Scriptural vs. Unscriptural

A comment ~I will caution you again agaist confusing worship styles with doctrine. I still fail to see how our practice and methods are becoming unscriptural.

You have pointed to some sermons which may have been out of focus, but that is individual preachers who need to be refocussed (sic) and does not represent unscriptural practice nor methods in synod as a whole. Please give examples of what methods are unscriptural.

Ok…here is where you confuse me. You start out with saying that our practice and methods aren’t becoming unscriptural. Next you say, oh sure, some individual preachers need to be refocused in their preaching.

Here is my take. If the preaching is focused on Christ crucified the practice won’t be unscriptural. The Apostle Paul instructs Timothy “to devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching…Keep a close watch on yourself and the teaching.” Later he tells Timothy to preach according to sound doctrine. So I believe that the individual preacher losing focus is the BIG unscriptural problem. I have traveled a bit and visited WELS churches across the country (MN, WI, TX, CA). The problem is that it is not just a stray pastor here or there.

I was at one “contemporary” service sitting near a WELS theologian/professor. After the service? he leaned over and said “if they would have served communion I wouldn’t have taken it. This was not a Lutheran service.” If you need to know the name and location of the place, just let me know. I will say the preacher is an oft contributor to FIC. I would say that smells of unscriptural.

So then you keep coming back and saying you want examples of methods that are unscriptural. I will first start with a Bible study practice. A WELS pastor was holding a Bible study out reach at an independent, senior living apartment complex which is good and noble. As time went on the pastor became too busy to teach the class so he sent his “staff” minister. The staff minister became too busy so the pastor sent a lay woman to teach the Bible study. Now please note that this Bible study was attended by both men and women, and both members and non-members. I did approach the pastor and he stated that she is doing it under his authority. So here is an example…Now you tell me if this is unscriptural or not??? If you follow this line of thinking where does it take us???

No one has yet told me if a young teenage girl giving a children’s message during the divine service is unscriptural

Now concerning “style.”. Paul said to preach and teach. Solid Lutheran Hymns and the “historical” liturgy do teach sound doctrine. Sugar coated lite pop songs in the sanctuary don’t. Yes, WELS churches are using these “pop” songs. Now maybe I don’t attend the churches where “Salvation Unto us Has come” is set to the electric guitar. If the pastor is to preach Christ crucified shouldn’t our music also teach sound doctrine? So putting the Lutheran hymns up against the “pop” songs, I would say the Lutheran hymns are Scriptural. I think that our pastors are trained to put together the divine service. But now we have “worship” lay teams that are making the decisions. Most often the pastor is not involved.

Some have asked about the “goofy” poll I put up. I am no techie and I found the button to set-up a poll and I thought I’d put it up for fun. It was suggested that I should include the issues in the WELS group instead of LPS. But in honor of the original poster of this blog I put up LPS why not. Or should I change it to MLS? :)

Again this is just my view from the pew. So help me out.