ABSTRACT

For thousands of years, the Church has struggled with inclusive worship, with certain groups of people being favored over others. The culture in which believers exist in creates a fishbowl effect and influences the occasion for worship as a contention over personal tastes, rather than a reflection and catalyst for the unification of believers. In light of this, how might the concept of God’s impartiality affect the way a minister plans worship? In order to answer this question, a worship minister will need to create a theology of worship that focuses on the unifying aspects of worship. This presentation proposes to do just that. There will first be an exegesis of the partiality displayed during the Eucharist of the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34. This exegesis will aid in acknowledging the fact that worship has always been initiated in the midst of disunity, even since the beginning of the Christian Church. Secondly, the theology of the Trinity will be engaged in order to discover how God’s characteristics inform worship and to show the incompatibility of partiality in light of God’s nature. Historically, Philip Spener and the Pietist movement will provide the essence of a system of Godly discernment for ensuring ministers and lay-leaders are ultimately chosen for the unity of the greater congregation so that impartiality is present from places of servant-leadership. Finally, a set of prescriptions will be submitted from the conclusions drawn from the scriptural, theological, and historical sections. This will ultimately create a thoughtful response to the problem of self-pleasing partiality in contemporary American churches.