Gottesdienst Now Has Three Training Videos. Three!

I suspect that most followers of Gottesdienst are only dimly aware of all that we have to offer, as they read the frequent blog posts, listen to the podcasts, and (hopefully) subscribe to the quarterly print journal.

But Gottesdienst has more than that, and it’s worth emphasizing.

We have instructional videos that provide in careful detail the rubrics and directions for the Divine Service. That’s plural, “videos,” because, as we indicated several weeks ago, just this summer we added the second training video we were hoping to produce for several years, since the first video was produced in 2016, and we also added a small altar guild video.

The 2016 video had a full contingent of Celebrant, Deacon, and Subdeacon, with acolytes and a server, for instructional use by pastors and seminarians. We knew that normal usage would have no need for many of the ingredients contained in that video, which shows an occasion of greater solemnity. We figured that smaller or simpler congregational settings could simply omit the things that didn’t apply to them.

But now the second training video is done, providing and detailing specific instructions for the Divine Service in a small congregational setting. It was recorded in the summer of 2022 at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Kewanee, Illinois. It is a regular Divine Service, for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity. Attendance that day was very low, in a congregation which is already small. That fact helps underscore our belief that even in such a case important details can be employed to increase the sense of dignity that is important for every Divine Service, no matter how small.

Moreover, this second video even has closed-captioning for the narration, to facilitate ease of study.

And as a bonus, we also added another short video to demonstrate the work of the altar guild. It’s essentially a manual for the altar guild in a video.

Best of all, these three videos are free, and may be accessed by anyone who has the internet. They’re right here.

While you’re at it, surf all around that “Training Videos & Educational Resources” section of our website. We even have several lectures and seminars on the liturgy there.

See? Gottesdienst has way more than you thought!