"The Lord bless you and keep you.

The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you.
The Lord look upon you with favor and give you peace."
-- Benediction, Lutheran Service Book, "Divine Service, Setting Two", p.183

With these words, I completed my worship demonstration for P-140 (Worship I). After Matt (my partner) and I completed our turn, there were two more pairs from our team that still had to preside over the liturgy, but the hard part was over.

In order to pass this class, one must satisfactorily pass this assignment; there is no "averaging out" poor conduct on the worship demonstration; if the seminary cannot "let us loose in a congregation", they will not pass us. (It makes sense, but it "adds a little somethin-somethin" to the whole experience.)

At the beginning of the class period, we rolled dice to figure out what order our pairs would go in. Then we rolled dice to figure out which half of the service each person would preside over. In other words, you have to come prepared to preside over either half. Our team has worked very hard for the last week to learn the liturgy; my teammates and I were very well prepared.

I owe my Christian brothers and sisters at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Reston, VA a very big "thank you" for the year in which they allowed me to serve them by assisting in the liturgy. Although I had never conducted a number of the portions of the service or presided over worship in general, the experience of leading portions of the worship at GSLC made preparing for this task much easier.