PUTTING AN END TO WORSHIP WARS - Elmer Towns

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In 1969 I published the book The Ten Largest Sunday Schools and What Made Them Grow. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House). C. Peter Wagner of Fuller Theological Seminary calls this the first American Church Growth book and the first book focusing on the mega church movement. What made this book unique, was that I formed a data pool of 10 churches, i.e. ten case studies from which I drew conclusions. Since Church Growth is a discipline that is committed to a study of the planting, growth and death of churches with a view of establishing growth principles; in this book I establish many principles by which these 10 churches grew. It immediately became a best seller and according to Robert Walker, Editor, Christian Life Magazine, "Hit the evangelical world like a thunderclap . . ." In a day when everyone thought the church should be small and mass media thought the church was dying; The 10 Largest Sunday Schools demonstrated that churches were alive and well in heartland America. Previously, I had worshipped God in several ways. I knew there was a difference between the Evangelistic Church, the Liturgical Worship Church, the Bible Expositional Church, and the Body Life Church I experienced among the Plymouth Brethren in St. Louis. Even though I experienced these in my heart and had these church types in my head, I had not yet classified them. When I studied The 10 Largest Churches, I described each church as an Evangelistic Church. In the early days of Church Growth, I assumed that a church had to be an Evangelistic Church, to be a growing church. While that was an early assumption of mine, I slowly changed my mind. And how did my mind change? During the seventies, John Vaughan and I were preparing a manuscript that was later called The Complete Book of Church Growth, by <strong>Elmer</strong> <strong>Towns</strong>, John Vaughan and David Seifert, (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1979). Our intent was to write a book that would be a complete list of all of the principles that would grow a church. The only problem as we began to write out our principles, we faced data that was confusing to us. We found Bible Expositional churches that were growing, yet didn't have soul-winning visitation, altar calls, Sunday School bus visitation, or any of the other principles that we saw in the growing Evangelistic Churches. So we decided there were two different types of church growth. First, the Evangelistic Church growth principles and second the Bible Expositional Church growth principles that were evident in men like John MacArthur, Chuck Swindoll, and later in Bible teachers such as Charles Stanley. At first John Vaughan and I thought Pentecostal churches grew when they became Evangelistic churches like Independent Baptist or Southern Baptist. We felt a Pentecostal church had to be committed to soul-winning to grow. But our research revealed churches that were growing because of renewal, revival, and excitement. A Pentecostal pastor once said to me, "When I was a boy I used to think that church should have camp meeting every Sunday." He determined that when he became a pastor that he
would not preach boring Pentecostal sermons, but would have "camp meeting" every Sunday morning where people could touch God and God could touch them. The excitement of worship produced growth, not an outreach program. At first John Vaughan and I gave this the title Charismatic Renewal, then we began to find Southern Baptist churches, Independent churches, and other denominational churches that embraced renewal worship services but were not charismatic in theology or practice. We finally concluded that there were six types of worship services. Originally, we gave the six types of worship services titles that were theological or prescriptive in nature. These titles were printed in the Complete Book of Church Growth. 1. Fundamentalism, 2. Body Life 3. Charismatic Renewal 4. Evangelical Bible Churches 5. Southern Baptist 6. Mainline Denominations. These titles were too theological or denominational in focus. We needed to make them more descriptive of what they did in evangelism and worship. There were many churches that followed the Southern Baptist approach but did not belong to the Southern Baptist Convention. Then we found among Southern Baptist churches, all six worship styles. Also, we found that the theological titles became barriers to people. Therefore with time, the titles changed to: 1. The Evangelistic Church instead of Fundamentalism, 2. Body Life remained the same, 3. The Renewal Church instead of Charismatic Renewal, 4. The Bible Expositional Churches rather than Evangelical Bible Churches, 5. Congregational Churches rather than Southern Baptist Churches, and 6. Liturgical worship instead of Mainline denominations. Obviously, Fundamentalism reflected a certain theological stance, whereas the Evangelistic church reflected those congregations that focused on soul-winning and outreach. At the same time, I found many churches fundamental in position that were not evangelistic in nature, and many churches of other theological persuasion, that were in fact evangelistic.
