The Neighborhood Church, Bentonville, AR

"Sacred Sunday" - Rediscovering Traditional Worship in a Modern Church

• theneighborhood.church • Season 2025 • Episode 21

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This past Sunday was Sacred Sunday, a special service at the Neighborhood Church, a traditional Lutheran liturgical worship. 

In this episode, Pastor Joe Liles, Tom Helmich, Roseann Bowlin, and Tevo Christman - talk through insights into the historical and theological significance of traditional worship practices and how liturgical practices connect congregants to historical Christian traditions.

Bishop Becca's sermon on John 13:31-35 explored themes of discipleship, love, and Christian witness. She found a balance between traditional and contemporary worship styles, discussing how liturgical elements can be meaningful in modern church contexts, while also saying, "How we worship is not important, it is that we worship." Powerful message. 

Key topics include:

  • The challenges of preparing a traditional Lutheran service
  • The role of liturgy in contemporary worship
  • Breakdown of John 13
  • Modern-day perspectives on church traditions

Whether you grew up in a traditional church, are curious about Lutheran worship, or just love hearing authentic church conversations, this episode has something for you. We're sharing personal stories, theological insights, and plenty of church humor.

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Tevo Christmann:

All right, we're recording. We're in.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Welcome to the TNC podcast. This is my podcast voice. If you don't know, um Tom and I were talking earlier. He told me never again to do my traditional worship voice. I don't have it, so I have a podcast voice, and it sounds like this. Welcome to the TNC podcast. Radio announcer. It's a little right now, that way, next

Tevo Christmann:

time I should do that traditional Sunday, a traditional Sunday, traditional

Pastor Joe Liles:

worship. Boy, you know what? Here, I'll give it to you a little bit. I'm gonna start with you for our we had sacred Sunday this last Sunday, a full Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. El W, which is Evangelical Lutheran worship. Hymnal, right setting for service, the full litter, straight through the full liturgy from the cranberry, from the cranberry book, The El, W, so here is so now you get Welcome to the TNC podcast, podcast. Voice, and then you get normal talking Joe. Voice, right here, and this is my leadership. Voice, for a traditional service. Blessed be the Holy Trinity, one God who forgives all our sin, whose mercy endures forever. Amen Almighty God to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen,

Tevo Christmann:

very boring parts. Yeah, that

Pastor Joe Liles:

was very boring parts, um, and so, no, it's the one that's the start confession and forgiveness, right there. Tom, you did not like that voice that

Tom Helmich:

seemed peppier than on the that seemed peppier, yeah. Oh, okay. I think you

Tevo Christmann:

may have done more like, Almighty God, it seemed

Tom Helmich:

a little more like, a little more flat, a little

Pastor Joe Liles:

more flat. I listened to it, okay, on the phone. But I was like, you're listening to on the phone. Tom's

Tevo Christmann:

opinion of a traditional Sunday is that it was a little flat, a little that

Pastor Joe Liles:

was, yeah, it and you didn't like the lights behind on the stage because

Tom Helmich:

it gave some weird shadows and some weird colors. Okay? So, like, the people up here were, like, the stage lighting wasn't, you know, we're not.

Pastor Joe Liles:

So how do you offer a tom? There's a little intro into the message today. So we're going to jump in. As you can see, Tom is back. Tom, you're not here for our traditional son, because where were you in Dubuque, Iowa. Dubuque, Iowa, which is the home of Wartburg theological seminar. How long have you been in seminary and corn? Seven years. Seven years. And what happened this past Sunday, commencement

Tom Helmich:

actually finished. It was finished and graduated

Pastor Joe Liles:

June of 18, and

Tevo Christmann:

Commencement finish of 2025, have been commenced. You have

Pastor Joe Liles:

been commenced. Commenced? Yup, commenced. And we had a congregational meeting on Sunday, yes. So you're now commenced. And called right, called to the neighborhood church, to the pastor of care and education. I was lining

Tom Helmich:

up, and there's no Pastor pockets in the Oh, yeah, actually,

Pastor Joe Liles:

wait Tom, did you say a pastor pocket? What's a pastor? Pocket? Pass through pocket. Pass through pocket. Okay, I've already called that before, but I'm gonna go with it through

Tom Helmich:

the all to get to, like, turn on the mic or get to your phone, correct? Yeah, unzip it and pull around to try to see what the message was. It was the text from the bishop. And when did you receive that? While you're at commencement, so we're in the basement lining up to start to process in nice and you received that you were called, yep. And I look at it like, oh and, and the guys besides, like, what's up? It's like, oh, the congregation actually voted to call me. And he's like, that's they're doing that today. So, yeah, they're doing that today. And my ordination is

Pastor Joe Liles:

Wednesday. He's like, it seems a little tight. So that's great. So commencement was wonderful.

Tom Helmich:

Yeah, it was good. It was good. There's some funny parts to it. There's okay. It was it was interesting. It was neat. And it's done in the Catholic Church, yeah, it's done in a Roman Catholic Church. A Roman Catholic

Tevo Christmann:

Church. Did you like the lights there? That was one. Was it? It was what?

