Our hymnal, Lutheran Service Book, offers five different “settings” for communion services. Shepherd of the Hills currently uses Settings I and IV. Setting I includes This Is the Feast, a good deal of chanting, and modern English. Setting IV, with its rhyme, contemporary language, and no chanting, has the more “modern” feel of the five. On the other end of the spectrum we find Divine Service Setting III. I would like to introduce Setting III into our rotation sometime in the near future.
Setting III has a noble history in American Lutheranism. As early as the 1600s, Lutherans from all over Europe began to settle in various parts of America. Swedes, Germans, Norwegians, Finns, more Germans, and even more Germans worshipped in their own languages, with their own hymnals and orders of worship. In the 1800s and 1900s, many of these local Lutheran pockets began to combine into bigger Synods and denominations. This created a need to consolidate hymnals and orders of worship.
In 1888, a committee from several synods set out to create an English order of worship which their various church bodies would share. They combined what they saw as the best elements of then-contemporary orders of worship with those of the Reformation era. They also desired “pure, strong, moving words.”[1] Towards that end, they borrowed English-language elements from the Anglican tradition. This Common Service became the “page 15” communion service in The Lutheran Hymnal (“the Old Red Hymnal” from 1941). It lives on today as Divine Service Setting III in Lutheran Service Book. Divine Service III is well known, well loved, and widely used throughout liturgical Lutheran congregations. No doubt, many old time Lutherans will recognize it as “page 15” from “the Red Hymnal.”
Contrary to its critics, the traditional liturgy offers all manner of variety, nuance, and range of emotion. Some people prefer less chanting and more contemporary language. Divine Service IV meets that need. Others (including, surprisingly, significant segments of Generation Z and the Millennials) appreciate chanting, ritual, and a general sense of tradition and transcendence. Divine Service III speaks to those sensibilities.
Another benefit to Setting III is the need for us to be familiar with the older English style. If Christians lose familiarity with the “thees and thous” of King James English, we will lose our connection to a rich tradition of hymns and prayers passed down from our ancestors in the faith. Imagine never singing “How Great Thou Art” or “…let me hide myself in Thee.”
Divine Service Setting III is a well-worn path for many of us, as it was for our forefathers in the Lutheran faith. By utilizing it, we tap into tradition, variety, reverence, and the best kind of ecumenism. Adding an extra service with its own unique language, music, and flow can grab our attention and help us reflect on the words we say and sing when we pray.
[1] The history and quotation in this article come from Lutheran Worship : History and Practice, James Leonard Brauer, et al. Concordia, 1993. Pages 100-104.