ROUGHLY EDITED COPY LUTHERAN WORSHIP 2 70.LW2 Captioning provided By: Caption First, Inc. P.O. Box 1924 Lombard, IL 60148 ******** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ******** >> DAVID: Since today's congregations, including my own, often use hymns from sources outside the official hymnals, which hymns are the most useful to Lutherans and which are least useful? >> DR. JAMES BRAUER: That's a good question going into the twenty-first century because we're going to be oversupplied with options. And people kind of demand this so a pastor has to have a strategy. I think our principles will help us there starting with the summary. Again, whatever we sing in the service, you know, the song is useful if it's repeating and teaching people into the ways of God that are aligned with and present the very word of God, what he revealed. When it steps outside of that and teaches false doctrine, then it has no place. Sometimes the problem is the text will be fuzzy, not so clear, or they ask people to actually bring a whole bunch of meanings to it in order to give it a proper interpretation. That's where the pastoral judgment often comes. Will the people use this incorrectly? So you could have one congregation that could sing that fuzzy text and use it properly because they�re catechized to use it correctly. You could also have another congregation that�s poorly catechized, and they can sing that text and still imagine that it fits with false doctrine in which case it supports that, and the *Lex orandi lex credendi principal then falls by the wayside. But mainly, coming back to this image again, we're going to focus on those materials that lift up Jesus Christ. And that is built in to the principles, the eight that I showed you earlier. Justification by grace through faith is the central element of our worship for this is what Christ is about. It solves our central problem of sin and peace with God. It brings us life and salvation to trust what he has in Jesus. We go there again and again as the topic of our song for it fits with the means of grace. It fits with the idea that worship is faith which receives this imputed righteousness from God and gives thanks for it and mentions what it's about and how beneficial it is. That then take seriously the promise of God given in the word and the institution of the sacraments that this actually transforms us. It is the Holy Spirit�s tool among us. And it then becomes when those materials are used like that, this is where people can find this in society where the church is doing this. And it teaches them what to know about Christ and the materials and it gives you good order because you take turns and it's all healthy. And it gives a reverence for what God really considers important. Now some of the materials and the language will change over time, but the main notion is the principles guide us to make healthy choices in the way, say, of nutrition or good lifestyle.