PUTTING AN END TO WORSHIP WARS - Elmer Towns

The pastor liked the Bible Expositional preaching he heard. The pastor's sermons back home
were shallow at best, so his hungry soul ate up the in-depth sermons. He bought hundreds of
dollars of sermon tapes. He returned home to cut back on his bus outreach, canceled Tuesday
night evangelistic visitation and quit giving altar calls at the end of his sermons on Sunday night
and Wednesday prayer meeting. He continued giving an altar call after his Sunday morning
sermon. He began preaching verse by verse through Matthew, during the next year. Since he
didn't know the original language, nor did he make use of Bible commentaries, his sermons were
still shallow. He didn't attract new people with his new form of preaching, as he expected. He
lost some of the old people who didn't like his new way of preaching. As the bus routes were cut
back, the workers left and joined a nearby evangelistic type church and their new church sent
them into the bus routes of the old neighborhoods. The Sunday School bus workers who
transferred out of the church, returned to recruit their friends, until there was no one left to work
the Sunday School bus routes. The bus ministry was closed and since there was no outreach, the
pastor stopped giving the altar call on Sunday morning. The church that had averaged 1,100,
now averaged a little over 200. Finances became tight and the facilities became shabby because
of deferred maintenance. The pastor was called to a California church seeking a Bible
Expositional minister.
Casualties: a church lost its neighborhood outreach, a pastor left his church and bus
workers became disillusioned with what was called "Bible Expositional" preaching.
THE GOSPEL SERVICE
A midwest Lutheran church followed the traditional Lutheran liturgy each Sunday, which
is classified as a traditional Liturgical Church. A young pastor brought in a "gospel" service, as
he called it during the Sunday School hour. It was held in the church gym with piano, instead of
the organ, and gospel songs instead of hymns. It was an informal, not liturgical, with testimonies
and various lay people participating in the service. The service in the gym had the blessing of the
church board members because they wanted to reach the young couples and this service did it.
The service flourished and the young couples brought their friends from other Lutheran
congregations in the metropolitan area. The pastor was happy, the young couples responded, and
the board was happy until young couples began leaving after the gospel service to go home.
Their children had studied the Bible in Sunday School and the young couples had worshipped in
the gospel service, so they got on with the activities of the weekend. The board did not consider
a gospel service an adequate replacement for the traditional Lutheran liturgy. When they
considered dropping the gospel service, several young couples threatened to leave the church and
attend a different Lutheran Church.
A denominational official was invited to help mediate the impasse. It was decided to
offer an early traditional Lutheran liturgy at 8:00 AM, a gospel service at 9:30 AM and another
traditional Lutheran liturgy at 11:00 AM. The board felt "timing" was the problem, so the young
couples could attend earlier, but most of them didn't. Many of the older Lutherans changed to
8:00 AM and a few of the younger changed with them. Today most of the worshippers attend
traditional liturgy at 8:00 AM and a large gospel service is conducted at 9:30. AM However,
over the years it has taken on the characteristics of a seeker service with a praise band, praise