It was a long time coming, but we’re pleased to announce that it’s finally here. Our second video of a Divine Service with fully detailed rubrical instructions given as a voice-over while the video covers these parts of the service to demonstrate what is being explained.

In 2016 when we made our first instructional video like this, the Form of the Divine Service, it was with a full contingent of Celebrant, Deacon, and Subdeacon, with acolytes and a server, for instructional use by pastors and seminarians. We explained at the time our thinking behind preparing such an elaborate setting: We determined that it would be better to prepare the video the way we did because smaller or simpler congregational settings could simply omit the things that didn’t apply to them, whereas had we prepared and shown a smaller setting, important rubrics dealing with the greater setting would have been excluded altogether.

But we were aware that this would mean that most congregational settings that wanted or needed rubrical instructions and demonstrations would be disregarding much of what’s in the video as not applicable to them. This awareness quickly led to hopes that we could prepare another video specifically for such smaller settings.

Those hopes have been realized, and the video is now available:

The Form of the Divine Service in a Small Congregational Setting.

It provides and details the form of the Divine Service in a small congregational setting with only Celebrant, Sub-deacon, and one server, with an encouragement to all congregations, no matter how small, to set this goal for their celebration of the Divine Service. Consider the fact that this video was recorded in the summer of 2022 at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Kewanee, Illinois, on a normal Sunday in summer, when attendance is lower at a congregation which is small in the first place. If this size of congregation can do it, certainly it is doable, as this video demonstrates.

But if the congregational setting is such that there are neither subdeacon or acolyte are available (or yet available), the video is easily still handy, and the instructions simply include such suggestions as this: “The celebrant may process alone, in which case there would be no processional cross or Gospel book in his lone procession, as it would not be fitting for the celebrant himself to carry either of these. If the congregation has them, they would be put away in the chancel beforehand.”

Further on in the instructions is also this: “Although this particular congregation is small, and especially so on this particular summer Sunday, it nevertheless has been able to include a procession with both crucifer and subdeacon who are carefully trained by the pastor, and it is our recommendation that even for the smallest of settings the goal of having both should be considered. If possible, the subdeacon should be vested in a tunicle, to indicate his office, with pattern and fabric matching the celebrant’s chasuble.  Yet even where full vestments are not available, and if the subdeacon must wear a simple cassock and surplice, the use of reverent assistants does much to aid in providing a small setting with a great sense of dignity.”

Our hope and prayer is that this will serve as another aid to our churches, pastors, and seminarians in much the same way as the first video was (which received high reviews). It is free and readily available online.