The Chief Divine Service

Earlier this week CPH released a very impressive title: The Chief Divine Service by Friedrich Lochner. 

Friedrich Lochner is a founding father of the Missouri Synod (You can read about him here.).

CPH blurb for the book

Friedrich Lochner wrote one of the best studies on the Chief Divine Service for the Lutheran Church. His work in liturgy and hymnology as a founding father of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, was foundational to worship life in the LCMS. A full manuscript of his work in English, including the part on music in the liturgy, has never been released in one book before now. This foundational work should be read by all: from theology students and pastors to musicians and lay people.

This authoritative translation includes all of Lochner’s original material, including practices that may no longer be observed in modern culture. Original page numbers have been kept to allow for easy reading alongside the original German text. Translations of liturgical texts have been adapted to the wording of Lutheran Service Book, with some notations to allow the reader to see differences between the source material and translation.

Lochner demonstrates that the great Lutheran liturgy is catholic, lively, diverse, and doctrinally and biblically rich. He is in sympathy and dialogue with Luther, early Lutherans, great contemporaries like Löhe and Rudelbach, with the ancient church and her theologians, with Roman Catholics, and many others.” -President Matthew Harrison from the Foreword

I care about the chief divine service! That’s enough to get it on my Christmas list, but, wait, there’s more!

A glowing review from Rev. Will Weedon

I do not exaggerate: this is the book that I have been looking for in vain for years. It is the definitive book on the classic historic Lutheran liturgy, where that liturgy is grounded in complete continuity with what came in the centuries before. Lochner’s work shows how the liturgy was purified at the Reformation and then offered to the Church in the service of the Gospel. In Lochner, the liturgy lives and breathes; it is manifestly not some museum artifact but a richly ordered way for the people of God to feast upon the twin gifts that constitute the Chief Divine Service: the Word and the Holy Sacrament.
 
All lovers of Lutheran doctrine and liturgy and music will want this book on their shelves, and they will all be grateful to Matthew Carver, yet again.
Rev. William Weedon St. Paul Lutheran Church, Hamel, Illinois
AWESOME! Yay yay yay! Available from CPH here.
 
(Affiliate links used for CPH & Amazon)
 

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