PUTTING AN END TO WORSHIP WARS - Elmer Towns

linded and fell at the feet of Jesus (Acts 9:). Solomon stood in the temple (II Chronicles 6:12).
David sat in the Tabernacle (II Samuel 7:18). John fell on his face (Revelation 1:17). The
church elders knelt (Acts 20:36). The Bible doesn't tell how to worship, but exhorts us to
worship with our hearts, hands, voice, mind, heart . . . with our total prayers, confession of sin,
Scripture, affirming our faith, etc.
Obviously, I do not think that any one worship paradigm is the only expression, or that
any one is better than another. They all express aspects of biblical methods or means.
In some cultures, a certain worship paradigm may express worship for a certain group of
people better than another, and throughout history, some different worship paradigms seem to
have been more effective than at other times.
6. Various reflections of worship may be characteristic by different times in a
persons' life. Most people go through phases of life when they express their Christianity
differently than at other times. There may be times when we spend more time in the Word of
God, at another time we spend more time in prayer, and still at other times we feel a need to sing
hymns and worship God. This recognizes the fact that we have changing needs, we grow in our
understanding, as well as develop our emotional response to life. Because we have different
spiritual needs, we will take advantage of different ministries from God to help us meet those
needs. At times we need to reach out in obedience to the Great Command, "Love . . . our
neighbor as we love ourself." At this time The Body Life service may better reflect our spiritual
need better than anything else, so we grow in that type of church. Later, when we feel lethargy in
our growth, we may need the excitement of The Renewal Church. And still later in life as we
become more mature in our understanding, we want to become more involved in the life of our
local church, so we move toward The Congregational Church form of worship.
Let us be careful about telling others that their experience is wrong or less effective
because it is different from ours. It may be that God is using a certain experience to minister to a
person in a certain time in his life. Later, he may have a different need and express his Christian
worship differently.
7. The standardization of worshipping experiences in churches is a result of the
gravitation of people with similar needs toward one another, so that they colonize together to
meet their need. Larry Gilbert describes the colonization of spiritual gifts where people with
similar spiritual gifts attend a church where gifts similar to theirs are honored and exercised.
Those with the gift of teaching tend to go to a Bible Expositional Church, and those with the
spiritual gift of evangelization go to The Evangelistic Church. The same thing happens with the
gift of exhortation, those with that gift attend The Renewal Church, while those with the gift of
mercy-showing might go to a church where their leader is a mercy-shower, i.e. a facilitator of
koinonia; and their need of relationship is reciprocally given to others and accepted from them.
They attend a Body Life Church. This does not mean that one church is better than another; it
means that one church has a different ministry to the different needs of individuals, perhaps
they're in different phases of their lives.