Lutheran Essentials meets in the undercroft of the church on Wednesday evenings at 7pm. You can reach the undercroft by going around to the back parking lot of the church and descending the staircase to the kitchen. Knock on the door if it is closed and some one will let you in. Our current study is on “The Fire and the Staff” by Klemet Preus and the Historic Liturgy. If you do not have a copy of the “The Fire and the Staff” or the Book of Concord we are providing them for free.
The Psalm for this week is Psalm 46. The Small Catechism lesson is the Third Petition of the Lord’s Prayer.
The first half of the class we will be reading through “The Fire and the Staff”. We will continue reading Chapter 4: The Fire and the Staff (pg. 107-135). We will pick up with a discussion of Practices that Communicate within a Context (pg. 114), talking about how the Prussian Union forced the Lutherans in Germany to reject certain practices and even establish the LC-MS in the US. We will also discuss adiaphora in preview of our future Formula of Concord study.
For the second half of the class we will continue our study of the Divine Service Setting III in Lutheran Service Book with a discussion about the Salutation (LSB 189). We will discuss why the proper response should be “And with thy spirit.” as well as why this Salutation is not a “holy howdy”. We will close this section by singing the hymn “O Little Flock, Fear Not the Foe” (LSB 666).
We will also discuss the Collect (pg. 189). We will talk about the form of the Collect as well as what the very important word said at the end of the Collect and all Christian prayers means. We will close our discussion with the hymn “Come, Holy Ghost, Creator Blest” (LSB 498).
As always new people are always welcome to this study at any point during the class. Please talk to the Pastor, Elders or Paul Edmon if you have any questions.