Tom Helmich:

No, it was well lit. You could see everything. Oh, my God,

Pastor Joe Liles:

this is so good. I love it. I'm gonna make the lights all funky for you, Jordan nation, just to mess with you a little bit, it's gonna be great. Yeah, I'm gonna have them flashing different colors behind you as we go. It's gonna be fantastic. And we only had one light set up to on Sunday. There was no change, no moving, right, because I wanted to do these stained glass windows. Man, it's like stained glass, so I didn't want them to change at all, and I didn't want any dramatic behind it, frosted glass. It's like a frosted glass, but it's the closest thing we

Tevo Christmann:

could get to stained glass. It's not glass at all. Didn't pass the

Pastor Joe Liles:

vote, no. Stained glass does not pass the vote, no. And then who else do we have joining us in the podcast? So we've heard that Tom is on the podcast as host to Tom's right. We have Table, table, Director of worship and music at the neighborhood church. Incredible. And then we have to my left, Roseanne. Roseanne, Roseanne, below, what is your title here? Director of Operations. Director of Operations. That is absolutely wonderful. So we are joining you on the podcast today, and we had on Sunday, sacred Sunday. And sacred Sunday is the first time we've ever done this in live the church. We've had a series before. Now people will recall and they will tell you they recall this, we've had a series before that we called, not your parents church, and we did a Sunday calling back to the days of choir, to the Alps, to the stoles, and said, Hey, this is the church we grew up in. And that was a day, and really the same way we treated it now, not a day to make fun of or light of how the traditional church or how we grew up in church. But really to honor the traditions that we come from and how they still have a place in today. And so with that, Tom, you were gone. It would have been wonderful for you to be here, but you're up at commencement. So Bishop Becca came in from the Arkansas, Oklahoma Synod, and she came in and preached for us and helped preside. We had acolytes. The youth stepped out. Youth loved it. So we said, I said, I need two acolytes per service, which is four, and I had six kids raise their hand on Wednesday night. So I was like, Look, we'll do three acolytes. I'll go find another candle lighter with the bell snuffer, is what they call it. And so they were very excited. They practiced on Wednesday night. They came in, they were highly scared of their light going out on the way down and and I love it, because legit fear, it's a legit fear, it's a legit fear. And they had to walk all the way from the back in our fellowship or all the way forward. And I forgot that fear. So like, before service, I'm like, yeah, just light them. Guys. Just walk up. And their eyes were like, right now it's time. And I was like, Yeah, and you guys can do it. And honestly, no lights went out. They did great. They sat down on their chairs. It was absolutely wonderful. We had bulletins on Sunday. Can I just want to do a small shout out to any church secretary, administrative assistant, whatever has ever happened that anyone who's ever touched the life of a bulletin in their entire life, much more respect. Much more respect. It took me six to seven hours to put that bulletin together and copy it and get it put in a booklet form, get it to fit on the stinking page because it's a half folded sheet, make it look somewhat reasonable, bold all the parts where the congregation had to respond and then print it correctly, which took 17 tries to

Tom Helmich:

do this manually. Or did you do it through Sundays and seasons? Can you describe doing it manually? Like did you just type this out? Or did you do Sundays and seasons. I It's a

Pastor Joe Liles:

mix, right? So I designed it in Sundays and seasons, and then that gave me all the language, right, that I could easily copy over and like, the image on the front is Sundays and seasons from the day Easter, 5c and so the much respect. And I just want to say I personally apologize for all the times that I did not think the bulletin was that

Tom Helmich:

big of a deal. So st, Luke or Secretary Linda, yeah, spent most of her life in the newspaper industry, yes, and which is good, because she can do that like in she knows it, because she knows it. That was her whole last career was doing that. Otherwise, yeah, it's a pain in the butt. Yeah,

Pastor Joe Liles:

I went to print this at our printer, and I send them the printing, and I said, Hold on a second. That's not going to be right, because I just did straight through like I normally would if I was doing like a funeral service, right? Well, but a funeral service is only one page front and back, so I can just print it straight through, right? It's great. And I just take the first page and make it the last page, and we're great, right? And I did that, and I was like this in my head, I had this conniption where life failed me. It's like my mind went blank. I was like, I have 13 pages of bullets, and there's no way this flips in that manner. And I was like, it's like, page 1278, and, yeah, do you know what I had to do in order to get this to work? I had to print out the whole document, cut every page, and then tape it to pages in order, so that I could see actually, where these things went in a booklet format, so I could figure out how to position it on, you know, to visually way, oh, my way. Like,

Tom Helmich:

I think, I think there's a software solution for that, actually. Oh, there

Pastor Joe Liles:

probably is. But for our one time of year, Sunday, yeah. And here's the other hard part, we do not have the service built like, so all of our services are traditionally pretty built out right ready to go. So designing the service, even for Sunday, just in a simple presentation, was two three hours just to put the service together, right, to get that going, which is great, because I use it for your Wednesday too. So it actually doubles up a little bit, which will be nice. So, so yeah, we had sacred Sunday. Bishop came in, which was really wonderful. So just an experience. This was a full el W Lutheran worship, we had chanting of the canticles, and then we had a responsive readings, which is great. We had three readers come up and do that. They were awesome. And then we went through communion from trays, which was amazing. So we did all these kind of different parts. Everyone is robed. Choir was robed. Acolytes were robed. Censures, all the things, right? Which one are level one, not level zero, because I'm called a level 0.5. Yeah. Point five, yeah, level one. So I just want to experience Tom, you weren't here. You watched online. We'll get that experience last. But I just want your experience from table and Roseanne, how was sacred Sunday for you, experiencing it as a whole.

Roseann Bowlin:

So for me, my long term Catholic memory made me tongue tied, okay, because wording is different. Yes, correct. And so I got I stumbled a few times, but it was so fun, and watching the Acolytes come up was so precious, nostalgic. Yeah, they were, that's

Pastor Joe Liles:

all they were, that's all they were looking at. Was just a light on the handle letter,

Roseann Bowlin:

yeah, so, but it was, it was a precious experience.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Nice for me. Okay, so you, I mean, I'm hearing nostalgia for you. Oh, yeah, right. So definitely, that's great. That's great. Okay, would you do it again?

