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WORSHIP
The Power of
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TERRY LAW With JIM GILBERT
PRAISE and
WORSHIP
The Power of
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Copyright 2008 Terry Law with Jim Gilbert
All rights reserved. This book is protected by the copyright laws of the United
States of America.This book may not be copied or reprinted for commercial gain or
profit.The use of short quotations or occasional page copying for personal or group
study is permitted and encouraged. Permission will be granted upon request. Unless
otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version.
Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Emphasis within Scripture quotations is the authors own. Definitions within text
are taken fromW.E.Vine, An Expository Dictionary of NewTestament Words (Old
Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1966). Please note that Destiny Images publishing style capital-
izes certain pronouns in Scripture that refer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and
may differ from some publishers styles. Take note that the name satan and related
names are not capitalized.We choose not to acknowledge him, even to the point of
violating grammatical rules.
DESTINY IMAGE
PUBLISHERS, INC.
P.O. Box 310, Shippensburg, PA 17257-0310
Speaking to the Purposes of God for this Generation and for the Generations to Come.
This book and all other Destiny Image, Revival Press, Mercy Place, Fresh Bread,
Destiny Image Fiction, and Treasure House books are available at Christian book-
stores and distributors worldwide.
For a U.S. bookstore nearest you, call 1-800-722-6774.
For more information on foreign distributors, call 717-532-3040.
Reach us on the Internet at www.destinyimage.com.
ISBN 10: 0-7684-2676-6
ISBN 13: 978-0-7684-2676-2
For Worldwide Distribution, Printed in the U.S.A.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 / 12 11 10 09 08
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Traveling the world with Terry Law for 15 yearsserving
first as a musician, and eventually as a worship leader for his
ministryI have personally experienced the life-changing mes-
sage found in The Power of Praise andWorship. Birthed out of per-
sonal triumph and deep personal tragedy,Terry shares profound,
yet simple truths in The Power of Praise andWorship that transcend
denominations, cultures, and generations. I believe this book will
change your life as it has mine.
Don Moen
Integrity Music Worship Leader
Terry carries Gods anointing and is a living example, and
leader, in The Power of Praise andWorship. His book is dynamic. Its
truths move me to God, and you will be moved, too.
Oral Roberts
Endorsements
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PART I
Introduction..............................................11
Chapter 1 Dark Night of the Soul ............................17
Chapter 2 The Crucible of Praise ..............................37
Chapter 3 War and Praise ..........................................57
Chapter 4 Spiritual Warhead: Gods Word ..................83
Chapter 5 Spiritual Warhead: Jesus Name ..................99
Chapter 6 Spiritual Warhead: Jesus Blood ................119
Chapter 7 Spiritual Rockets ....................................145
Chapter 8 Thanksgiving, Praise, and Worship............169
Contents
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PART II
Introduction............................................191
Chapter 9 That WhichWe Dont Speak Of ..............197
Chapter 10 The Sacrifice of Praise ............................225
Chapter 11 The Lifestyle of Praise ............................245
Chapter 12 The Confession of Praise ........................271
Chapter 13 Praise and Angels ....................................291
Chapter 14 Praise and Music......................................309
Chapter 15 TheVow of Praise....................................329
Chapter 16 The Pattern of Praise ..............................343
Epilogue..................................................359
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PART I
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In the spring of 1969 my friend, Larry Dalton, and I
concocted an idea that was radical for its time: we would use
contemporary music in evangelism. Seniors at Oral Roberts
University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, we assembled a few fellow
students and formed a band called Living Sound, that would
minister on weekends for the duration of the semester. Our
modus operandi was a one-hour concert of Larrys musical
arrangements, followed by my preaching, and concluding with
an invitation to follow Christ.
1969 may have been the year of Woodstock and hippies, but
electric guitars were a rarity on church platforms, and drums were
even rarer. (One pastor said we could use them, but only if we put
them in the baptistry behind the choir risers where no one could
see them.) Nevertheless, we determined to sing for anyone who
Introduction
byTerry Law
11
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would have us, as long as we could be back on campus for classes
by Monday morning.
Our call to full-time ministry and the nations came quickly,
and at the end of the semester we began itinerating across the
USA and Canada, raising funds through church concerts until
we had enough money to ship our equipment to the nation of
South Africa. Now we were going to be musicianaries!
1
Living Sound spent most of 1970 singing and preaching to
black, white, and mixed-race audiences in every town and city
across South Africas troubled landscape, to spectacular results.
We sang and proclaimed the Gospel in high schools, churches,
and rented auditoriums, from Johannesburgs Coliseum Theatre
to the Capetown City Hall, in many cases setting attendance
records that stood for years. Much more importantly, nearly
7,000 people committed their lives to follow Jesus, and the
South African church itself was rejuvenated, if not revolution-
ized, in its paradigm of worship and outreach.
The Hippie Movement came and went, but we kept going.
Over the next seventeen years there were as many as four Living
Sound teams traversing the world simultaneously. In November
1972, we made our first foray behind the Iron Curtain, into
communist Yugoslavia and Poland. In 1973, we launched a sec-
ond team with a four-month, nine-nation tour of Southeast
Asia, including the war zone inVietnam.
