An Explanation of the Common Service

Note: Thank you very much to Rev. Mike Grieve of Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Golden, IL for this excellent review of a true classic. Anyone wanting to know more about our worship service in the Lutheran Church truly ought to pick this book up. It can be purchased from Emmanuel Press. It was originally compiled and published by the General Council to teach people about the beauty and truth of the Common Service. What a blessing that it is still in print!

“An Explanation of the Common Service”:  Fifth Edition Revised and Enlarged; United Lutheran Publication House, Philadelphia, 1908; Reprinted in 2006 by Emmanuel Press, 1916 Ridgewood Ave., SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49506

            The answer, “that’s the way we’ve always done it,” to the question of, “why do we do what we do in worship?” is not only unhelpful, but it’s also false. We do know “why we do what we do in worship.”  Sometimes we just don’t know where to find the answer to the question.  An Explanation of the Common Service helps give concrete answers to questions that would otherwise be left in abstract thought and speculation.  What would seem to be a daunting number of questions and answers (250) is eased by the reality that the book is just 120 pages in length, which includes a history of Christian hymnody; liturgical colors and their significance; and index and glossary.

American Lutheranism Volume II: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General Council, United Synod in the South) by Friedrich Bente

(Note: Find the post on the first volume here.)

Bente hits the ground running in the second volume of American Lutheranism with a gripping and incisive evaluation of the 1917 merger of the General Synod, General Council, and the United Synod South to form the United Lutheran Church. With the merger as the setting and fate, he gives the history of each of these three predecessor synods.

How to Teach in Sunday School by Theodore E. Schmauk

 

The more books I read from the early 1900's about and for the teaching of children, the more I am in awe of how dreadfully seriously our forefathers took pedagogy. The task of compiling Bible Histories, teacher training materials, etc. was entrusted to the leading men, if not the leading theologian, of the particular synod. While this is still true to a greater extent in the LCMS than most other Lutheran bodies, it is only a shadow of what was.

Kretzmann, Stellhorn, Koehler, Rupprecht, etc. were all top theologians that were heavily involved in and directed the educational direction of the Missouri Synod. If one surveys the Concordia Teachers' Training Series booklets from the first half of the 20th century, they were in large part written by seminary professors or well-respected parish pastors. J. M. Reu, the greatest theologian of the Iowa Synod, personally compiled their Bible History and many of their catechetical and educational resources. This same pattern can be seen again and again among the German, Scandinavian, and other Lutheran groups.


Turning to the General Council, and East Coast Lutheranism in general, Theodore Emmanuel Schmauk was the leading theologian among these Lutherans in the generation after Krauth. He was the President of the General Council, editor of the Lutheran Church Review, and served as a professor and in other important positions at the Lutheran seminary in Philadelphia. His most famous work is The Confessional Principle and the Confessions of the Lutheran Church (1911).