Unknown:

Yeah? How soon? Oh, once a

Pastor Joe Liles:

year. Oh, sure, sure. Oh, once a year is sure, okay. That's great. Okay. I think it landed for people where they're very excited to experience it, and then they kind of went through it, and they're like, Okay. And then when we don't do it, this is yeah. And okay, so table, what was your experience? Have you ever been through a traditional worship like that before? No,

Tevo Christmann:

I've been to, I've been through worship in a Methodist context, where there's some call and response and stuff that's wrote, but not a full nothing with full regalia. I mean, the only thing I've been with full been to full together is weddings at Catholic churches. Oh, yeah, so that was fun, yeah. What was your, what was your takeaway from it? I mean, on my end, it was terrifying because, yeah, not a, I'm not a professional piano player, right? I only dabble. And so it took you seven hours to put together a bulletin. It took me 20, yeah, to learn all this stuff. Yeah, which that's not, it's not usually, yeah, how it goes, yeah, very stressful, yeah, but,

Roseann Bowlin:

oh, thank you. It was the music. Was just, it just fit. No, absolutely,

Tevo Christmann:

I think, I think there's a lot, there's a lot of good right, in liturgical worship like that, there's, we do get to read big chunks of Scripture, which is nice, like it's important, it's food, you know. And then we get to make sure that when we meet, we have a moment for confession, we have a moment for intercession. I mean, there's a reason these things were thought through, right? Like, what are the elements of worship? What needs to be there? And that's why they designed it. And in a sense, it makes a whole lot of sense, because we we plan worship all the time, yeah, and at one point you might expect it to start repeating, and for you to continue to adjust it and perfect it. And since the church is 2000 years old, you'd expect this has been done by now. Why are we still planning so there's, so there's like, it makes, it makes it makes a lot of sense that there's, like, a lot a lot of thought put put to it. And there's also the the didactic, sort of pedagogical aspect of the chants themselves. Because I don't remember exactly everything that we said, but I don't think I'll ever forget in peace. Let us pray to the Lord. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Gets ingrained into your brain. And just like Bishop Becca said on Sunday, the little, little four year old kid singing the canticle, yeah, she was serving pretend tea to her dolls. You know that's like, that's, it's something that really music. Music has that role in our lives, pedagogical, role of teaching. So I appreciated that aspect that said it's a little boring. Oh

Pastor Joe Liles:

man, yeah, it's a little boring. Yeah, I agree. No. I mean, it's a great takeaway from what worship is, right? And then I'll kind of go through my experience to the so I've led traditional worship a handful of times, right? Coming through seminary, actually more, way more than a handful of times. I let it for an entire year for 52 Sundays, yeah. So I've led traditional worship, right? I love me. Don't do every Sunday, every Sunday. So I did every Sunday for 52 Sundays, right? I was in a two part parish for my internship, and I was in a very rural, matriarchal, habitual, very traditional congregation in Booneville called Faith Lutheran. And then I was in Saint Luke, where you're at now, right? With pastor, Don Brewer, incredible supervisor, awesome and, and so, yeah. So both these experiences, I led in worship 52 Sundays. And so led through every part of the seasons, everything. And then in seminary, I preached at different congregations as a supply pastor in seminary. So I went out to all the different rural congregations in Iowa, did the same thing when I got here, too, preached in all the different congregations. So so yeah, I've, I've probably had 100 different times, leading through liturgical worship and and with that, it was so funny, because I was sitting in there. And in the times when I think boring is one way to describe it, and the times when the air felt dry or the space felt like it didn't have life, those are the times that you hear me now and even in our worship, and are like, hey, we need something behind this in order for us to continue to pull through service. And I felt that again and again, and I'm like, Oh my gosh. So kind of affirmed everything, of, like, how we've designed worship, as the neighborhood church, right, in order to, like, come from this element, honor the traditions that we have, but then also kind of pull us through, where people feel pulled through the service, right? Like they're invited into the space where we're taking them on a journey all the way throughout the service until they're sent back out, right? Not in any space. We're like, ooh. Like, what are we doing right now? And yeah, there were times in that service where I was like, Oh, wow. Like, we're in and then there's really holy moments like, yeah, exactly what you said. I love the Curie, right? Love, this is the feast. Like I would do those in our worship today, like they're wonderful. And. And then, yeah, love responsive Psalm. That's a beautiful thing to do, right? That comes in. Love the tones when we do that. So, I mean, there's some great parts about it. Love Reading the Nicene Creed. I remember growing up reading that a lot more, and I don't, I don't really have, like, the exact memory of it, but begotten, not made, right? Eternally begotten of the like, there's just lines there. I'm like, so good. Yeah, it's just wonderful. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made of one being with, like, Look, you get me going on that. I'm just like, my soul, baby. I love it. So love the Nicene Creed. I think that was wonderful to read through. So yeah, there's these wonderful parts where I think, two, it's educational for the church, right, for them to understand who we are as Lutherans, and I think it's very educational. And so I also did get the feeling that it's very educational once a year, like, like, we need to come back into who we are as the neighborhood and what that means, right? But no, there's posts from people going out in social media with them, with their kids, going through it, and the hymnals right in the scene. So there was this almost experience that crossed generations, right? Kind of looking at the sacred Sunday, which I had not thought through fully. Like, yeah, this could be a generational teaching for parents and like, Hey, this is how I grow it creates a conversation at home, you know? Like, this is why I grew up. This is why this is why this church is important to us now, right? Because these are some of the things that we saw that needed to change. And so, yeah, really, really enjoyed it. I loved seeing, like, the choir in the robes, right? They were having a great time with that right in the back, and just enjoying that, and just singing around the piano, right? It was how I grew up, right in church, like we would just gather around the piano doing parts and, you know, seeing what's going on. And then we say, okay, like, here we go. We're just going to sing right around here. So some of even the practice and lead up was very important to sacred Sunday, which I really, really loved. Tom, what was your experience from watching on the phone? As you said, I

Tom Helmich:

think because I'm familiar with this context and things being done very differently, used to your voice being very different. Yeah, right, because I'm used to the normal Sunday Morning Joe voice, yeah, yeah. Very different, yeah, very different. And I'm like, oh, that's just seems so like comparatively dispassionate compared to how you normally talk,

Pastor Joe Liles:

comparative, wow, yeah. Well, let's, let's open that up comparatively dispassionately,

Tom Helmich:

expecting, like the Joe voice, but in the traditional and I'm like, Oh yeah, that's

Pastor Joe Liles:

and I forgot you were in here, because I actually talked with, I think it was in the Thursday, Sunday morning meeting. Was it where I said, Hey, just so you know, when I'm leading this, I'm going to lead it very traditional. You know, I let the team know that, and I said, I'm going to lead this as I would lead it normally. And I said, it's not going to be the big over the top, Joe, it's not going to be anything else like that. It's not going to be the normal Sunday. It's going to be my tradition. Sometimes

Tom Helmich:

God gave you that gift and you need to, you know, use it in all settings. Yeah, right, yeah. Because I think the traditional liturgy can be done. It can be done well, uh huh. And it depends on the context, on what, on what the congregation needs. You know, I still do the traditional liturgy at Saint Luke, yeah, but with try to have a little bit more, like intonation and stuff into the voice and accentuating certain things so that it's not as boring. But there's a reason why it's adapted, even in the LW, yeah, right, yeah. Um, it also depends, like, depending on how somebody's faith works, if they're more, I don't say the word because you can be in in this context and reverent, but certain styles of worship need that space to kind of sit for introspection and stuff like that. But I think because I'm expecting a certain thing at the neighborhood, yeah, and then getting that, I was just like, oh, yeah, you know, plus the context, the setting, like, it doesn't look right in this setting, uh,

Pastor Joe Liles:

true, yeah. This is, this was not this space is not designed. Technically, it's a traditional worship. It's like for folks

Tom Helmich:

hearing the the podcast, if you experience this style of worship in a traditional building with the chancel and the altar and all that, it has a very different feel to it, in the light and the sound and and depending on who's leading it and how they lead it, it's, I don't want people to think it's going to always sound just like that. Yeah, correct. It depends on who's on who's Oh, absolutely. Well, even at the seminary, they don't teach to lead it that way anymore, like even how they teach, it is very different.

Roseann Bowlin:

Yeah, one thing that bishop Becca pointed out was this was a traditional style service from when you grew up. Yeah, it wasn't and and it made me wonder if my modern day traditional service is different, well, so Tom, you can answer like

Tom Helmich:

I grew up like in 95 you were 12, I was 19, but we were in different states, in different contexts, different churches. And my memory of the traditional worship in 1995 was a lot livelier than that, just because the way we did it, yeah, partly because our the leadership in the past, Pastor Solberg, at the time, we, you know, is a lot more passionate about certain aspects of of liturgy and how it's done. And we had a Baptist music minister. And so it was even then, in 95 it was a mix between the traditional Lutheran liturgy with some adaptations to make it more compel. Thing for people of the of that, yeah, because I think you can take elements from the traditional liturgy and mix it with the way we do with like music, for instance, at the neighborhood church, and get a good cross between the two. That I think could be extremely successful for the folks that aren't prepared to handle what the neighborhood is people walking about, whoa, that's too much energy.

Pastor Joe Liles:

You know, not for people. Do that when they walk into the neighborhood? Oh,

Tom Helmich:

sometimes, to be honest, whoa, this is way different. But, I mean, I think that there can be some blending there. But I think that if people see like, maybe next time, instead of doing like the 90s church, do we do a traditional service? Do like a modern traditional liturgy? So that's

Pastor Joe Liles:

so it's a very interesting set. Because one of the reasons we did it this way is because, without starting at the base and for people to be setting for, yeah, right? Like, that was a traditional worship, through and through, yeah? Like, that's traditional leadership, traditional worship, straight. And then here's the deal. That's modern day elw setting, which was setting two in the green setting two in the green book, right? So you come through, like, that's traditional worship now, like, yeah, there would be modifications I would make to that, that we could take a traditional worship and actually grow it into something that I would say resembles a little bit of TNC, right? And it looks like not just a choir. It looks like having a band up here, right? It looks like, yeah, you know. And for me, the difference between what the bishop was looking for was Bishop was wondering, are we doing incense and the full processional with the Scripture and the gospel and the and I was, like, the crew that's like, high church. So, like, that's like, level one high church, right? Which it'd be tough to do full high church in this space. Oh yeah, I've never even, I don't think I've ever been a part of high church, maybe only at, like, special services at Wartburg and special services Alistair, but like processing him with the gospel, like they process the gospel back out into the middle of the congregation and then read from middle the congregation with the gospel. Like, there's some very interesting high church things that happen that would be interesting for me to be a part. Because I'm like, whoo. I don't even know. This

Tom Helmich:

is a long, a long history that goes back from the Roman Catholic method to Oh yeah, Deutsche Mesa, you know, it's an art what we do. Our liturgy still has the critical that, you know, the gathering, the word, the meal, the sending. So, I mean, there's, there's stuff you can, you can do with it to make a traditional setting of the liturgy a life giving and beautiful thing, you know, today.

Roseann Bowlin:

So I think you guys already plan next year's traditional service?

Pastor Joe Liles:

Well, we got to grow it a little bit. You got to grow it a little bit and bring in some more things. So planted the seed there. Yeah, that's right table. What were you going to

Tevo Christmann:

say? I think the obviously, the point of doing this in the first place is that it's also determined that bishop Becker preached, that it is obviously what, precisely how you worship is secondary to that you worship, right? Yeah, in the end of first place. And it doesn't like to the point that there isn't, like, it's not a franchise, yeah, with, with, with auditors, they're going to check to make sure that you're doing all of the little bits correctly. There isn't the final liturgy. Probably the highest church I've ever seen was when the Queen passed on TV watching whatever is going on in Canterbury in England. I mean that for me, is the highest church imaginable. Oh, absolutely. But, and I don't think we're ever going to do that. We can be just, just in, like, integrate elements of past liturgy, but it doesn't, obviously, like, it doesn't matter, yeah,

