Worship

The Sunday Divine Service is at 10:45 am.

  • In July and August we meet in our air-conditioned basement, which you can access through door 2 or door 3. During the other ten months, use door 1.
  • Special midweek services are held on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. during the first three weeks of Advent and on Ash Wednesdays and the following five Wednesdays in Lent. Also, during Holy Week (the week before Easter) there are services at 7 pm for Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil (on Saturday).
  • Ascension Day services and Thanksgiving Eve and Thanksgiving Day services are held in conjunction with a sister church in the suburbs. Consult the church calendar for details.
  • A service of Lessons and Carols is held on Christmas Eve, December 24, at 7 pm. The Christmas Day Divine Service is at 10:45 am on December 25.

Lutheran worship is about receiving the gifts of God, His Word and sacraments. We respond in faith, prayer, and song.

Lutherans prefer to call the worship service “the Divine Service.” As the name implies, we view the Divine Service primarily as God’s service to us rather than the other way around. To be sure, we praise him and bring our petitions before him, but the most important fact is that God gives us two great gifts: his Word and his Supper. Our Divine Service is divided into two parts. In the first part, we hear his Word. Selections are read from the Old Testament, an Epistle (letter) in the New Testament, and a Gospel (one of the four accounts of the life of Jesus). A sermon comments on one or more of the Scripture readings. Then, in the second part of the Divine Service, we partake of the Lord’s Supper. Having been instructed in the words of Christ, we receive his body and blood, which forgives our sins and unites us more closely with our Lord.

Because the Lord’s Supper is built upon our Lord’s teachings, those who commune must first be thoroughly instructed in our Lord’s teachings and confess their agreement with them. Thus, we do not commune all Christians, since many churches (sad to say!) do not teach God’s Word faithfully. Instead, we ask that all who commune first undergo a course of instruction at our church or at one of our sister congregations in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. In the meantime, we encourage visitors from other churches to be fed by the preaching of God’s Word.

Some visitors to the Lutheran Church wonder why we follow the order of service that we do. If you have been to a Roman Catholic mass, you will recognize that the structure of the liturgy is very similar to the Lutheran Divine Service. This is not accidental. Martin Luther and his followers did not seek to establish a new church, but to call the Church of Rome back to preaching the gospel faithfully. It has never quarreled with good, pious, historic customs, but has removed only those practices that it finds contrary to the Scriptures. It retains whatever has been useful. Our Divine Service may be somewhat “formal,” when compared to other Protestant worship services, but that is because we realize that a formal structure best fosters learning, also in spiritual matters. We reject, however, the notion of “ritualism,” the belief that God is pleased when we merely go through the motions of worship without faith or reverence toward him. We note that ritualism can occur not only in churches with a “formal” liturgy, but also those with a very “informal” one.

  • We have been recording our services since March 2020. To access a recent recording, click here.
  • We get some inquiries about weddings. This explains how the weddings we solemnize are part of a process of lifelong discipleship rather than a casual event in a beautiful building.