“If Matthew Carver’s translation of Friedrich Lochner’s The Chief Divine Service left you hungering and thirsting for more goodies in English from that finest liturgiologist of the early Missouri Synod, the volume you hold in your hands now will certainly satisfy that hunger and thirst.

“Lochner spreads a veritable feast before you for nearly every occasion where the pastor is expected to serve up the Word. Of course, the Mass is central (and he offers some more thoughts on that too!), but it does not exist in isolation. Put together at the request of his fellow pastors, Lochner again ransacks the Church Orders to present an Agenda that draws upon the vast wealth of our Church’s liturgical tradition for occasional services. Here you will discover ceremonies ranging from consecration of cornerstones and organs and churches, to ordinations and installations; from the children’s Christmas Service (delightedly catechetical!) to an order for Good Friday; from Baptism and Marriage to excommunication and private confession at Vespers. The list goes on and on! And with it all he includes a fine collection of prayers and collects.

“Liturgical Forms is truly the 19th century’s Pastoral Care Companion. Yet again, we find ourselves deeply in Matthew Carver’s debt as he continues to bring into English important works that give us vital insights into the lex orandi of the Lutheran Church.”

William Weedon, Assistant Pastor
St. Paul Lutheran Church, Hamel IL
Catechist on LPR Podcast: The Word of the Lord Endures Forever
A Daily, Verse-by-Verse Bible Study with the Church, Past and Present www.thewordendures.org

Liturgical Forms represents the latest stage in bringing Friedrich Lochner’s works into English, which was begun by Matthew Carver’s translation of The Chief Divine Service (2020). It shows the other facets of the liturgical life of the early Missouri Synod and particularly the interest in and desire for suitable and historically justifiable rites drawn from old, orthodox Lutheran sources.

It is comprised of two parts: first, the Liturgical Forms, a work originally published in 1895 as a compilation material (rites, prayers, etc.) from Lochner’s liturgical journal; second, shorter liturgical works that were published separately, including an order of service for Good Friday, an order for a children’s Christmas program, and a pamphlet called Feasts and Usages, a sort of explanation of the differences between Lutheran and Roman Catholic liturgical practices. Find the Table of Contents here.

This is an excellent resource for those interested in liturgy and the history of the Missouri Synod and of Lutheranism in America, providing the reader with ample reason to appreciate and thank God for Lochner’s faithful work and Carver’s superb translation.

“Matthew Carver, having translated Friedrich Lochner’s splendid study, “The Chief Divine Service of the Evangelical Lutheran Church,” has again put us in his debt by providing us with a translation of Lochner’s work on the Occasional Services, together with a children’s service for Christmas and a service for Good Friday. Lochner does not create services out of whole cloth but, relying on his deep knowledge of the Church’s liturgical treasures, presents us with works well grounded in that heritage.”
Pr. Charles McClean – Our Savior Lutheran Church, Baltimore, MD

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Friedrich Johann Carl Lochner (1822–1902), born in Nuremberg, came under the influence of Wilhelm Löhe and moved to America, where he served as a Lutheran pastor and an instructor focusing on liturgics. During his time here, co-founded a teacher’s school in Milwaukee, WI, and was a professor at the seminary in Springfield, IL. Meanwhile, he edited and published a liturgical monthly, Liturgische Monatsschrift (1884–1886) to supply pastors with liturgical forms, prayers, and information lacking in the available agendas. Besides liturgical works he also published the polemical Notwehrblatt, which opposed Grabau, two devotional works for Passiontide and Easter, and a series of Epistle sermons.

Matthew Carver, a freelance translator specializing in German and Latin, lives in Nashville, TN, with his wife Amanda, a graphic designer, and their two sons Edward and Alfred.

We are pleased to announce that The Conduct of the Service is currently in the process of being reprinted. We’ll have more information soon on an expected release date. In the meantime, pre-order now to save 10% and be among the first to receive a copy from the new print run.

Gathering together works from Dr. Arthur C. Piepkorn and Rev. Charles McClean, this book is an invaluable resource for conducting the liturgy of the Church as it serves to teach reverence and encourage uniformity and beauty in worship.

The following is an excerpt from the first section, entitled “Notes on Reverence”:
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There is really only one basic rule of good form: “Be courteous!” And similarly there is really only one basic rule of altar decorum: “Be reverent!” Every other rule is simply a practical amplification of this basic charge.

To be reverent we must first of all be humble. We are ministers — ministers of Christ, serving Christ in the room and in the name of fellow-sinners. We minister not because of any virtue in ourselves. Our sufficiency is of God. We minister as temples of the Holy Ghost, as being bound in sacramental union to the Lord of the Church, as kings and priests living in mystic communion with the Most Holy Trinity, as those whom Christ has chosen that we might be with Him and that He might send us forth to preach (St. Mark 3, 13). We minister under the aspect of eternity and in the Presence of the Divine Majesty. Wherever we stand, we are on holy ground. In such a ministry there is no room for pride, only for all-pervading humility.

To be reverent we must be prepared. We must know what we are doing, and why we are doing it. The physical preparations, as far as may be, should be taken care of well in advance. There should be no last-minute running to and fro, no hasty final preparation, no distressed paging about. A meditation, brief if need be, but as long as the time permits, ought never to be overlooked; spiritual preparation is more essential to reverence than the proper ordering of the physical adjuncts.

To be reverent we must be calm. The unforeseen, the accidental, the disturbing must not be permitted to distract us. We are God’s ambassadors and God’s servants. We are speaking for and to God. Our entire lives ought to be, and our public ministry must be en Christo – in Christ! So must the calm peace of the changeless Christ in our souls be reflected in our outward demeanor.

-Dr. Arthur C. Piepkorn, p. iii

Share the good news of our Savior’s birth with Christmas cards that combine stunning imagery with words of Scripture and beloved hymns.

Savior (left) shows the infant Christ standing on the lap of the Virgin Mary, who gently receives her child’s embrace. We see St. Joseph through the archway. This 17th-century painting by Italian artist Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato is a tender portrayal of the bond between mother and son. Yet this Son is the Savior of the world, as is echoed in the inside greeting: “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21).

Glory to God depicts an oil on canvas painting, “Seeing Shepherds” by Daniel Bonnell. The inside text echoes the cover with a stanza from “O Come, All Ye Faithful”:

Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation, Sing, all ye citizens of heaven above! Glory to God in the highest; O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!

As Mr. Bonnell explains, “This is the nativity from the perspective of the viewer. The viewer becomes one of the shepherds as you witness an army of angels leading to the nativity.” The angels appear to the humble shepherds standing among their herd of sheep, filling the sky with brilliant light and pointing to the manger in Bethlehem.

As with all of our Christmas cards, this design is exclusive to Emmanuel Press.