Tom Helmich:

what from the traditional liturgy would you bring forward into like, the way we do it? No,

Pastor Joe Liles:

I mean, the intercessory prayers, I think are wonderful, right? I think it gives people a moment to have an identity with prayer that is beyond themselves and beyond our community, right? And it's brought forward by the church, right? In a sense of you're participating in it, but it also allows in a space, you to participate and lift up your own prayers. So I think that's a beautiful expression of kind of lifting up prayer in general, right? Right? Now we've just included more prayer in our worship, right? We have prayer partners, but it's a very personal form of prayer and worship. It's not a corporate led prayer and worship. So that's a beautiful part, right? That exists. It's challenging too, right? Because not everyone's gonna agree with all the prayers, right? Like those were the EO W prayers written for this day in Easter, 5c from the people who designed the liturgy, however, many years ago, special prayer

Tevo Christmann:

for Eric, the King of Sweden. Well,

Pastor Joe Liles:

yeah. So here's the hill, yeah. These are, well, these are people who brought forward, kind of, the Lutheran tradition throughout, right, and made the gospel go forward, right? So, but as you can see, I didn't say that on Sunday, right? Because it's in the Oh, special prayers for Eric King of Sweden. And I'm like, and these are the parts where I'm like, what traditional,

Tom Helmich:

traditional Lutheran worship. You still celebrate feast days. Okay? Yeah, so certain Sundays are dedicated to feast of different saints and martyrs, and then people that have done, like, historically significant things for the church in the past, but there's stuff like that you put in the bulletin. It's communication. There's people that understand and know what it is, because it's gone on perpetually. And so people that are raising that church. Church know what these things are, to remember things that, like heroes of the Church of the past have done, and things they have suffered and sacrifices they have made, you know, to push the church to where it is today that, unfortunately now is being kind of history largely

Pastor Joe Liles:

forgotten. Okay, so intercessory prayers would be one. I do love the confession of forgiveness, but I want so as I say that, I also would speak against myself too. There's a perception of the church that exists, right, that when you come in, you're not worthy. And we're going to tell you you're not worthy, and you have to be worthy in order to embrace the altar, which is something that I believe in the Lutheran tradition with, by grace, you've been saved, right? We are trying to not reteach a generation, but we're trying to meet people, and that what Christ did on the cross, the theology of the cross is what matters in our life with Christ, and we need to accept that as our personal form of worship, right, and understand our our ourselves, as a living sacrifice in that way. Right? That we walk out into this world knowing that we've been forgiven, knowing that we've been loved. We've been loved. And so when we walk in and we get right into this confession of sin, right? And the first thing you hear is we confess that we're captive sin. Cannot for yourself. We have sinned against you in thought, word and deed, by what we have done and what we have left on. We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have lot in other labors as ourselves. That's very holy. I still have that memorized. Well, so here's the deal. So do I like if you're coming for how I grew up and how much of an impact this had on me, it has a huge impact, right? Caring for the people who walk through this door, who are church, hurt and broken, and coming here to look for a place how to understand love, I think this has a place in this confession and forgiveness. I don't think I would keep it exactly like this, but I think it's very important, right? And so I would look at, how do we truly confess our sins, right? And what does that mean? And you'll hear me say that when we get to communion and we get to the altar, and I'll give these sort of words that allude to this, it's not the same words, but it's kind of hey, when you're coming forward to this altar, right? Here's what confession, repentance, changing your ways, asking for forgiveness means, right? In our relationship with God, which is this confession, but at the same time, I grew up with this, right? So, like, yeah, I could recite most of this still. 20 years later, having not done it in 15 years, I could recite almost all of it, right? And kind of leading that way. So do love the confession and forgiveness hymns are a struggle for me, just straight struggle, you know, see, that's, that was

Tom Helmich:

one of my critiques in seminary. Oh, man, in our we had a, I can't really, but they called the class like, there's a semester long class on how to learn to use the the cranberry book, The elw, yeah, which baffles me that there's an expectation that people in the church are going to know how to use it, and a lot of them do better than I do, yeah, because they've grown up their whole lives, which is not conducive to people coming into the church new No, because now you hand them this book, it's very complicated, and you got to figure out how to use it, which is why most now that I've been to use the screens, yeah, because the type small, it's hard, it's hard to use it slow.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Well, we didn't decide on a bulletin until we started going through with the band. And I was sitting with you table, to be honest, and you're like, where are we now? And I'm like, well, it's on page 145 now. And I'm like, don't worry all the people. Don't worry all the page

Tevo Christmann:

numbers, because I was utterly confused. You were gone, right? And

Pastor Joe Liles:

I was like, if table is not picking this up and like, leading it through? And it was, I mean, here's the deal. It was lined out. It's exactly this page, exactly this page. But if you haven't let it before and you haven't been in that book, yeah, to jump around, right? We're at page 94 then we're at page 151, then we're back to 143 for the Nicene Creed, and we're back over here, yet we're still in setting for then we're jumping forward to him. And it was kind of the week of when I was like, Oh, I'm gonna have to do worship book and a bulletin, yeah, if we want people to get through

Tom Helmich:

this. And there's a gray version of the elw, that's the leader's desk edition. That's thicker, yes, oh, absolutely. Just that's why most churches have gotten away from that, because people just don't know how to use just

Pastor Joe Liles:

don't know how to use them. Yeah. And so that's where this, I mean, we're literally all looking at binders right now from Sunday worship, right? And that's why we did it, is because this is the full service order straight through. You don't have to find where you're going, what's happening, different things like that.

Tom Helmich:

That's the point of the Sundays and seasons. You know? It's a it's a web based thing you go to to create these because, and at St Luke, we don't do the bifold because it's just small print. Yep, it's just like this, but sort of binder to staple the corner and everybody goes to the full page together because they don't have a space for screens in that that context.

