Our Lutheran Worship

Order of the Lutheran Liturgy from The Lutheran Book of Worship

• Corporate Confession and Forgiveness

• Entrance Hymn or Introit (or both)

• Apostolic Greeting

• Kyrie

• Gloria in Excelsis (or other Hymn of Praise)

• Salutation ("The Lord be with you.")

• Collect (Prayer of the Day)

• Old Testament Lesson

• Psalm (sung responsively)

• New Testament Epistle (or reading from Acts or the Book of Revelation)

• Alleluia (or Lenten Verse)

• Holy Gospel (with sung responses)

• Sermon

• Hymn of the Day

• Nicene Creed (or Apostles' Creed)

• Prayers of the Faithful

• Peace

• Offering with Musical Anthem

• Offertory Hymn or Verse followed by a brief prayer

• Sursum Corda

• Proper Preface

• Sanctus

• Eucharistic Prayer (or Words of Institution alone)

• The Lord's Prayer

• Agnus Dei

• Distribution of Holy Communion (during which hymns are sung)

• Nunc Dimittis or another post-communion canticle or hymn of thanksgiving

• Post-Communion Prayer

• Benediction

• Closing Hymn

• Dismissal

A Brief History on the Lutheran Mass and Liturgy

See our YouTube channel for a video documentary and movie about Martin Luther and Lutheranism.

"We do not abolish the Mass but religiously retain and defend it. Among us the Mass is celebrated every Lord's Day and on other festivals, when the Sacrament is made available to those who wish to partake of it, after they have been examined and absolved. We also keep traditional liturgical forms, such as the order of readings, prayers, vestments, and other similar things." (From the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Art. XXIV. 1)

This statement from the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the second of the confessional documents of the Lutheran Church contained in the Book of Concord clearly shows that it was never the intention of Luther and his followers to break with the Catholic Church in the West but to reform it in order that it might proclaim with greater clarity the Biblical doctrine of justification by grace through faith.

Of all the 16th Century reformers, Martin Luther is by far the most conservative. Unlike Ulrich Zwingli of Zurich and John Calvin of Geneva, Luther was not an iconoclast. He retained practically all of the ceremonial of the Church of his day, removing only those practices which were at odds with the Gospel.

At first, Luther was reluctant to make any changes to the Church's liturgical celebrations despite many requests for an evangelical Mass made by his supporters. In 1523, Luther produced the Formula Missae. This is a very conservative revision of the Latin Mass; even the Latin language was retained. Most notable was the removal of the so called "Canon of the Mass" or consecration prayer which Luther was compelled to remove because of its emphasis on sacrifice. It was a widely held belief in the Church of the late Middle Ages that Christ's death on the cross atoned for original sin only, and that the offering of the Mass atoned for all others sins. The sacrifice of the Mass was believed to be the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary “re-enacted,” as it were, over and over again. The late Medieval Church was very much attached to the notion that in the Mass the priest 'offers' Christ to God the Father, and in return the Father offers his grace to the priest, and through the priest to the faithful. The Mass degenerated into a meritorious good work which could be offered for certain intentions and could even be offered for souls in Purgatory. Few Medieval Christians communed frequently; many received the Sacrament but once a year at Easter time. The important thing was that the Mass be "offered" by the priest. The average Christian felt so unworthy of reception he refrained from communing with any regularity. He was more concerned with seeing the consecrated host and chalice at the elevations (the lifting up of host and chalice after the Words of Institution accompanied by the ringing of a bell). To witness this was believed to be a good work that could merit special favor from God. However, it was completely unnecessary for anyone but the priest who was offering the Mass to be present at Mass. The Middle Ages saw the development of the phenomenon of the "private Mass," a Mass which was recited by the priest alone (perhaps an acolyte might be present), and only the priest received Communion. It didn't matter that there were no other communicants; as long as the sacrifice of the Mass was offered to God the priest obtained grace for himself and the people.

At the heart of Luther's theology is the good news that humans don't merit anything from God by their works no matter how good. Salvation is a free gift from God which comes through faith in Jesus Christ alone. And it is God the Holy Spirit who gives us this faith through baptism, through the reading and preaching of the Word of God, through confession and forgiveness, and through the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

