How Can I Keep From Singing?

For 26 months I had the joy and privilege of serving as the interim choir director at my beloved church. Not only did this season of life bring a new challenge to my life, but it also taught me much.  One of the lessons I learned caught me by surprise.  It wasn't so much the lesson itself, it was the passion the Lord birthed in me regarding the lesson.  Curious?

Before I can share the lesson with you, we've got to get something settled.  If you are a Christian, and I hope you are, attending church and becoming a committed member of a church is not optional.  This isn't my opinion, this is God's standard.  He commands us to be united with other believers.

And let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good works, not staying away from our worship meetings, as some habitually do, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.  Hebrews 10:24-25

A quick word search with my Strong's Concordance revealed that the original wording means "to abandon or desert" not just stay away from corporate worship.  That's pretty direct.  I'd love to go into the importance of belonging to a church and will do just that in a blog yet to come.  For now, let's understand that what is to come is directed at those who agree with God's Word in this area.

Music is a very emotional thing for most people.  People have likes and dislikes and sometimes folks aren't too shy in letting you know if you made them happy with your song choices or song arrangements.  I will admit that I fell into that camp.  In fact I remember a time when I, in the hubris of youth, told my minister of music how I felt about a particular song.  What did I hope to accomplish with that?  I don't know.  But his response was great.  He asked me if there was a theological problem with the text. There wasn't. So, it boiled down to the fact that I just didn't like the song.  He very bluntly told me that corporate worship wasn't about my preferences.  It wasn't even about me.  There are 6 other days of the week to scratch the musical itch.  How very true.  I could probably end this blog with those statements alone, but I won't.

As a trained classical musician I will be the first to admit that there are many legitimate musical reasons to dislike a song.  It seems the vast majority of pop music today (to include much P&W music) is insipid, poorly written and requires little to no skill to play or sing.  Yes, this bothers me.  The Lord calls us to come before Him with acceptable offerings, not whatever we could slap together in a pinch.  He also praises the skilled musician.  (Translation- someone who practices!) A quick survey of the history of Church Music reveals composers like Bach, Palestrina, Mendelssohn and Watts among other musical giants.  I don't exactly picture Bach sitting down and composing a 7-11 P&W chorus.  Can those choruses be worshipful? Absolutely.  But I think the danger with those repetitive songs is that they can also encourage the singer to mentally check out and mindlessly chant.  This isn't what God requires of us.

So, with that said, I will also say that if you are a member of a church and you don't care for the music, you are well within your rights to respectfully and lovingly approach the leadership and voice your concerns.  But I would encourage you to ask yourself a few questions first.
1.  Am I just unhappy because I don't like the style of the second song we sang yesterday?
2. Am I unhappy because we sang a new song and I had a hard time learning it?
3. Am I unhappy because we're not singing my favorite songs the way I want them?
4. Am I unhappy because the theological content of the song is not Biblical?

Clearly if your concern is #4, you must approach the leadership.  Aside from that, I would strongly urge you fellow believers to start to view corporate worship as something that is meant to encourage the church as a whole and be a blessing to the Lord rather than something that is meant to satisfy musical hungers. When we are looking to worship to satisfy a musical hunger, we are worshiping worship, not God. Believers must have personal worship time every single day, not just Sundays.  This is where you have the opportunity to sing all of your favorites in the style and key that you prefer. Corporate worship, and really all worship, is about blessing God. When we keep that fact present in our hearts and minds, suddenly we find ourselves less concerned and/or irritated with song choices because we don't care for the outer trappings of the song.

I love the text of Colossians 3:16-

Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Do you see what I see? I must confess that I didn't see it until recently.  Worship should teach and admonish. We don't use that word very much, do we?  Admonish.  A warning. And so we can glean that singing is both a method of blessing the Lord, but it is also a tool for relating rightly with each other, and for that gift, we should be thankful. And really, our God is so great and mighty, how can we keep from singing His praise?

Brethren, we have met to worship and adore the Lord our God...