Pastor Joe Liles:

So at the end of all this, I think sacred Sunday is something that's special to honor tradition. I think it's something special to look at, to understand where the church has come from, and to learn more each year, right? And to build upon it. And I think there'd be a really neat space where we continue to build upon it for the next three to five years, where it starts to map into, oh, you can see the transition into a TNC worship, right? Like, all of a sudden you go, Okay, I see how these elements actually came about. Because I would preach a sermon series on it, just going, Hey, here's why these things were chosen and why we moved this direction, why this whole worship went this way. Another thing I would keep is the gospel. I think that's really good, so let's take time to read the gospel. Before that our jingle, which we're going to change today. I want two, three, mighty, four. Tracy

Tevo Christmann:

is our God? 479-367-2285, neighborhood church,

Pastor Joe Liles:

exactly what Sunday felt like, if you didn't experience it, pretty much

Roseann Bowlin:

the whole deal. But throw in that, it's a good excuse to wear a hat too. You

Pastor Joe Liles:

know what? The women's ministry wasn't chosen. What was it called? Was it wasn't called hat day. What was it called? Sunday? It was hat Sunday. It was hat Sunday. Okay, at Sunday, on traditional Sunday, you guys looked amazing. I mean, it was, it was Preakness, you know, the Preakness, like the horse racing, that's all I could think

Tom Helmich:

of. So I remember, like, in peace, Lutheran looking out and just as a kid, like, staring at the different Fancy Hats people wore. They had the matching liturgical colors and stuff. Like it was a

Pastor Joe Liles:

thing. That's why you can't remember the lights, because you're only looking at hats. No, because it was just a regular toilet room. I got Roseanne on that one. That was good. I got rosette. Uh, alright, let's read the gospel. Um, we preached from John 13 verses 31 through 35 and so we're each going to take a verse and then table, I think you get the last two as we go through. Um, so Roseanne, could you start us off on verse 31

Roseann Bowlin:

when he had gone out, Jesus said, Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.

Pastor Joe Liles:

If God has been glorified in him. God will also glorify Him in himself, and will glorify him at once,

Tom Helmich:

little children, yet a little while I am with you, you will seek Me. And as I said to the Jews, so now I say to you where I am going. You cannot come

Tevo Christmann:

going back to the version where you're reading from, I give you a new commandment that you love one another, just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Yeah, I don't know

Tom Helmich:

why mine could reverted back to the Yeah. His

Pastor Joe Liles:

own thing over here. Tom doesn't like it. Doesn't have to chant on his own ordination. Okay, Tom, so with that, let's break this down a little bit. Bishop Becca preached. What were your takeaways from Bishop Becca's sermon on this text specifically, but also she preached kind of largely about what is liturgical worship and what is the lectionary, and what are the seasons of the church, and what does this mean, and what we've already said the word adiaphora. And so I just love some takeaways from the message.

Tom Helmich:

Kaylee should know what Adi offer is, because we covered that in that age of youth group. Nice, great. Just talking about what's important in the liturgy and how we do church and what isn't important, because there's so much different from one context to another.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Tom, what does Adi offer a mean? So a lady at

Tom Helmich:

St Luke, we're talking about, she's like, Oh, it means MOX next, which means matters. Matters not I think you

Pastor Joe Liles:

can't use more languages to describe a language we already don't understand. You just use another language. You can tell me like you want, I still don't understand what it means simple terms. It's

Tom Helmich:

like, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what. Matter. Do it? Do it? Do it. Don't.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Do you remember what the bishop said when she described it in very um slang terminology?

Tom Helmich:

Oh, sure, because I really like laughing about it.

Pastor Joe Liles:

What the What the fudge. Right?

Tom Helmich:

She starts. She's like, What the fuck yeah, that was

Pastor Joe Liles:

pretty much everyone in the church, right? Everyone in church had a moment. It was gonna go back to Andrew mcnerland, um, mcnerland when he said the S word in church podcast, and then, two weeks ago, explicit podcast. So it was, it was like, what is the church that causes? Apparently, that's what's happened in this

Tom Helmich:

year. Good explanation of of stuff that the part of the Lutheran church can be unwelcoming is, it seems like a secret code, because you come in and there's a bunch of words people don't use on Monday through Saturday, and they don't know what it means. We've not always done a good job of teaching what it means, and so those things have kind of lost their value, because it's a barrier to new people coming in, which I think part of we don't use a lot of that, like we don't have a chancel, we don't have a narthex, or, you know, the different parts of the of the building. We don't use that terminology, so people feel more comfortable coming in

Pastor Joe Liles:

here, yeah, that's right. That's right. We don't have an altered build, right? And all that kind of, we have a sacristy. We do call it the sacristy, don't we? That's great, yeah, we're going to keep that. So what was your takeaway from the message?

Tom Helmich:

It was a good education, but kind of, what we do and why, and that what we do at the neighborhood is also a liturgy.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Yes, very much on the on the same things, yep, Roseanne. What about you? Oh, 123, Roseanne notes.

Roseann Bowlin:

Well, I didn't take notes. Gosh,

Pastor Joe Liles:

Roseanne, man, we launched a new segment, hey, hey. And Roseanne continues not to take notes because

Tom Helmich:

there's the bishop preaching. I guess if it's you should take notes. Uh, no, but, but I'm

Pastor Joe Liles:

5050 for Roseanne. Like, one week she had hit and the next week she's like, it didn't hit table. Even titled the podcast that, before I changed it, it didn't. It was like, it's right there. So I'm 5050 with Roseanne, so we're in it. I'm 50 feet with you on liturgical worship. So we're just in

Roseann Bowlin:

it. Okay? So this one was not on the. Bible app to take notes. This is

Pastor Joe Liles:

true because the Bible app didn't exist in traditional worship. I wanted people in the bulletin.

