Rite, Ritual, Ceremony, Symbolism, Performance, and Entertainment in the LCMS

Is the form and function of the Divine Service really a matter of personal preference, cultural context, and staying hip?

You don’t need an M.Div to notice that the Old Testament is chock-a-block with God’s establishment and expectation for highly ritualized worship. His commands and decrees for the Israelites might be summed up as “reverent order,” accomplished through dozens of layers of active and passive teaching. There are ordained priests, anointed prophets, stipulated structures, commanded vessels, fixed seasons and festivals, orders of service, special garments, deliberate decoration, sacred spaces, and so on. Nothing is incidental, formless, or superfluous. It is strikingly supernatural, and these ritual mysteries extend to us now when we go forward to receive God’s gifts in the Divine Service.

Consequently, it is puzzling to observe churches that profess orthodoxy abandon or deform orthopraxy in the name of evangelistic necessity. After all, even pagans invest in and maintain elaborate rituals to ensure the transmission of their dogma.

Have you noticed how lavish and over-the-top many secular weddings are now? The Instagram filters, 360° drone shots, and “exotic destination experiences” flow from more than a FOMO zeitgeist. The couple is instinctually aware that something is lacking, and they desperately attempt to inject meaning, tangibility, significance, and even immortality based on the simulacrum of a holy Christian wedding. It would be tragic if it weren’t so often blasphemous.

Likewise, suppose you have any experience living with or near tribal cultures. Then, you will also know how intensely ritualistic the people are, particularly in their worship and war preparations, dominated by percussive music and bewitching repetitive chanting (the pagan services are universally the means to commune with demons). The tribal priests (witch doctors) are notably uncompromising about their ceremonies being diluted or defiled.

Faithful to Jesus, Immersed in Ritual

Rev. Dr. John Kleinig¹ is the foremost Lutheran expert on matters of God’s ritual gifts to the Church. This mighty teacher of the church has reminded us repeatedly of the profound mystery and Godly fruits of rightly ordered worship. Gottesdienst is the most influential and lay-accessible publication that continues to plead, cajole, and encourage the LCMS to be unified in doctrine and practice. Yet even these efforts have failed to pierce the ritual-shedding veil draped across a portion of the Synod.

…we Christians cannot do without ritual if we are to be faithful to our Lord. By His incarnation He has chosen to engage us physically with natural things, such as water, bread and wine, as well as human words and acts. Through these He creates and sustains our faith. Through these He establishes the church as a heavenly community on earth and empowers us to lead heavenly lives on earth. These holy things make and keep us holy. Ritual is therefore just as important as right doctrine, for apart from it we have no access to the Living God.
Rev. Dr. John Kleinig

Although the LCMS is benefiting from an insurgency of pastors who use the Synod’s hymnal and preside over a dignified liturgy, the reality is that we are a house divided. A meaningful percentage of the Synod (especially when measured by aggregate revenue) has discarded what Pr. Kleinig and others teach as indivisible from pure doctrine.

The table below (there are five pages; use the > at the top right to click through to all pages) shows the results of an informal survey of the ten largest congregations in the LCMS (by 2023 baptized membership).² The survey was prompted by a “trust-but-verify” response to claims by contemporary church leaders that they are just a different flavor of liturgy, but liturgy nonetheless.

We will not editorialize the survey findings more than to say that, as converts from Christian Fundamentalism, we identify Reformed practices with soft allusions to the Real Presence of Christ Jesus in the sacraments. These are obscured by performance and entertainment rituals that mirror secular rock concert culture rather than a purposeful connection to God’s requirement for reverent order in worship. Indeed, the disorderly irreverence for the Lord’s Supper in many contemporary services is extremely disturbing.

Below the table is a worthwhile video by the inestimable Rev. Dr. Burnell Eckardt addressing “Endemic Clerical & Liturgical Problems in the Missouri Synod.”

☩TW☩

1. A student of Pr. Kleinig’s is a nearby friend of Ad Crucem. Rev. Dr. Robert Macina pastors Christ Lutheran Church in Arvada, CO, and authored The LORD’s Service: A Ritual Analysis of the Order, Function, and Purpose of the Daily Divine Service in the Pentateuch.

2. A note on methodology: To avoid accusations of cherry-picking, the ten largest churches were identified, and the information was gathered from LCMS church profiles, church websites, and recorded service streams from January 5, 2025. If only one service was streamed on that day, it was used. If more than one service was streamed, the contemporary service was surveyed. In two instances where blended and contemporary services were recorded, one blended service and one contemporary service were surveyed. If we could not confirm the data without a doubt, then the church’s entry was left blank. Consequently, not all categories will score out of 10. Some videos may have been edited to remove the invocation and other items, but it is not made clear if/when this happens. The survey contains many data points, so errors are inevitable but will not be decisive in overturning the aggregate observations.