Thus Luther came to reject the Medieval understanding of the Mass as a sacrifice which must be offered to God. For Luther the Mass is something that God offers to us. God comes to us in Word and Sacrament forgiving our sins and offering us the gift of new and everlasting life in Christ Jesus our Savior. Luther didn't reject the idea that in response to God's gifts of forgiveness and salvation we offer a Eucharistic sacrifice, that is, a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving for what God has done for us in Christ. However, it is not the priest alone who offers this sacrifice of thanksgiving, but the whole people of God in Christ Jesus. The priest's job is to proclaim God's Word, administer the Sacraments, and lead the people in their offering of praise and thanks to God. This was his justification for removing the Canon of the Mass with all its sacrificial language. He also called for the abolition of the practice of the private Mass without communicants, as this is unbiblical and contrary to Christ's intention for the Mass as a gift to his people. Luther stripped off the offertory prayers and the Canon leaving only the Words of Institution which he believed should be chanted audibly so that the people could hear them. To all appearances, however the Mass remained unchanged, since the offertory prayers and the Canon were not recited aloud anyway in the old Roman Mass. Luther retained all the other parts of the Mass and most of the ceremonial including vestments, incense, processions, the elevation of host and chalice, and even the ringing of the bell. Also retained were the historic liturgical calendar (the Church Year) and the lectionary.

In 1526, Luther introduced a more innovative form of Mass intended for use in the rural parishes where the traditional Latin would not be understood by most of those in attendance. This Deutsche Messe (German Mass) was in the language of the people. Luther wanted to see the full and active participation of all the faithful at Mass (an ideal expressed 438 years later by the pope and bishops at the Second Vatican Council!), and so he allowed for the use of the vernacular. He was also a strong advocate of hymn singing as a way of encouraging participation in worship. Luther was a gifted musician and hymn writer (he sang well and was very accomplished on the lute), and he composed many excellent hymns himself. The most famous is "A Mighty Fortress is Our God." These hymns are very dear to Lutherans, but they have also become part of the sacred musical repertoire of many Christian church bodies, including the Roman Catholic Church.

Both the Formula Missae and the Deutsche Messe served as models for liturgical reform in all the territories where the Lutheran reformation was embraced. Luther's liturgies are the basis for all the services used in German states where the ruling princes were Lutheran, as well as in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland. In these countries, the Lutheran Church became the established Church of the realm. In England, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VIII and Edward VI, relied heavily on Luther's liturgies for his edition of the first Book of Common Prayer.

Unlike Zwingli and Calvin (the founders of the Reformed churches), Luther insisted that the Lord's Supper is not merely a memorial of Christ, or that Christ is somehow 'spiritually' received with elements of the bread and wine of Communion, but that his true body and blood are present in the Holy Supper. Though he rejected"transubstantiation" as an unnecessary intrusion of philosophy on the Church's theology, he nevertheless insisted that Christ is "in, with, and under, the bread, and wine." This is the teaching of the Augsburg Confession (Article X). Lutherans not only believe that Christ's true body and blood are present, but we believe that his presence is objective. That means that he is not present on account of the faith of the recipient. He is present whether an unbeliever or a believer receives the Sacrament—the believer to his salvation and the unbeliever to his damnation.

Luther also insisted that private confession be retained. He taught that it shouldn't be compulsory, but should be available to those who are burdened by their sins and need the comfort of the certainty of forgiveness in Christ which comes through absolution. Though Luther retained private confession, he was not opposed to the introduction of a form of general confession and absolution, provided that it did not take the place of private confession.

After Luther's death and well into the 18th Century, the Lutheran liturgy was celebrated with beauty and splendor inspiring many artists and musicians, the most prominent among them is J.S. Bach (1685-1750) who adorned the Lutheran liturgy with some of the greatest musical compositions in human history. In the 18th Century, the Latin Formula Missae and the vernacular Deutsche Messe existed happily alongside one another; the former being used in court chapels, university churches, and prominent city churches. The Liturgy during the period known as the Age of Lutheran Orthodoxy was defended and celebrated with great dignity and solemnity. Any Roman Catholic at the time would have recognized the liturgy of the Lutheran Church as very close to his own. Reformed (Calvinist) Christians found Lutheran worship to be scandalous and “papistical.” Lutherans, for their part, wanted nothing to do with Calvinist worship which was plain, austere, and iconoclastic by comparison. However, two movements would eventually work to erode Lutheran liturgical practices by the middle of the 1700's: Pietism and Rationalism.

Pietists believed that the Lutheran Church had become too intellectual and had neglected “holy living” in favor of theological correctness. They insisted that true Christians had to be converted by the Holy Spirit, and had to show signs of this conversion experience through a changed life. They gathered frequently for Bible study in small groups (or conventicles) which became the focus of their Christian experience. They cared little for, and were often hostile to, the historic liturgy and elaborate church music and art. They did find hymn singing useful, however, and many of their hymns are near and dear to Lutherans and other Christians. But their hymns are more sentimental and individualistic than the hymns of Luther and other orthodox Lutheran hymn writers which are more corporate, doctrinal, and instructional. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, the Lutheran pastor who came to America in the 1740's, though not strictly speaking a Pietist, was greatly influenced by Pietism. Muhlenberg came to America at the request of the Halle Mission Society (a Pietist institution) to organize the fledgling Lutheran Church in the Thirteen Colonies. He mainly employed the worship services that were in use in his native Germany, though he did experiment with a Lutheran liturgy in the English language which relied heavily on the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