Roseann Bowlin:

We okay, we were in. It was an intentional choice. Oh, okay, but Well, adiapra is going to stay with me forever. Yeah, it's great. You love that, okay? But that the point of that being that all that fluff really exists to draw people in, but what we want them to be drawn into is a relationship with God, in a relationship with each other. Yep,

Pastor Joe Liles:

that's great. I love that table. What about you? What was your takeaway from the message?

Tevo Christmann:

I think that obviously, like we, we know from Jesus, his his summary of all of the 613, commandments, right? Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength and love your neighbor as yourself. And this is what is the context here. This is before. This is after resurrection, correct? No, this is way before this is, yeah, this is washing the disciples feet, okay? Oh yeah, there you go. So he goes, but we said, where I'm going, you can't come. But here's what is for the disciple. He's talking to the disciples there and but because of the permanent nature of what he's saying, it also applies to us, to us directly. And his commandment is that we love one another. And I think, I think in the sermon, there was a moment where it got a little too close to this being a soteriological statement, when you explain that for people, not quite what it is, yeah, the that that if you just sort of have love in your heart, that's how you are saved, yeah, that's that is not what the Bible actually teaches. By faith, you are saved by grasping what God has done for you in a cross and recognizing with humility the forgiveness that he has, and joining the life of disciples and then you love one another. But the idea here is not that by loving one another, you will be saved, but by loving one another, you will be a witness.

Tom Helmich:

That's what Jesus said, that by loving one another, they will know that you're my disciples,

Tevo Christmann:

exactly, right? Yeah, so it's not related to salvation, but it is related to witness, which obviously is something that we're all, that we're all called to, that we're all called to do. Ultimately, I think loving one another is a commandment, and it is more important that we love one another than we than fight over whether we do praise songs or hymns. Yeah, right, yeah, right, true, yeah. They will not know we like people will not know that we are Christ's disciples by the kinds of hymns we sing, but by whether or not we love one another. So that's kind of my takeaway. Yeah,

Pastor Joe Liles:

I love that. I mean, I hear you saying too, that there's a belief in God, right, which comes from this discipleship, yeah, our response in that belief to what Jesus Christ did on the cross for us is the result of our faith, right? And the result of our faith is that we do good works, yeah, and that we love one another, right? And we kind of take this path towards it. And, yeah, I agree. I think there's an important language that, yes, we are meant to love one another, but it is a response of our faith because of that. So we start in this personal relationship with God. And I loved there was one part that bishop Becca said that was extra instrumental in thinking about what was the neighborhood church, worship as we designed it in the beginning. And it's what I lost a little bit in this growing up, and what I continue to lose a little bit in seminary, is that sometimes in the just the repetitive motion, we forget to think of our relationship with God as personal. Yeah, right. It only becomes on behalf of the church, and it ties us to a Sunday morning. It ties us to the liturgy, so much so that we cannot see ourselves outside of that and so little small things that, you know, she was talking about, like, you know, we have to put into worship places that we actually think about, you know, and cause us to think about our relationship with God, challenge us a little bit, convict us a little bit, but then give us the give us truly, the hope that our faith goes beyond these walls and that it can't exist outside of the church. And I think that's, that's the hardest thing for so many people, is that our faith can exist on its own outside of this church, right? We love the gathering. I do think it's celebration, but our faith exists. And it goes out into the world. It's sent out into the world. It's, it's Tom, it's called and commissioned. Well, because

Tom Helmich:

that's, that's the whole point is, is not to be in here. Is to it's to come here to be strengthened, you know, to go out. And I think we're, we're the traditional liturgy does well in some places, is that repetition so that you remember these things to help you, but you gotta do it in a way that speaks to the congregation based on the context, right? And what we're doing now, may want, may or may not, one day be the new traditional to somebody else. Yeah, and what the elw is was cutting edge to somebody at some point, you know. And so it's, it's the you build it in a way that you put repetition where it needs to be, so that they go out constantly remembering this, because they've said it over and over and over and they've heard it over and over and over, which is why I think it's important. That's why I like the Revised Common Lectionary, because you actually get into Scripture. A repetitive basis. As you go through life, you hear these things, and you hear these things from the gospel message, and you're constantly hearing it, and so it's more, it's more on your mind, that repetitive nature.

Pastor Joe Liles:

I think that's the hard part about reading. I love all the reading. I think that's wonderful. I don't love the reading outside of the context of the reading, like in the bishop kind of named it too. She said sometimes they don't know why they structured it in this way and like it's there. I don't doubt that it's there, but the amount of time it takes to take three large readings and break that down so people understand what the context was. And in fact, I wrote in here, you guys, if you look in your binders, I wrote the context for it in here, right that shared from like, the EO W writers, right? So that you can know where we're at. But the each person was like, should I read this? And I'm like, Well, yeah, probably, you know, or you don't have to write. It's okay. And like, every reader decided not to write, which was great, and that's okay. That's how, that's usually the way we did it growing up, right? But the reason, I think that we specifically the neighborhood, take that one text and break it down, and we talk about where the Gospels are at, what they're about, what's before this, what's after this, right? Is because I really have a heart that people understand where we're at in the Scripture, like, what are we talking about today, and what was happening before this that led into this, and I missed that a little bit in traditional worship. I really miss this heart that, you know, we would really understand every one of these readings. Now, going back to the Psalms, Psalms, poetry, right? So, read the Psalms. That's just kind of be like that to me, is the one that could be in every Sunday and you're just in it. Just listen to the Psalms, right? Like a beautiful moment to say, like, hey, we just read Psalms because they're poetry, because we can engage into this and kind of listen through it. And, yeah, I mean, I fell in love with the Psalms again, and I read it to you guys before it, but like I got to this part on Psalm 148, verse, I think it's six in here. No eight. Fire and hail, snow and fog, tempestuous wind, doing God's will. Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedar, wild beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds, sovereigns of the Earth's and all people, princes and rulers of the world, like, beautiful, like I was reading that, and I just want to read it over and over and

Tom Helmich:

over. We did the retreat at Subiaco. Yeah, you know where they go through and do that, in a way, it's very centering and kind of calming. Yeah, you do the response of a lot because it's so long, and you keep everybody paying attention so they're not, you know, Oh yeah, absolutely, distracted, keeps you engaged. What's going on? Yeah, there's a lot of great stuff in scripture that I think we miss at the neighborhood sometimes because we're starting with the series and then pulling where we need to from Scripture to to support that. So we actually

Pastor Joe Liles:

haven't done that in a year. So we've done only a book of the Bible for every series. For the last we've not

Tom Helmich:

really covered the book, though. Like we we still pull snippets, but we just pull snippets from the book.

