Light
from Light, true God from trueGod, begotten, not made of one
being with, like, Look, you getme going on that. I'm just like,
my soul, baby. I love it. Solove the Nicene Creed. I think
that was wonderful to readthrough. So yeah, there's these

(15:41):
wonderful parts where I think,two, it's educational for the
church, right, for them tounderstand who we are as
Lutherans, and I think it's veryeducational. And so I also did
get the feeling that it's veryeducational once a year, like,
like, we need to come back intowho we are as the neighborhood
and what that means, right? Butno, there's posts from people
going out in social media withthem, with their kids, going

(16:04):
through it, and the hymnalsright in the scene. So there was
this almost experience thatcrossed generations, right? Kind
of looking at the sacred Sunday,which I had not thought through
fully. Like, yeah, this could bea generational teaching for
parents and like, Hey, this ishow I grow it creates a
conversation at home, you know?
Like, this is why I grew up.
This is why this is why thischurch is important to us now,
right? Because these are some ofthe things that we saw that
needed to change. And so, yeah,really, really enjoyed it. I

(16:27):
loved seeing, like, the choir inthe robes, right? They were
having a great time with thatright in the back, and just
enjoying that, and just singingaround the piano, right? It was
how I grew up, right in church,like we would just gather around
the piano doing parts and, youknow, seeing what's going on.
And then we say, okay, like,here we go. We're just going to
sing right around here. So someof even the practice and lead up
was very important to sacredSunday, which I really, really

(16:48):
loved. Tom, what was yourexperience from watching on the
phone? As you said, I

think because I'm familiar with this context and
things being done verydifferently, used to your voice
being very different. Yeah,right, because I'm used to the
normal Sunday Morning Joe voice,yeah, yeah. Very different,
yeah, very different. And I'mlike, oh, that's just seems so
like comparatively dispassionatecompared to how you normally
talk,

comparative, wow, yeah. Well, let's, let's
open that up comparativelydispassionately,

expecting, like the Joe voice, but in the
traditional and I'm like, Ohyeah, that's

and I forgot you were in here, because I
actually talked with, I think itwas in the Thursday, Sunday
morning meeting. Was it where Isaid, Hey, just so you know,
when I'm leading this, I'm goingto lead it very traditional. You
know, I let the team know that,and I said, I'm going to lead
this as I would lead itnormally. And I said, it's not
going to be the big over thetop, Joe, it's not going to be
anything else like that. It'snot going to be the normal
Sunday. It's going to be mytradition. Sometimes

God gave you that gift and you need to, you know,
use it in all settings. Yeah,right, yeah. Because I think the
traditional liturgy can be done.
It can be done well, uh huh. Andit depends on the context, on
what, on what the congregationneeds. You know, I still do the
traditional liturgy at SaintLuke, yeah, but with try to have
a little bit more, likeintonation and stuff into the
voice and accentuating certainthings so that it's not as

(18:04):
boring. But there's a reason whyit's adapted, even in the LW,
yeah, right, yeah. Um, it alsodepends, like, depending on how
somebody's faith works, ifthey're more, I don't say the
word because you can be in inthis context and reverent, but
certain styles of worship needthat space to kind of sit for
introspection and stuff likethat. But I think because I'm

(18:24):
expecting a certain thing at theneighborhood, yeah, and then
getting that, I was just like,oh, yeah, you know, plus the
context, the setting, like, itdoesn't look right in this
setting, uh,

true, yeah.
This is, this was not this spaceis not designed. Technically,
it's a traditional worship. It'slike for folks

hearing the the podcast, if you experience this
style of worship in atraditional building with the
chancel and the altar and allthat, it has a very different
feel to it, in the light and thesound and and depending on who's
leading it and how they lead it,it's, I don't want people to
think it's going to always soundjust like that. Yeah, correct.
It depends on who's on who's Oh,absolutely. Well, even at the
seminary, they don't teach tolead it that way anymore, like

(19:03):
even how they teach, it is verydifferent.