Rationalism was an intellectual movement associated with the Age of Enlightenment. Rationalists believed that God created the universe according to the laws of science. They rejected anything supernatural or miraculous. They believed the value of any religion, including Christianity, was to make good citizens out of people. They rejected the traditional liturgy as superstitious, and viewed the Lutheran ceremonial as a leftover from a less enlightened more superstitious age. They were also disinterested in Sacraments as these too, they believed, were vestiges of an unenlightened time. Rationalist worship services were highly moralistic, focusing on the need for Christians to be good people. Little emphasis was placed on the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of sin. Private confession virtually disappeared around this time.

Both of these movements have had a negative impact on Lutheran liturgy. Also, the effects of Protestantism have also had an erosive effect. In Germany, the Lutheran and Reformed (Calvinist) churches were forced into a union for the sake of political expediency. Lutherans were required to give up much liturgical ceremonial which was rejected by the Reformed. Reformed worship has historically been much more stark and austere than Lutheran worship with art and music restricted to a minimum. In the United States (where anti-Catholicism was rampant in the 18th and 19th Centuries, and lasted even into the 20th Century) Lutherans have been greatly influenced by their Protestant neighbors (most of them in the Reformed camp). Not wanting to appear “too Catholic,” they abandoned much of their great heritage. In colonial times, Lutheran pastors often rode on horseback between several congregations, and so the frequent celebration of the Lord's Supper envisioned by Luther and taught in the Augsburg Confession gave way to infrequent celebrations (as little as four times a year in some places). Infrequent communion was also the practice of the Reformed. All this led to the impoverishment of Lutheran worship. In time, Lutherans lost touch with their heritage and settled for impoverished worship simply as "the way we do things." The word Mass, though used by Luther and the Confessions of our church, had become almost taboo (and sadly remains so among most Lutherans).

In the 20th Century, Lutheran liturgical scholars began to look back to the rich liturgical life of the first three centuries of Lutheranism. Through the work of such great liturgists as Paul Strodach, Luther D. Reed, Arthur Carl Piepkorn, Philip Pfatteicher, Frank Senn, Gordon Lathrop, and many others, the Lutheran Church has rediscovered its heritage and much that was lost to Lutheran worship has been recovered. Also, Lutheran worship has been greatly enriched by the ecumenical movement; we have learned much from our Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters. Great strides have been made in our relationship with the Church of Rome, and we have benefited from one another's liturgical scholarship.

The Lutheran Book of Worship, (1979) is a remarkable achievement of liturgical scholarship, theological fidelity, and musical excellence. Once again the Mass (Lord's Supper, Holy Communion, Eucharist) has been restored as the principle Christian liturgical celebration, ideally celebrated every Lord's Day and on other Feast Days of the Church. Full Eucharistic vestments are not uncommon, and much ceremonial has been recovered. Most remarkably, the Eucharistic Prayer has been reintroduced in forms that are truly evangelical—unlike the old Roman Canon with its emphasis on propitiatory sacrifice and meritorious works. Liturgical recovery among Lutherans, however, has been a slow and painstaking process, and one can still find many congregations which cling to the notion that weekly Communion is

something that only Roman Catholics do. There is still a good deal of liturgical impoverishment among Lutherans, but happily there are many signs of healthy change and a return to a richer, splendid, more participatory worship envisioned by Martin Luther and expressed in the Lutheran Confessions. At its best, Lutheran worship is truly “catholic,” laying claim to all the historic liturgical practices that are evangelical and good. Lutherans are heir to the great catholic tradition, and our liturgy is a gift that has been handed down to us from Apostolic times and enriched by contributions from Christians of every generation. Undoubtedly, we will make our own contributions, while remaining faithful to Apostolic usage and our catholic and confessional heritage. Ideally, a Christian from the 2nd Century (or 9th Century or the 16th Century) should be able to attend our worship service and recognize it as a Christian Eucharist. For even though every generation has made its contributions (and sometimes accretions have been added which must be removed, as was the case in the 16th Century), the basic shape of the Rite remains unchanged since Apostolic times. The Christian people have always gathered to hear God's Word read and proclaimed in preaching, have prayed for the Church and the world, have offered their gifts for the poor and the work of the Church, have given thanks for God's gifts (most especially the gift of His Son), have received Jesus’ body and blood in the Holy Supper, and have been sent out into the world to share God's love in anticipation of his coming Kingdom.