Pastor Joe Liles:

Actually, every first part of the series, I described the whole book of the Bible, so that way they can break down and see what's going on. So that, and honestly, that was from our staff meetings. Like we were talking about, like, hey, if we're going to send ourselves in Scripture, let's send ourselves in Scripture. Because all previous years to that, yeah, we kind of jumped right, and we just picked scripture that aligned with whatever we're doing in the series. And, and I've actually really enjoyed that to be centered in a certain book, right? Because I think it gives people just a little bit more of, Hey, what is Romans? Hey, what is first, you know, Corinthians. Hey, what is first? Timothy, why are these books even exist, right? And have a part of that context, yeah. And the Con and, yeah. And yeah. And then each time, we can go back to it. And then the cool part, I think too, is that I've been able to reference, like, hey, if, if you don't have a good understand this book, go back to the first, you know, first message that we did in the series, right? And go, kind of listen to this whole book and see what's going on. So that way can give some context to it. And then the challenge of the people, which I think many people, have taken up, is to read through the book, like, and I was harping on the first man, I was harping on the first, like, three, four months, like, when we were doing this. And I was like, Look, if you there was a couple, there was only, like, four chapters. And I was like, if you haven't read it, like, we got questions, you know, because I'm like, You got four weeks to read four chapters. Like, we can do this people and but I think it's hard. I think people reading scripture is, something that needs to grow in this church and across the board, right? I don't think it's something that's central to people's lives and they we need to continue to grow this in the church, right, and keep that as a reality too. So I mean, it's just something big that we need to keep on reinforcing, and I think consistency will do that, right, staying consistent in those motions. So alright, any final takeaways from the message,

Tom Helmich:

it was neat seeing you wearing a stole that's great. We've only maybe three or four times I've seen you do it. Oh, yeah,

Pastor Joe Liles:

that's it. And other people, other people dressed up, which was great. Like, people wore suits. Like, it was great, like, they kind of lived into what they grew up. I saw some people, oh, they were and they'd come up to me, like, you get this for me once. And I was like, good, you get this for me once. And then I looked at other people, and they were half in so it was kind of like you were talking about, like, if we took the EO, W liturgy, and then we kind of made it neighborhood style, right? Like, we kind of modified it to how we would lead the liturgy, neighborhood

Tom Helmich:

the hymns, into some modern style, okay? Music with like, like, the message, yeah, with modern. Music, yeah.

Pastor Joe Liles:

So these are people that were walking in, and it was great because they dressed up. So they're wearing a sport coat, but they still had, like, you know, the Nike Air Force ones on and stuff like that. And I looked at me like, Hey, I dressed up. I was like, No, you modified whatever Lutheran traditional you think you are, that's modified. I said, That doesn't count. I want more from this. And so we were laughing on Sunday. It was really good, really good. So that's great. Was fun, yeah, so Tom, we got some special things happening this week. We got ordination coming up tomorrow,

6:

30pm that is Wednesday, the 21st 6:30pm that's going to be here. Everyone invited right now. We have about 120 people coming that have registered, which means that you don't register. So we got more than

Tom Helmich:

that coming about 20 or anymore. So st, Luke, yep. So

Pastor Joe Liles:

yeah, we're gonna need more brisket. So that's 150 200 people in my mind that'll be coming to tomorrow. I wonder

Tom Helmich:

if I might ought to throw in some like, Look

Pastor Joe Liles:

Tom, look Tom. If the food is not already, then there's only one

Tom Helmich:

person. They're gonna turn 80 pounds of brisket in the smoker right now. Dang Troy. Chef,

Pastor Joe Liles:

Troy has a number of, how much brisket, pound did you need per person? Right? He has the number. Just make sure,

Tom Helmich:

we kind of talked about it, you know, yes, because standard is like, just so, you know, it's about a quarter pound, you know, beyond that, but then I think that's it's trying to figure out how to get the right amount out. Yeah, we don't get to the end, and nobody gets any so that's right, it's a little late to throw in more brisket, but might have to throw on more brisket, but might have

Pastor Joe Liles:

to throw in some chicken or something. You might have thrown some chicken. And then on Sunday we have graduation. Sunday, I'm preaching on your ordination, and then you're preaching on graduation Sunday, yeah, which will be amazing. And a commencement style preaching, right? So this is

Tom Helmich:

kind of a one off message to kind of give people I've been in the future. I got some notes for some readings. My youngest Connor is graduating. Oh,

Pastor Joe Liles:

that's right, that's great. Oh, that'll be a really kind of personal message. Yeah.

Tom Helmich:

I'm not totally sure I'm comfortable with all the kids being out of the house yet, but it could be kind of nice. Kaylee

Pastor Joe Liles:

keeps on saying she's done with freshman year. Now. I have three years left there. That's all she thinks. It's a joke, and it's basically crushing every time she says it. So wait till it's like two months from her movie. Yeah. No. Stop talking. Tom. How dare you talk like that? So this has been your TNC podcast. We love you. We got some great things coming up. We got new member class in the first baptisms on the eighth. Things are exciting here at the neighborhood church and and all that's people said. Amen.

People on this episode

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Pastor Joe Liles

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Pastor Tom Helmich

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Roseann Bowlin

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Tevo Christmann

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