Yeah, one thing that bishop Becca pointed out
was this was a traditional styleservice from when you grew up.
Yeah, it wasn't and and it mademe wonder if my modern day
traditional service isdifferent, well, so Tom, you can

(19:28):
answer like

I grew up like in 95 you were 12, I was 19, but we
were in different states, indifferent contexts, different
churches. And my memory of thetraditional worship in 1995 was
a lot livelier than that, justbecause the way we did it, yeah,
partly because our theleadership in the past, Pastor
Solberg, at the time, we, youknow, is a lot more passionate
about certain aspects of ofliturgy and how it's done. And

(19:50):
we had a Baptist music minister.
And so it was even then, in 95it was a mix between the
traditional Lutheran liturgywith some adaptations to make it
more compel. Thing for people ofthe of that, yeah, because I
think you can take elements fromthe traditional liturgy and mix
it with the way we do with likemusic, for instance, at the
neighborhood church, and get agood cross between the two. That
I think could be extremelysuccessful for the folks that

(20:11):
aren't prepared to handle whatthe neighborhood is people
walking about, whoa, that's toomuch energy.

You know, not for people. Do that when they
walk into the neighborhood? Oh,

sometimes, to be honest, whoa, this is way
different. But, I mean, I thinkthat there can be some blending
there. But I think that ifpeople see like, maybe next
time, instead of doing like the90s church, do we do a
traditional service? Do like amodern traditional liturgy? So
that's

so it's a very interesting set. Because one of
the reasons we did it this wayis because, without starting at
the base and for people to besetting for, yeah, right? Like,
that was a traditional worship,through and through, yeah? Like,
that's traditional leadership,traditional worship, straight.
And then here's the deal. That'smodern day elw setting, which
was setting two in the greensetting two in the green book,

(20:59):
right? So you come through,like, that's traditional worship
now, like, yeah, there would bemodifications I would make to
that, that we could take atraditional worship and actually
grow it into something that Iwould say resembles a little bit
of TNC, right? And it looks likenot just a choir. It looks like
having a band up here, right? Itlooks like, yeah, you know. And
for me, the difference betweenwhat the bishop was looking for
was Bishop was wondering, are wedoing incense and the full

(21:21):
processional with the Scriptureand the gospel and the and I
was, like, the crew that's like,high church. So, like, that's
like, level one high church,right? Which it'd be tough to do
full high church in this space.
Oh yeah, I've never even, Idon't think I've ever been a
part of high church, maybe onlyat, like, special services at
Wartburg and special servicesAlistair, but like processing
him with the gospel, like theyprocess the gospel back out into

(21:43):
the middle of the congregationand then read from middle the
congregation with the gospel.
Like, there's some veryinteresting high church things
that happen that would beinteresting for me to be a part.
Because I'm like, whoo. I don'teven know. This

is a long, a long history that goes back from the
Roman Catholic method to Ohyeah, Deutsche Mesa, you know,
it's an art what we do. Ourliturgy still has the critical
that, you know, the gathering,the word, the meal, the sending.
So, I mean, there's, there'sstuff you can, you can do with
it to make a traditional settingof the liturgy a life giving and
beautiful thing, you know,today.

So I think you guys already plan next year's
traditional service?

Well, we got to grow it a little bit. You got
to grow it a little bit andbring in some more things. So
planted the seed there. Yeah,that's right table. What were
you going to

say? I think the obviously, the point of
doing this in the first place isthat it's also determined that
bishop Becker preached, that itis obviously what, precisely how
you worship is secondary to thatyou worship, right? Yeah, in the
end of first place. And itdoesn't like to the point that
there isn't, like, it's not afranchise, yeah, with, with,

(22:51):
with auditors, they're going tocheck to make sure that you're
doing all of the little bitscorrectly. There isn't the final
liturgy. Probably the highestchurch I've ever seen was when
the Queen passed on TV watchingwhatever is going on in
Canterbury in England. I meanthat for me, is the highest
church imaginable. Oh,absolutely. But, and I don't
think we're ever going to dothat. We can be just, just in,

(23:13):
like, integrate elements of pastliturgy, but it doesn't,
obviously, like, it doesn'tmatter, yeah,

what from the traditional liturgy would you
bring forward into like, the waywe do it? No,

