Gottesdienst Needs Your Help

Every year about this time we send to all the friends of the Lutheran Liturgy we know to consider seriously whether you can help us out. We simply cannot produce Gottesdienst, something we have been publishing since 1992, without significant donations. We really do depend on them.  And right about now reservoir is running pretty low, frankly.

Think about this, if you would: Gottesdienst exists because liturgical worship is under assault, and we are persuaded that the reason this is so is that, to put it simply, the devil doesn’t like liturgical worship. C. S. Lewis’s Uncle Screwtape would be as pleased as could be if he could convince unsuspecting churchgoers that they are “getting God” by being entertained and wooed by the pleasant sounds of praise bands as they are called to worship.  When this happens, when people “just praise God” in their own way―which is generally shallow and devoid of much of the Gospel, except for perhaps an occasional nod to Jesus’ name―they are really being mesmerized and lulled into thinking that God is thus pleased with their praise.  So Screwtape has fooled them: “See what fine Christians you are, as you ‘groove on’ in your worship ways,” grinning inwardly because he knows he has stolen from them the one thing needful, Mary’s part, that was not taken from her.

Christian worship―Gottesdienst―is first and foremost about receiving God’s gifts, which are the Gospel and the Sacraments, and not about “just praising Him.”  And Christian people meet Christ in the way of Jacob, who awoke from his dream and exclaimed, “Truly God was in this place and I did not know it!” Christian people rejoice that Jesus receives sinners and eats with them.  And their true and holy joy is not fooled by the follies of ‘contemporary’ settings that distract and pull the heart and mind away from the Gospel, however subtly. 

Do you know what we mean?  If you do, then you must also know why we exist, both in this online form and in print.  And then you will understand why we unabashedly ask for your help.

Will you support Gottesdienst?  Become a part of who we are.  When we say lightly that our subscribers are “Gottesdiensters,” we actually mean something serious: you are with us in our desire to reach the world with Christ, and to worship Him in Spirit and truth. 

Our pledge to our donors is to make the most of donations in every way we can.

To donate, click here. You can use PayPal account or else simply with MasterCard, Visa, Discover, or American Express.  Or send a check to Gottesdienst, c/o St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 109 South Elm Street, Kewanee, IL 61443. 

With a donation of $50 or more we’ll even send you a complementary copy of our new Gottesdienst book The Lutheran Propers.  This volume contains the musical settings of all the Sunday propers edited by Walter Buszin in the early 1940s, intended for use with the settings of the common service with which so many of us a very familiar (TLH page 15; LSB setting 3), as well as suggested hymns, and an order of service containing brief rubrics for the laity.

And incidentally a $1,000 donation, if you’re up to it, comes with a lifetime subscription.  But whatever you’re able to give, we’ll appreciate, and all the readership of Gottesdienst will reap the rewards.

Sincerely,

+ Burnell F Eckardt,  Jr.

Editor-in-chief