Lutheran Worship and Teens: How Proper Worship Education will Help to Keep our Young People in Church

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to answer the following questions: Will better education about Lutheran worship help keep teens in church in the long run? Will educating our youth at a young age about Lutheran worship help edify their worship and thus keep them in the church in the long run? How can pastors become involved in educating youth about worship? How can pastors help make an edifying worship service for teens and thus for everyone? This paper will answer those questions first by taking a brief overlook at the history of liturgical worship and how the Lutheran church has gotten to where it is today with public liturgical worship. Understanding why the majority of WELS worships the way they do will go a long way in reaching the goal. Then it will address how teens view worship today and how there is a lack of understanding about Lutheran liturgical worship through the use of reported surveys by WELS teens. Finally, this paper will address how churches and pastors within our synod can better educate the youth in Lutheran liturgical worship.