I mean, the intercessory prayers, I think
are wonderful, right? I think itgives people a moment to have an
identity with prayer that isbeyond themselves and beyond our
community, right? And it'sbrought forward by the church,
right? In a sense of you'reparticipating in it, but it also
allows in a space, you toparticipate and lift up your own
prayers. So I think that's abeautiful expression of kind of

(23:49):
lifting up prayer in general,right? Right? Now we've just
included more prayer in ourworship, right? We have prayer
partners, but it's a verypersonal form of prayer and
worship. It's not a corporateled prayer and worship. So
that's a beautiful part, right?
That exists. It's challengingtoo, right? Because not
everyone's gonna agree with allthe prayers, right? Like those
were the EO W prayers writtenfor this day in Easter, 5c from

(24:11):
the people who designed theliturgy, however, many years
ago, special prayer

for Eric, the King of Sweden. Well,

yeah. So here's the hill, yeah. These
are, well, these are people whobrought forward, kind of, the
Lutheran tradition throughout,right, and made the gospel go
forward, right? So, but as youcan see, I didn't say that on
Sunday, right? Because it's inthe Oh, special prayers for Eric
King of Sweden. And I'm like,and these are the parts where
I'm like, what traditional,

traditional Lutheran worship. You still
celebrate feast days. Okay?
Yeah, so certain Sundays arededicated to feast of different
saints and martyrs, and thenpeople that have done, like,
historically significant thingsfor the church in the past, but
there's stuff like that you putin the bulletin. It's
communication. There's peoplethat understand and know what it
is, because it's gone onperpetually. And so people that
are raising that church. Churchknow what these things are, to

(25:00):
remember things that, likeheroes of the Church of the past
have done, and things they havesuffered and sacrifices they
have made, you know, to push thechurch to where it is today
that, unfortunately now is beingkind of history largely

forgotten.
Okay, so intercessory prayerswould be one. I do love the
confession of forgiveness, but Iwant so as I say that, I also
would speak against myself too.
There's a perception of thechurch that exists, right, that
when you come in, you're notworthy. And we're going to tell
you you're not worthy, and youhave to be worthy in order to

(25:36):
embrace the altar, which issomething that I believe in the
Lutheran tradition with, bygrace, you've been saved, right?
We are trying to not reteach ageneration, but we're trying to
meet people, and that whatChrist did on the cross, the
theology of the cross is whatmatters in our life with Christ,
and we need to accept that asour personal form of worship,
right, and understand our ourourselves, as a living sacrifice

(25:58):
in that way. Right? That we walkout into this world knowing that
we've been forgiven, knowingthat we've been loved. We've
been loved. And so when we walkin and we get right into this
confession of sin, right? Andthe first thing you hear is we
confess that we're captive sin.
Cannot for yourself. We havesinned against you in thought,
word and deed, by what we havedone and what we have left on.
We have not loved you with ourwhole heart. We have lot in
other labors as ourselves.
That's very holy. I still havethat memorized. Well, so here's

(26:20):
the deal. So do I like if you'recoming for how I grew up and how
much of an impact this had onme, it has a huge impact, right?
Caring for the people who walkthrough this door, who are
church, hurt and broken, andcoming here to look for a place
how to understand love, I thinkthis has a place in this
confession and forgiveness. Idon't think I would keep it
exactly like this, but I thinkit's very important, right? And

(26:40):
so I would look at, how do wetruly confess our sins, right?
And what does that mean? Andyou'll hear me say that when we
get to communion and we get tothe altar, and I'll give these
sort of words that allude tothis, it's not the same words,
but it's kind of hey, whenyou're coming forward to this
altar, right? Here's whatconfession, repentance, changing
your ways, asking forforgiveness means, right? In our
relationship with God, which isthis confession, but at the same

(27:02):
time, I grew up with this,right? So, like, yeah, I could
recite most of this still. 20years later, having not done it
in 15 years, I could recitealmost all of it, right? And
kind of leading that way. So dolove the confession and
forgiveness hymns are a strugglefor me, just straight struggle,
you know, see, that's, that was

one of my critiques in seminary. Oh, man, in our we
had a, I can't really, but theycalled the class like, there's a
semester long class on how tolearn to use the the cranberry
book, The elw, yeah, whichbaffles me that there's an
expectation that people in thechurch are going to know how to
use it, and a lot of them dobetter than I do, yeah, because
they've grown up their wholelives, which is not conducive to

(27:40):
people coming into the churchnew No, because now you hand
them this book, it's verycomplicated, and you got to
figure out how to use it, whichis why most now that I've been
to use the screens, yeah,because the type small, it's
hard, it's hard to use it slow.

