Welcome to our page dedicated to "The Gift" Worship Service, which features classical liturgical hymns and many classical liturgical hymns set to modern instruments.
Why do we call our service "The Gift"? Because while our sins have earned us the wage of death, God has decided to offer us something else. The Gift of God is to not give us what we deserve, but to, free of charge, impute (or credit) the righteousness of Jesus to us. By doing so, he declares us to be justified and righteous. That's the pure gift given from the nail pierced hands of a freely giving God and it makes us pure receivers of the gifts God has to give. In this service, as it should be in every Christian service, we receive these gifts freely.
We have moved this Service to Sunday morning at 11:45 am. (Unfortunately, there's no good Bible passage that links with 11:45.) The message is just the same, however: Christ's death for your sins. We don't tailor the message for the crowd. God's Word, His Law and His Gospel is already tailored for the crowd that is all of us ... a crowd of sinners. The sermon is the same as the earlier services ... the lectionary is the same, the prayers, the vestments ... you get the idea.
Seriously, though, just because we have guitars and drums, djembes and synthesizers, power amps and microphones doesn't mean you can call this service a "praise service" in the normal sense (although we do, indeed, praise God.) Pastor likes to quip, "If the electricity goes out, our morning services (played on an organ) and our evening service (usually accompanied by as many as 7 or 8 instruments) will be speaking the same words." We don't tinker with the Lutheran liturgy in either our morning or our evening services. It's pretty hard to improve on the words (seeing that they're mostly Bible passages put to song anyway.) In the evening, we just play the liturgy on popular instruments to new tunes. The musicians are in the back of the sanctuary, morning and evening, so that our focus is on God and what he's done rather than on the beads of sweat running down the forehead of the hard-working drummer. The lights are dimmed and many candles burn to remind us that Jesus Christ is the light of the world and that in him there is no darkness at all. The Psalmist wrote, "Let my prayers be set forth before you as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice." The sweet smell of incense rises in the chancel reminding us that our prayers are a sweet smelling offering to God, not because we're such good pray-ers or have done such a good job of cleaning up our lives, but because they are offered to the Father through the one and only Mediator, Jesus Christ.
This worship service has been receiving a lot of positive feedback. We have decided to make some of the music available to those who might not be able to join us or who are curious. Please feel free to listen. You can find the music on the Sermons, Classes and Music button. Take an opportunity to listen to a couple of hymns. "All Glory Be To God Alone" is a hymn Martin Luther wrote. It's Hymn 210 in our hymnal, Lutheran Worship. True, Luther wouldn't recognize the tune but he sure would recognize the words. "Holy, Holy, Holy" is the Sanctus in Lutheran Worship. (Sanctus means "Holy.")
Again, as with our Sermons and Lessons section, all our audio files are in both Real Audio format and downloadable mp3 format. "All Glory Be To God Alone" is a hymn Martin Luther wrote. It's Hymn 210 in our hymnal, Lutheran Worship. True, Luther wouldn't recognize the tune but he sure would recognize the words. "Holy, Holy, Holy" is the Sanctus in Lutheran Worship. (Sanctus means "Holy.")
All Glory Be to God Alone
The Sanctus