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PUTTING AN END TO WORSHIP WARS - Elmer Towns

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The pastor liked the Bible Expositional preaching he heard. The pastor's sermons back home<br />

were shallow at best, so his hungry soul ate up the in-depth sermons. He bought hundreds of<br />

dollars of sermon tapes. He returned home to cut back on his bus outreach, canceled Tuesday<br />

night evangelistic visitation and quit giving altar calls at the end of his sermons on Sunday night<br />

and Wednesday prayer meeting. He continued giving an altar call after his Sunday morning<br />

sermon. He began preaching verse by verse through Matthew, during the next year. Since he<br />

didn't know the original language, nor did he make use of Bible commentaries, his sermons were<br />

still shallow. He didn't attract new people with his new form of preaching, as he expected. He<br />

lost some of the old people who didn't like his new way of preaching. As the bus routes were cut<br />

back, the workers left and joined a nearby evangelistic type church and their new church sent<br />

them into the bus routes of the old neighborhoods. The Sunday School bus workers who<br />

transferred out of the church, returned to recruit their friends, until there was no one left to work<br />

the Sunday School bus routes. The bus ministry was closed and since there was no outreach, the<br />

pastor stopped giving the altar call on Sunday morning. The church that had averaged 1,100,<br />

now averaged a little over 200. Finances became tight and the facilities became shabby because<br />

of deferred maintenance. The pastor was called to a California church seeking a Bible<br />

Expositional minister.<br />

Casualties: a church lost its neighborhood outreach, a pastor left his church and bus<br />

workers became disillusioned with what was called "Bible Expositional" preaching.<br />

THE GOSPEL SERVICE<br />

A midwest Lutheran church followed the traditional Lutheran liturgy each Sunday, which<br />

is classified as a traditional Liturgical Church. A young pastor brought in a "gospel" service, as<br />

he called it during the Sunday School hour. It was held in the church gym with piano, instead of<br />

the organ, and gospel songs instead of hymns. It was an informal, not liturgical, with testimonies<br />

and various lay people participating in the service. The service in the gym had the blessing of the<br />

church board members because they wanted to reach the young couples and this service did it.<br />

The service flourished and the young couples brought their friends from other Lutheran<br />

congregations in the metropolitan area. The pastor was happy, the young couples responded, and<br />

the board was happy until young couples began leaving after the gospel service to go home.<br />

Their children had studied the Bible in Sunday School and the young couples had worshipped in<br />

the gospel service, so they got on with the activities of the weekend. The board did not consider<br />

a gospel service an adequate replacement for the traditional Lutheran liturgy. When they<br />

considered dropping the gospel service, several young couples threatened to leave the church and<br />

attend a different Lutheran Church.<br />

A denominational official was invited to help mediate the impasse. It was decided to<br />

offer an early traditional Lutheran liturgy at 8:00 AM, a gospel service at 9:30 AM and another<br />

traditional Lutheran liturgy at 11:00 AM. The board felt "timing" was the problem, so the young<br />

couples could attend earlier, but most of them didn't. Many of the older Lutherans changed to<br />

8:00 AM and a few of the younger changed with them. Today most of the worshippers attend<br />

traditional liturgy at 8:00 AM and a large gospel service is conducted at 9:30. AM However,<br />

over the years it has taken on the characteristics of a seeker service with a praise band, praise

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