Well, we didn't decide on a bulletin
until we started going throughwith the band. And I was sitting
with you table, to be honest,and you're like, where are we
now? And I'm like, well, it's onpage 145 now. And I'm like,
don't worry all the people.
Don't worry all the page

numbers, because I was utterly confused.
You were gone, right? And

I was like, if table is not picking this up and
like, leading it through? And itwas, I mean, here's the deal. It
was lined out. It's exactly thispage, exactly this page. But if
you haven't let it before andyou haven't been in that book,
yeah, to jump around, right?
We're at page 94 then we're atpage 151, then we're back to 143
for the Nicene Creed, and we'reback over here, yet we're still
in setting for then we'rejumping forward to him. And it
was kind of the week of when Iwas like, Oh, I'm gonna have to

(28:27):
do worship book and a bulletin,yeah, if we want people to get
through

this. And there's a gray version of the elw, that's
the leader's desk edition.
That's thicker, yes, oh,absolutely. Just that's why most
churches have gotten away fromthat, because people just don't
know how to use just

don't know how to use them. Yeah. And so that's
where this, I mean, we'reliterally all looking at binders
right now from Sunday worship,right? And that's why we did it,
is because this is the fullservice order straight through.
You don't have to find whereyou're going, what's happening,
different things like that.

That's the point of the Sundays and seasons. You
know? It's a it's a web basedthing you go to to create these
because, and at St Luke, wedon't do the bifold because it's
just small print. Yep, it's justlike this, but sort of binder to
staple the corner and everybodygoes to the full page together
because they don't have a spacefor screens in that that
context.

So at the end of all this, I think sacred
Sunday is something that'sspecial to honor tradition. I
think it's something special tolook at, to understand where the
church has come from, and tolearn more each year, right? And
to build upon it. And I thinkthere'd be a really neat space
where we continue to build uponit for the next three to five
years, where it starts to mapinto, oh, you can see the

(29:34):
transition into a TNC worship,right? Like, all of a sudden you
go, Okay, I see how theseelements actually came about.
Because I would preach a sermonseries on it, just going, Hey,
here's why these things werechosen and why we moved this
direction, why this wholeworship went this way. Another
thing I would keep is thegospel. I think that's really
good, so let's take time to readthe gospel. Before that our
jingle, which we're going tochange today. I want two, three,

(29:58):
mighty, four. Tracy

is our God?
479-367-2285,neighborhood church,

exactly what Sunday felt like, if you didn't
experience it, pretty much

the whole deal.
But throw in that, it's a goodexcuse to wear a hat too. You

know what? The women's ministry wasn't chosen.
What was it called? Was itwasn't called hat day. What was
it called? Sunday? It was hatSunday. It was hat Sunday. Okay,
at Sunday, on traditionalSunday, you guys looked amazing.
I mean, it was, it wasPreakness, you know, the
Preakness, like the horseracing, that's all I could think

of. So I remember, like, in peace, Lutheran looking
out and just as a kid, like,staring at the different Fancy
Hats people wore. They had thematching liturgical colors and
stuff. Like it was a

thing. That's why you can't remember the
lights, because you're onlylooking at hats. No, because it
was just a regular toilet room.
I got Roseanne on that one. Thatwas good. I got rosette. Uh,
alright, let's read the gospel.
Um, we preached from John 13verses 31 through 35 and so
we're each going to take a verseand then table, I think you get
the last two as we go through.
Um, so Roseanne, could you startus off on verse 31

when he had gone out, Jesus said, Now the Son of
Man has been glorified, and Godhas been glorified in him.

