# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1857_S175
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

How Are Truly Lutheran Congregations Founded and Raised? 175

...manifest, of which mention has already been made above, namely that some smaller part of the congregation would become fanaticized over it, another and usually larger part would form a decided aversion to it and would either attend worship ever more seldom or, if attending, greatly stint its own enjoyment of the blessing thereof, and a third part, finally, would behave toward it in a dull and indifferent manner — so that, weighed and judged by the scale of the sanctuary, according to God's Word, no part stands rightly related to it, neither in understanding nor in practice; on the other hand it is just as certain that through such a ritual, driven through and imposed from above, contrary to faith and love, the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace is hindered and held back, while the seeds of earlier or later discord and division among the parties already present are abundantly sown.

Here too a faithful and wise servant of the Lord and minister of His Church should let this be his motto: "in all patience and doctrine"; that is, it will fall to him first of all — given the above suppositions, that he has either a mixed congregation, put together out of various Lutheran territorial churches of Germany, or an older congregation here that has been neglected through ignorant hirelings and men of business — to give the necessary instruction concerning the nature and composition of an evangelical, that is, Lutheran, worship service, and also duly to bring out the distinction that exists, on the one hand, between such a service and the ceremonial of the Roman Church — in part false and contrary to Scripture (as, for instance, in the sacrifice of the Mass), in part Judaizing — in which the priest acts as a kind of unevangelical mediator between Christ and the congregation; and, on the other hand, the distinction that likewise exists between the Lutheran and the Reformed ritual, in which latter the minister of the Church is the spiritualistic sole performer of the entire public congregational worship, and the congregation does not itself actively cooperate in it, but only remains in a receiving posture.

But it is proper to the nature of evangelical, that is, Lutheran, worship that a living, self-active participation of the congregation, that is, of the hearers, take place in such a way that they — as in the singing of spiritual hymns of faith, so also in the Amen and other responses to the liturgical acts of the minister of the Church — present themselves, as an orthodox, confessing congregation, in living fashion, to the glory of God the Lord, for their own edification, and for the discipline and formation of their young.

The pastor, however, is in this to be, on the one hand, the mouth and hand of God toward the congregation, in that he publicly proclaims the Word of God and in particular lets the glorious Gospel of Christ resound, and administers the holy Sacraments; and, on the other hand, the mouth of the congregation toward God, in that, out of his own faith and that of the congregation, and in accordance with the confession of both, he offers to the Lord, as a spiritual sacrifice, the fruit of lips that confess His name — in praise and thanksgiving, confession of sin and prayer for forgiveness, in prayer and intercession.