Week in Review

Worship styles

Written April 11, 2006

How we worship within the local body has become a topic of heated discussions at times among believers. How should we worship? This is one of the questions on the minds of believers today. What is the correct way of worship?

When people think about worship, the thought is normally “what type of music” will we listen to? This is only one point in the worship service. Some people choose a place to worship based on similarities to themselves and what they are comfortable with. Therefore, some churches play music that they feel is suitable for their congregational makeup. It is not uncommon to find churches where rock music, gospel or contemporary music is selected as the worship music of choice. Are any of these choices wrong? The web site www.carm.org, posts an article titled The need for unity in the church states, “It is all right to have differences of opinion on the non-essential matters like worship styles…Whether you believe one or the other does not affect salvation. Yet far too many Christians use these non-essential differences as justification for division and sometimes even insight anger” (1).

On the website, www.reality.org, Julian Doorey the writer of the article titled, Christian Worship: Culturally relevant or Culturally Captive states, “Creating an intergenerational service is difficult. How do we provide church worship where everybody comes away feeling satisfied? Contemporary songs can leave the older people alienated, just as traditional songs can leave the teenagers and twenties totally bored. The worship leader has a tough job” (3). While several people suggest that the music needs to be changed to fit the times we live in, I do not completely agree with this.


While I understand that each generation has it’s own style of music, I do not believe the traditional hymns need to be put away because of it. As the body of Christ, we must teach the next generation the importance of the hymns of the faith. If you asked different people the reason why some of the hymns of the faith were written, you would have a difficult time getting an answer. Why would anyone hold something dear, that they do not understand? While I am not against using contemporary music or styles for the generation, I believe these time-honored songs should continue to be taught as well.

The differences in style are vast. Some churches sing congregational songs and some do not. Some churches have praise dancers or interpretive dance and others do not. On the website, www.AllAboutGOD.com it an article titled Christian Worship – Praise to God it states, “Christian worship begins with discovering and admitting what we have been worshipping in our lives. All us worship something, whether we know it or not. We may not physically bow down to it, or offer it songs of praise and adoration, but whatever we devote most of our time and attention to is often what we worship” (1). As believers, we need to understand why we go to worship. We come to worship God and his goodness. “Ezra praised the LORD, the great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded, ‘Amen! Amen!’ Then they bowed down and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground” (Nehemiah 8:6). The purpose of our worship is to praise God. It should not matter if it is done with piano, organ, drum or a bass guitar.

The site www.carm.org states, “The Christian church, as a whole, needs to repent. We need to look at ourselves. We need to look at our churches. We need to look at one another and decide that we will stand on the essential doctrines of the faith and that we will be united against the enemy. Those of us who are united by the blood of Christ are not enemies with one another whether we be Presbyterian or Baptist or Lutheran…Remember, it is the devil that wants us to fight each other so that he can be freed up to deceive the world. If we are fighting each other then we are falling prey to his tactics” (2).

Maybe my belief is to simple, yet I believe we spend too much time arguing about how we worship. On the web site, www.carm.org it states, “There is a time for division in the body of Christ. When an individual or a church group is denying clear scripture and remains unrepentant after being admonished, then it is time to break fellowship with that group” (1). Our differences in worship do not fall within these guidelines of separation. While I may not listen to rock music, I have no problem with worshiping with God’s people and watching them show their love for the Lord. In that arena, I would have no problem feeling the presence of God, regardless if the style is different that one I am accustomed to.


“Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness” (Psalm 29:2). When this is our motivation for worship, it should not really matter if our worship style differs from time to time. Sometimes our music may be more pleasing to the younger generation and at others it will be more appealing to the seniors. Let us simply come together with the heart of worship unto the Lord. In conclusion I take this quote from the website www.carm.org, “We need to look at our hearts and our own minds and compare them to Jesus and the Scripture. Where ever the two are not an agreement, it is we who need to change. We need to pray that the Lord would provide opportunities to work with other Christians across denominational lines. We need to recognize that we have differences of opinions and worship styles and that is okay. But we need to lift each other up and be united in Christ” (3). This is true worship, where we are called to worship in spirit and in truth.

Work cited

AllAboutGOD.com: Christian Worship – Praise to God. 2006. 12 April 2006. http://www.AllAboutGOD.com/christian-worship.htm.

Carm.org: The need for unity in the church. 2003. 12 April 2006. http://www.carm.org/church/unity.htm.

Reality.org.nz: Christian Worship: Culturally Relevant or Culturally Captive? Julian Doorey. 2006. 12 April 2006. http://www.reality.org.nz/article.php?ID=208.

Thompson, Frank Charles, D.D., PH.D. The Thompson Chain-Reference Bible, 5th ed. Indianapolis, IN: B. B. Kirkbridge Bible Co., Inc., 1988.