If God has been glorified in him. God will
also glorify Him in himself, andwill glorify him at once,

little children, yet a little while I am with
you, you will seek Me. And as Isaid to the Jews, so now I say
to you where I am going. Youcannot come

going back to the version where you're reading
from, I give you a newcommandment that you love one
another, just as I have lovedyou, you also should love one
another. By this everyone willknow that you are my disciples
if you have love for oneanother. Yeah, I don't know

why mine could reverted back to the Yeah. His

own thing over here. Tom doesn't like it.
Doesn't have to chant on his ownordination. Okay, Tom, so with
that, let's break this down alittle bit. Bishop Becca
preached. What were yourtakeaways from Bishop Becca's
sermon on this textspecifically, but also she
preached kind of largely aboutwhat is liturgical worship and
what is the lectionary, and whatare the seasons of the church,

(32:22):
and what does this mean, andwhat we've already said the word
adiaphora. And so I just lovesome takeaways from the message.

Kaylee should know what Adi offer is, because we
covered that in that age ofyouth group. Nice, great. Just
talking about what's importantin the liturgy and how we do
church and what isn't important,because there's so much
different from one context toanother.

Tom, what does Adi offer a mean? So a lady at

St Luke, we're talking about, she's like, Oh,
it means MOX next, which meansmatters. Matters not I think you

can't use more languages to describe a language
we already don't understand. Youjust use another language. You
can tell me like you want, Istill don't understand what it
means simple terms. It's

like, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what.
Matter. Do it? Do it? Do it.
Don't.

Do you remember what the bishop said
when she described it in very umslang terminology?

Oh, sure, because I really like laughing about it.

What the What the fudge. Right?

She starts. She's like, What the fuck yeah, that
was

pretty much everyone in the church, right?
Everyone in church had a moment.
It was gonna go back to Andrewmcnerland, um, mcnerland when he
said the S word in churchpodcast, and then, two weeks
ago, explicit podcast. So itwas, it was like, what is the
church that causes? Apparently,that's what's happened in this

year. Good explanation of of stuff that the
part of the Lutheran church canbe unwelcoming is, it seems like
a secret code, because you comein and there's a bunch of words
people don't use on Mondaythrough Saturday, and they don't
know what it means. We've notalways done a good job of
teaching what it means, and sothose things have kind of lost
their value, because it's abarrier to new people coming in,

(33:55):
which I think part of we don'tuse a lot of that, like we don't
have a chancel, we don't have anarthex, or, you know, the
different parts of the of thebuilding. We don't use that
terminology, so people feel morecomfortable coming in

here, yeah, that's right. That's right. We
don't have an altered build,right? And all that kind of, we
have a sacristy. We do call itthe sacristy, don't we? That's
great, yeah, we're going to keepthat. So what was your takeaway
from the message?

It was a good education, but kind of, what we
do and why, and that what we doat the neighborhood is also a
liturgy.

Yes, very much on the on the same things, yep,
Roseanne. What about you? Oh,123, Roseanne notes.

Well, I didn't take notes. Gosh,

Roseanne, man, we launched a new segment, hey,
hey. And Roseanne continues notto take notes because

there's the bishop preaching. I guess if it's you
should take notes. Uh, no, but,but I'm

5050 for Roseanne. Like, one week she had
hit and the next week she'slike, it didn't hit table. Even
titled the podcast that, beforeI changed it, it didn't. It was
like, it's right there. So I'm5050 with Roseanne, so we're in
it. I'm 50 feet with you onliturgical worship. So we're
just in

it. Okay? So this one was not on the. Bible
app to take notes. This is

true because the Bible app didn't exist in
traditional worship. I wantedpeople in the bulletin.

We okay, we were in. It was an intentional
choice. Oh, okay, but Well,adiapra is going to stay with me
forever. Yeah, it's great. Youlove that, okay? But that the
point of that being that allthat fluff really exists to draw

(35:28):
people in, but what we want themto be drawn into is a
relationship with God, in arelationship with each other.
Yep,

that's great.
I love that table. What aboutyou? What was your takeaway from
the message?