In 1978 we ventured into the Soviet Union for the first of many
missions. Two years later, while the United States and sixty-four
other nations boycotted the Olympics in Moscow, Russia, to
protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, we wrote and recorded
the official anthem for the games. The Soviets were desperate to
save face, and any American input was a plus for them, even if it
The Power of PRAISE and WORSHIP
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meant giving a Christian group some leeway.The gambit paid off,
and our exposure on Soviet television propelled our ministry all
over the Eastern Bloc.
In 1980 Pope John Paul II, who had loved us when he was a
Cardinal in Poland, invited us to sing to his Tuesday audience of
60,000 people at theVatican, heartily endorsing us and opening the
door for us to minister throughout the Roman Catholic world.
The darkest period of my life commenced in 1982 with the
sudden, accidental death of my wife, Jan. I entered a period of
indescribable loneliness, a time tunnel of grief, not knowing
that the eventual light at the end would bring me into an in-
credible revelation about praise and worship. The result was a
total paradigm shift in my approach to ministry, resulting in a
drastic modification in strategy for our teams. My music direc-
tor, Don Moen, threw out 90 percent of our repertoire and
began writing the praise songs for which he has since become
so renowned. Living Sound was transformed into one of the
worlds pioneer worship bands, fulfilling King Davids charge
to declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among
all peoples (Ps. 96:3). Again, the results were dramatic and
fruitful.Yet I sensed a change was coming.
By 1987, after our teams had ministered in at least 60 na-
tions on every continent but Antarctica, I realized that our
concert approach had run its course. I disbanded the teams,
and Living Sound became Terry Law Ministries. For a while I
continued conducting the praise and healing meetings that had
become our signature, with Don Moen leading worship from
the piano. Within a short time, however, it became clear that I
needed to release Don to fulfill his own expanding calling, and
he joined Integrity Communications Hosanna! Music as an
Introduction
13
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artist and producer. Don rose to new heights both spiritually
and professionally, eventually becoming president of the com-
pany before launching his own venture in 2008.
In 1992 Terry Law Ministries took the added name World
Compassion, as I replaced our musical strategy with one of hu-
manitarian aid. I saw that the wars and natural disasters that
plague so many needy nations presented us with an opportu-
nity not only to clothe bodies and feed hungry stomachs, but
also to distribute the true bread of life, the Gospel of Jesus
Christ, through thoughtfully designed literature. To that end I
commissioned a 16-page illustrated booklet, The Story of Jesus, a
kind of harmony of the Gospels with storybook illustrations. At
the time of this writing our ministry, in cooperation with oth-
ers, has distributed more than 270 million copies of that little
book, in 72 languages in dozens of countries, including Russia,
Vietnam, China, and Iraq. We have also distributed millions of
Bibles in several languages, including Russian and Arabic, in
various formerly closed nations. By coupling the gifts of these
Bibles with the distribution of food, medicine, and clothing, we
have found favor with various governments, as well as some of
the highest Islamic authorities.
This book was first released in 1985, before most of these ad-
ventures had taken place, and before the transformation of Living
Sound into World Compassion Terry Law Ministries. I intend to
tell many of these stories in the following pages. But there is one
story that, even with the passage of more than 25 years, I have not
been able to put into wordsthe accidental death of my wife, Jan,
in 1982, while I was overseas. Although in the first edition I al-
luded to it briefly, there were two reasons I did not delve into the
The Power of PRAISE and WORSHIP
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details of that tragedy. First, I wrote the book primarily as a teach-
ing tool, not an autobiography.
The second reason lay in the pain that I knew would be
dredged up with a fuller treatment. In one sense I had overcome
it, of course. Indeed that was the main reason I could write the
book. But the residue of pain often is the blur it leaves behind,
like a protective coating on the memory. To be honest, I could
not precisely recall the external details of those days, because of
the internal war I had fought.
In addition, I released the book during the period that coin-
cided with meeting and marrying my second wife, Shirley. I could
not have known that ten years later I would face a second devasta-
tion whose retelling would be equally impossible to convey.
There are, however, a few close friends who lived both stories
with my children and me, among them Jim Gilbert, a comrade in
arms for nearly 40 years. Jim was the youngest charter member of
Living Sound, and we have shared many formative experiences, in-
cluding those dark days more than two decades past.
Jim knows me well, and his remarkable powers of recall per-
suaded me that he should open both Parts I and II of this new
edition by chronicling what I could not.We have done this be-
cause everything I have learned about praise and worship to
God has been born out of these two episodes.
The following chapter is Jim Gilberts account of my dark-
est hour.
ENDNOTE
1. The term is not mine. As far as I can determine it was
coined by singer/missionary Bobby Michaels.
Introduction
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After yet another fitful night it was finally time for the memo-
rial service. Married for only 13 years, 39-year-oldTerry Law
was about to bury the wife of his youth.
Whos going to tell him? Do you want to, Jim?
No, David.You tell him. I dont think I can.
DavidWeir and I walked down the drafty, wood-floored hall-
way into the pitch black of Terry Laws upstairs room. Living
Sounds headquarters in western England was a former convent,
and its heavily treed countryside location made for dark and
quiet nights. As was Terrys custom after his transatlantic redeye
flight, he had stayed awake as long as possible before taking an
over-the-counter sleep aid that would keep him dreaming until
the sun rose on Greenwich mean time the next morning.
Dark Night of the Soul
17
Chapter 1
by Jim Gilbert
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Generation and for the Generations to Come
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