with God and with each other. An ancient Latin phrase, lex orandi, lex credendi, says it simply: the rule of prayer determines the rule of faith. Changing how we worship changes what we believe. What did the Indonesian
A typical Batak Christian Protestant Church building In North Sumatra, Indonesia.
Worship as theology I
How Lutherans in Indonesia are renewing worship By Melinda Quivik
n March 2014, at the request of ELCA Global Mis- sion and the Lutheran World Federation in Indonesia, I taught condensed courses in worship and Lutheran
theology in North Sumatra and on Nias Island, Indone- sia. And I experienced our mutual love of Christ Jesus through such cultural expressions as:
• Meeting Lutherans in North Sumatra who shook hands with me. With the hand that shook mine, a person would touch his or her chest with the palm or fingers as a way of saying, “I take you into my heart.” • Seeing from the pulpit a sanctu- ary filled with 500 children during a “young people’s” worship service. • Worshiping with young and old as they sang hymns from memory.
Recovering Lutheran roots The 12 Lutheran churches (think of them as denominations) that are celebrating 150 years since the first German missionaries came to
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www.thelutheran.org
them, voted in 2011 to reconnect with their Lutheran heritage. My teaching was part of beginning this renewal process. The more than 5 million Luther-
ans in Indonesia (more than the number of ELCA members) mostly live in North Sumatra. Another 1 million Indonesians are other Prot- estants in a nation that is nearly 90 percent Muslim. Wisely, the multiyear project of
recovering Lutheran roots focuses first on worship. It’s wise because we are formed in faith by the way we worship. It teaches us how to con- ceive of God and our relationships
Lutheran churches need to change? A major concern was an emphasis on preaching that diminished the sacrament of communion. The same imbalance of word and sacrament occurred in the U.S. as well, due in part to a scarcity of pastors during frontier settlement. Many Protestant churches in recent decades have worked to recover the practice of weekly communion. In my first week, I met with 33
representatives of the Batak people at the seminary in Siantar. The sec- ond week I visited Gunungsitoli on Nias Island, meeting with 56 pastors (a high percentage of area clergy) whose ancestors came from Tai- wan 1,600 years ago. Two cultures, two peoples, many churches, all Lutherans. In Siantar the pastors and
worship leaders were to write 17 liturgies, based on my teaching, for Sundays and occasional services like celebrating harvest, marriages, birthdays and Reformation Day. The liturgies will be published as a supplement to the worship book. Basa Hutabarat, executive secre-
tary of the LWF in Indonesia, asked me to cover topics including: • The fundamental Protestant (and especially Lutheran) focus on justifi- cation by grace through faith as the root of our worship. • The early history of worship and liturgical renewal since Vatican II in the 1960s. • Martin Luther’s emphasis on both word and sacrament, order and flexibility. • The ecumenical worship pattern—
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