I think that obviously, like we, we know from
Jesus, his his summary of all ofthe 613, commandments, right?
Love God with all your heart,soul, mind, strength and love
your neighbor as yourself. Andthis is what is the context
here. This is before. This isafter resurrection, correct? No,
this is way before this is,yeah, this is washing the

(36:03):
disciples feet, okay? Oh yeah,there you go. So he goes, but we
said, where I'm going, you can'tcome. But here's what is for the
disciple. He's talking to thedisciples there and but because
of the permanent nature of whathe's saying, it also applies to
us, to us directly. And hiscommandment is that we love one
another. And I think, I think inthe sermon, there was a moment

(36:24):
where it got a little too closeto this being a soteriological
statement, when you explain thatfor people, not quite what it
is, yeah, the that that if youjust sort of have love in your
heart, that's how you are saved,yeah, that's that is not what
the Bible actually teaches. Byfaith, you are saved by grasping

(36:45):
what God has done for you in across and recognizing with
humility the forgiveness that hehas, and joining the life of
disciples and then you love oneanother. But the idea here is
not that by loving one another,you will be saved, but by loving
one another, you will be awitness.

That's what Jesus said, that by loving one
another, they will know thatyou're my disciples,

exactly, right?
Yeah, so it's not related tosalvation, but it is related to
witness, which obviously issomething that we're all, that
we're all called to, that we'reall called to do. Ultimately, I
think loving one another is acommandment, and it is more
important that we love oneanother than we than fight over
whether we do praise songs orhymns. Yeah, right, yeah, right,

(37:28):
true, yeah. They will not knowwe like people will not know
that we are Christ's disciplesby the kinds of hymns we sing,
but by whether or not we loveone another. So that's kind of
my takeaway. Yeah,

I love that. I mean, I hear you saying too,
that there's a belief in God,right, which comes from this
discipleship, yeah, our responsein that belief to what Jesus
Christ did on the cross for usis the result of our faith,
right? And the result of ourfaith is that we do good works,
yeah, and that we love oneanother, right? And we kind of
take this path towards it. And,yeah, I agree. I think there's
an important language that, yes,we are meant to love one

(38:03):
another, but it is a response ofour faith because of that. So we
start in this personalrelationship with God. And I
loved there was one part thatbishop Becca said that was extra
instrumental in thinking aboutwhat was the neighborhood
church, worship as we designedit in the beginning. And it's
what I lost a little bit in thisgrowing up, and what I continue

(38:23):
to lose a little bit inseminary, is that sometimes in
the just the repetitive motion,we forget to think of our
relationship with God aspersonal. Yeah, right. It only
becomes on behalf of the church,and it ties us to a Sunday
morning. It ties us to theliturgy, so much so that we
cannot see ourselves outside ofthat and so little small things

(38:45):
that, you know, she was talkingabout, like, you know, we have
to put into worship places thatwe actually think about, you
know, and cause us to thinkabout our relationship with God,
challenge us a little bit,convict us a little bit, but
then give us the give us truly,the hope that our faith goes
beyond these walls and that itcan't exist outside of the
church. And I think that's,that's the hardest thing for so
many people, is that our faithcan exist on its own outside of

(39:07):
this church, right? We love thegathering. I do think it's
celebration, but our faithexists. And it goes out into the
world. It's sent out into theworld. It's, it's Tom, it's
called and commissioned. Well,because

that's, that's the whole point is, is not to be in
here. Is to it's to come here tobe strengthened, you know, to go
out. And I think we're, we'rethe traditional liturgy does
well in some places, is thatrepetition so that you remember
these things to help you, butyou gotta do it in a way that
speaks to the congregation basedon the context, right? And what
we're doing now, may want, mayor may not, one day be the new

(39:37):
traditional to somebody else.
Yeah, and what the elw is wascutting edge to somebody at some
point, you know. And so it's,it's the you build it in a way
that you put repetition where itneeds to be, so that they go out
constantly remembering this,because they've said it over and
over and over and they've heardit over and over and over, which
is why I think it's important.
That's why I like the RevisedCommon Lectionary, because you

(39:58):
actually get into Scripture. Arepetitive basis. As you go
through life, you hear thesethings, and you hear these
things from the gospel message,and you're constantly hearing
it, and so it's more, it's moreon your mind, that repetitive
nature.

