2012 Seminar | A Liturgy for the Dying

June 27, 2013

Don Saliers, who convened this session, wrote, “It was a great privilege to be working closely with a great pastoral team from Lake Chelan Lutheran Church in Washington State.  They have been listening carefully to people in their church who face death or who care for the dying, and to members of the larger Chelan community who have begun to turn to this congregation when death draws near.  Their project involves creating a book of prayers, songs, and related resources to be used by laypersons involved in this ministry of visiting those who are dying.  They do not see this as a stand-alone ministry but as a practice that is deeply related to their worship and to the ministry of the Catechumenate that prepares new Christians for baptism.  They are asking hard questions about life and death and how Word, baptism and Eucharist draw us into the life and death of Christ, our own death, and the death of our neighbors.  The pastor, musician, and artist who represented this congregation at ISM led the entire seminar in pondering crucial questions that surround decisions about the shape of the book they are creating.  After the team presented the scope and aim of the project, we explored ritual, musical and artistic resources, including materials from the Saint John’s Bible and the work of John August Swanson. Then the entire seminar focused on the process of creating a liturgical book that will be at once aesthetically and theologically “strong, loving and wise.”   What range of different pastoral situations can one book address?  What can beauty, and the quality of the book’s production, contribute to its pastoral use?  What music and prayers should be included?  How might such a resource serve indirectly as a catechetical resource as well as a ritual book to accompany their ministries? Click below to see the full student report for this congregation: