Grace Notes 2025-05-14

This may sound strange to you, but it is worth considering. Worship is not a means to an end, but the end or goal to which the Creator intended for our lives. Now it is helpful to have a more expansive view of worship here to appreciate what has just been said. Worship certainly involves prayer, praise, and thanksgiving to God. But it is prayer, praise, and thanksgiving not only formally, as when we gather at a worship service, but it is also in how we live our lives.

Consider this urging from the Apostle Paul in Romans 12. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (12:1-2). This encouragement witnesses to the more expansive understanding of worship.

Evangelism, which is an irreducible part of the Church’s DNA, is an ongoing work to draw people to saving faith in Christ. And yet, despite the attempt of many contemporaries, the Christian Worship Service is not intended primarily as a tool for evangelism! We evangelize in order that people might become worshippers, where their lives bring glory to our Father in heaven. The worship service is first and foremost for believers. For sure, believers receiving the gifts of God and responding with thanksgiving and thereby bringing glory to God, constitute a helpful witness to the uninitiated. But an unbeliever does not want to worship.

We call it the Divine Service in the Missouri Synod. This rightly emphasizes God’s initiative in serving us, especially with forgiveness through His Word. It is in so being served that we respond utilizing His Word with prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. This response continues into our vocations by the way we live and give witness to Christ.

Since You Asked

What is the purpose of the “Silence for reflection and self-examination” in the Brief Order For Confession and Forgiveness?

“The silence for self-examination and reflection should be an extended silence to enable personal application of the general phrases of the prayer that follows. Silence of one or two minutes is not too long” (Manual on the Liturgy – LBW).

This is a helpful time to reflect back on our lives over the past week and ask ourselves whether we have been disobedient or unfaithful, bad-tempered or dishonest, or whether we have hurt anyone by word or deed. By allowing for this period of reflection we are able to personalize what would otherwise remain quite general.