I think that's the hard part about reading. I
love all the reading. I thinkthat's wonderful. I don't love
the reading outside of thecontext of the reading, like in
the bishop kind of named it too.
She said sometimes they don'tknow why they structured it in
this way and like it's there. Idon't doubt that it's there, but
the amount of time it takes totake three large readings and
break that down so peopleunderstand what the context was.

(40:33):
And in fact, I wrote in here,you guys, if you look in your
binders, I wrote the context forit in here, right that shared
from like, the EO W writers,right? So that you can know
where we're at. But the eachperson was like, should I read
this? And I'm like, Well, yeah,probably, you know, or you don't
have to write. It's okay. Andlike, every reader decided not
to write, which was great, andthat's okay. That's how, that's

(40:53):
usually the way we did itgrowing up, right? But the
reason, I think that wespecifically the neighborhood,
take that one text and break itdown, and we talk about where
the Gospels are at, what they'reabout, what's before this,
what's after this, right? Isbecause I really have a heart
that people understand wherewe're at in the Scripture, like,
what are we talking about today,and what was happening before
this that led into this, and Imissed that a little bit in

(41:16):
traditional worship. I reallymiss this heart that, you know,
we would really understand everyone of these readings. Now,
going back to the Psalms,Psalms, poetry, right? So, read
the Psalms. That's just kind ofbe like that to me, is the one
that could be in every Sundayand you're just in it. Just
listen to the Psalms, right?
Like a beautiful moment to say,like, hey, we just read Psalms
because they're poetry, becausewe can engage into this and kind

(41:39):
of listen through it. And, yeah,I mean, I fell in love with the
Psalms again, and I read it toyou guys before it, but like I
got to this part on Psalm 148,verse, I think it's six in here.
No eight. Fire and hail, snowand fog, tempestuous wind, doing
God's will. Mountains and allhills, fruit trees and all
cedar, wild beasts and allcattle, creeping things and
flying birds, sovereigns of theEarth's and all people, princes

(42:02):
and rulers of the world, like,beautiful, like I was reading
that, and I just want to read itover and over and

over. We did the retreat at Subiaco. Yeah, you
know where they go through anddo that, in a way, it's very
centering and kind of calming.
Yeah, you do the response of alot because it's so long, and
you keep everybody payingattention so they're not, you
know, Oh yeah, absolutely,distracted, keeps you engaged.
What's going on? Yeah, there's alot of great stuff in scripture
that I think we miss at theneighborhood sometimes because
we're starting with the seriesand then pulling where we need

(42:31):
to from Scripture to to supportthat. So we actually

haven't done that in a year. So we've done
only a book of the Bible forevery series. For the last we've
not

really covered the book, though. Like we we still
pull snippets, but we just pullsnippets from the book.

Actually, every first part of the series,
I described the whole book ofthe Bible, so that way they can
break down and see what's goingon. So that, and honestly, that
was from our staff meetings.
Like we were talking about,like, hey, if we're going to
send ourselves in Scripture,let's send ourselves in
Scripture. Because all previousyears to that, yeah, we kind of
jumped right, and we just pickedscripture that aligned with
whatever we're doing in theseries. And, and I've actually
really enjoyed that to becentered in a certain book,

(43:07):
right? Because I think it givespeople just a little bit more
of, Hey, what is Romans? Hey,what is first, you know,
Corinthians. Hey, what is first?
Timothy, why are these bookseven exist, right? And have a
part of that context, yeah. Andthe Con and, yeah. And yeah. And
then each time, we can go backto it. And then the cool part, I
think too, is that I've beenable to reference, like, hey,
if, if you don't have a goodunderstand this book, go back to

(43:28):
the first, you know, firstmessage that we did in the
series, right? And go, kind oflisten to this whole book and
see what's going on. So that waycan give some context to it. And
then the challenge of thepeople, which I think many
people, have taken up, is toread through the book, like, and
I was harping on the first man,I was harping on the first,
like, three, four months, like,when we were doing this. And I
was like, Look, if you there wasa couple, there was only, like,