Page 1 and 2: PUTTING AN END TO WORSHIP WARS By E
Page 3 and 4: INTRODUCTION Since this is a book a
Page 5 and 6: True worship involves change and it
Page 7 and 8: under Martin Luther was a reformati
Page 9 and 10: these names represented a sect, an
Page 11 and 12: A similar variety of consumer optio
Page 13 and 14: SIX WORSHIP STYLES 1. The Evangelis
Page 15 and 16: The pastors told me they had not ch
Page 17 and 18: The Liturgical Church eagerly carri
Page 19 and 20: The average Christian knows about a
Page 21 and 22: So, let's learn what we need to kno
Page 23 and 24: young people from my church were co
Page 25: Dallas taught me to preach differen
Page 29 and 30: The third question I ask my student
Page 31 and 32: CHAPTER THREE RESEARCH TO DETERMINE
Page 33 and 34: that no man could count, from every
Page 35 and 36: outwardly committed to the process
Page 37 and 38: 2. Church Planting. At the beginnin
Page 39 and 40: METHODOLOGY APPLIED TO WORSHIP How
Page 41 and 42: CHAPTER FOUR WORSHIP WARS The churc
Page 43 and 44: The pastor liked the Bible Expositi
Page 45 and 46: Whether people disagree because of
Page 47 and 48: that help them cope with their prob
Page 49 and 50: society is apparently retreating fr
Page 51 and 52: 4. New worship forms have robbed th
Page 53 and 54: The ultimate question that some wou
Page 55 and 56: elationship with God we've been tal
Page 57 and 58: in evangelism are effective in maki
Page 59 and 60: soul-winning and reaching every ava
Page 61 and 62: have not been trained. Others fail
Page 63 and 64: While some expository preachers ten
Page 65 and 66: CHAPTER SEVEN THE RENEWAL CHURCH Ev
Page 67 and 68: demonstrated in that miracles are o
Page 69 and 70: most human needs can be met in a va
Page 71 and 72: musical instruments including piano
Page 73 and 74: ut the time is getting late. I thin
Page 75 and 76: pastor to emerge as a leader. Also,
Page 77 and 78:
Church. This includes ministries su
Page 79 and 80:
CHAPTER NINE THE LITURGICAL CHURCH
Page 81 and 82:
the sanctuary and challenged the pe
Page 83 and 84:
individuals. Those gifted in this m
Page 85 and 86:
strengths of this worship style int
Page 87 and 88:
CHAPTER TEN THE CONGREGATIONAL CHUR
Page 89 and 90:
This view of the church and ministr
Page 91 and 92:
THE STRENGTHS AND CONTRIBUTIONS OF
Page 93 and 94:
He has given them to accomplish wha
Page 95 and 96:
The critical group usually attacks
Page 97 and 98:
Therefore, the question becomes one
Page 99 and 100:
However, this does not mean that ex
Page 101 and 102:
experience. Those attending The Bib
Page 103 and 104:
What are some changes in worship me
Page 105 and 106:
3. Recognize the strengths of the c
Page 107 and 108:
THE FUTURE OF WORSHIP 1. A thirst f
Page 109 and 110:
This involves kneeling at the altar
Page 111 and 112:
Churches will use more video filmed
Page 113 and 114:
The New Testament is different unli
Page 115 and 116:
ADMINISTRATION, GIFT OF APPENDIX ON
Page 117 and 118:
areas. 4. Bridging - growth of the
Page 119 and 120:
fellowship of a local church. Those
Page 121 and 122:
RENEWAL CHURCH A unique worship sty
Page 123 and 124:
of the relationship between worship
Page 125 and 126:
The Use of Proskuneo in the New Tes
Page 127 and 128:
APPENDIX THREE CHRISTIAN LEADERS ON
Page 129 and 130:
Worship is the exercise of the mind
Page 131 and 132:
Dawn, Marva. Reaching Out Without D
Page 133 and 134:
Morgenthaller, Sally. Worship Evang
Page 135:
Sermons on worship from various 19t
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PUTTING AN END TO WORSHIP WARS - Elmer Towns

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