(43:49):
four chapters. And I was like,if you haven't read it, like, we
got questions, you know, becauseI'm like, You got four weeks to
read four chapters. Like, we cando this people and but I think
it's hard. I think peoplereading scripture is, something
that needs to grow in thischurch and across the board,
right? I don't think it'ssomething that's central to
people's lives and they we needto continue to grow this in the

(44:10):
church, right, and keep that asa reality too. So I mean, it's
just something big that we needto keep on reinforcing, and I
think consistency will do that,right, staying consistent in
those motions. So alright, anyfinal takeaways from the
message,

it was neat seeing you wearing a stole that's
great. We've only maybe three orfour times I've seen you do it.
Oh, yeah,

that's it. And other people, other people
dressed up, which was great.
Like, people wore suits. Like,it was great, like, they kind of
lived into what they grew up. Isaw some people, oh, they were
and they'd come up to me, like,you get this for me once. And I
was like, good, you get this forme once. And then I looked at
other people, and they were halfin so it was kind of like you
were talking about, like, if wetook the EO, W liturgy, and then
we kind of made it neighborhoodstyle, right? Like, we kind of

(44:50):
modified it to how we would leadthe liturgy, neighborhood

the hymns, into some modern style, okay? Music
with like, like, the message,yeah, with modern. Music, yeah.

So these are people that were walking in, and
it was great because theydressed up. So they're wearing a
sport coat, but they still had,like, you know, the Nike Air
Force ones on and stuff likethat. And I looked at me like,
Hey, I dressed up. I was like,No, you modified whatever
Lutheran traditional you thinkyou are, that's modified. I
said, That doesn't count. I wantmore from this. And so we were
laughing on Sunday. It wasreally good, really good. So

(45:21):
that's great. Was fun, yeah, soTom, we got some special things
happening this week. We gotordination coming up tomorrow,

6 (45:28):
30pm that is Wednesday, the 21st 6:30pm that's going to be
here. Everyone invited rightnow. We have about 120 people
coming that have registered,which means that you don't
register. So we got more than

that coming about 20 or anymore. So st, Luke, yep.
So

yeah, we're gonna need more brisket. So
that's 150 200 people in my mindthat'll be coming to tomorrow. I
wonder

if I might ought to throw in some like, Look

Tom, look Tom.
If the food is not already, thenthere's only one

person. They're gonna turn 80 pounds of brisket
in the smoker right now. DangTroy. Chef,

Troy has a number of, how much brisket,
pound did you need per person?
Right? He has the number. Justmake sure,

we kind of talked about it, you know, yes, because
standard is like, just so, youknow, it's about a quarter
pound, you know, beyond that,but then I think that's it's
trying to figure out how to getthe right amount out. Yeah, we
don't get to the end, and nobodygets any so that's right, it's a
little late to throw in morebrisket, but might have to throw
on more brisket, but might have

to throw in some chicken or something. You
might have thrown some chicken.
And then on Sunday we havegraduation. Sunday, I'm
preaching on your ordination,and then you're preaching on
graduation Sunday, yeah, whichwill be amazing. And a
commencement style preaching,right? So this is

kind of a one off message to kind of give people
I've been in the future. I gotsome notes for some readings. My
youngest Connor is graduating.
Oh,

that's right, that's great. Oh, that'll be a
really kind of personal message.
Yeah.

I'm not totally sure I'm comfortable with all
the kids being out of the houseyet, but it could be kind of
nice. Kaylee

keeps on saying she's done with freshman
year. Now. I have three yearsleft there. That's all she
thinks. It's a joke, and it'sbasically crushing every time
she says it. So wait till it'slike two months from her movie.
Yeah. No. Stop talking. Tom. Howdare you talk like that? So this
has been your TNC podcast. Welove you. We got some great
things coming up. We got newmember class in the first
baptisms on the eighth. Thingsare exciting here at the

(47:11):
neighborhood church and and allthat's people said. Amen.

All Episodes

"Sacred Sunday" - Rediscovering Traditional Worship in a Modern Church

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

24/7 News: The Latest

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}"Sacred Sunday" - Rediscovering Traditional Worship in a Modern Church