Worship: Part 4 – Musing about Church Music

One of our summer blessings is to hear a melodious chorus of songbirds from a nearby forest through the cool morning air.  Have you ever wondered how songbirds learn the distinct song of their species? 

Bird scientists (ornithologists) who have studied finches tell us that each baby finch learns its song in part through tutorial lessons from the parents (often the father bird).  The baby hears its parent sing and learns to mimic back the tune until it is perfected.  Even isolated finches will still produce innate (or “isolate”) songs, suggesting that their instinct to sing is powerfully “hard-wired” into the brain.

Apparently, each bird species learns its unique song by the combination of both experience (environment) and inherited genes.  If you’d like to learn how genes (DNA) code for the hard wiring of precise “song circuits” during brain development, check out the video “How Do Birds Learn to Sing?” by clicking HERE.  

What’s even more amazing is to realize how many different species of the Animal Kingdom can produce meaningful sounds, communication, and music.  For us as humans, our language, literature, and music are all important means of defining and maintaining our identity, our heritage, and our profession of what is important to us, especially our religious faith.

We Are Wired for Music and Worship
According to God’s revelation in Scripture, humans began crafting of instruments to make music within only a few generations from Adam and Eve (Genesis 4: 21-22).  Keith and Kristyn Getty, authors of the book, Sing! (2017, B&H Publishing) write, “Throughout Scripture and through history, we see God’s people using the gift of song to praise Him, the Giver of it.”  The central core of every Bible contains 150 psalms representing songs that have inspired worshipers ever since they were penned by David and other song writers.  For example, Psalm 66 begins with an exclamation that illustrates how the human heart and mind are wired to worship God through joyful musical expression:

Shout joyfully to God, all the earth;
Sing the glory of His name;
Make His praise glorious.
Say to God, “How awesome are Your works!

Based on what we learn from science about God’s creation (His natural revelation); and what we read in God’s special revelation in Scripture, we can conclude that humans are “wired for worship,” and “wired to sing.”  Music is a very important part of both our individual and congregational worship.  Like each bird species that uses its unique music to affirm its identity and social connections, so music of the Christian faith has served to call sinners to repentance and to unite Christ-followers under His banner of love to worship and serve their Savior.

Although both birds and humans can produce beautiful choruses of music, humans can outdo God’s animal creatures in being disharmonious and contentious.  For many evangelical churches today, the choice of congregational music can be controversial.  Why is there tension and contention about music when it can serve so well to unite people of faith?  To begin to answer this question, let’s review what all believers in Christ have in common.

Does the Bible Prescribe Church Music?
The Bible reveals that every person is born under the curse of sin and cannot please God apart from repentance and a “new birth” through faith in Christ (John 1: 10-14; Romans 8: 5-8).  “Born again” believers are set free from the bondage to sin and death through faith in Jesus Christ.  As Christ-followers, we can fulfill God’s purposes of loving, worshiping, and serving Him.  God has given us minds, emotions, lips, and voices to declare His praises individually and corporately (e.g.  Psalm 63: 1-5).  Indeed, a wonderful result of our being created in God’s image is that we can enjoy both our music and the act of creating it.  

When we combine our creativity with our appreciation of the beauty and message of music, the depth to which music helps us identify and rehearse what we believe and how it stirs our imaginations, we can understand why we tend to defend our music preferences.¹  But can we objectively defend our worship music preferences from the Scriptures?

Neither the Scriptures nor church history precisely endorse acceptable music styles, sounds, progressions of notes, or musical instruments.  George W. Forell writes:  The customs of the church have all been established by men. There are no God-given liturgical rubrics or directives for church architecture.  None of the hymns we sing are in the Bible, and the Holy Spirit did not compose “The Old Rugged Cross.” (From: The Augsburg Confession: A Contemporary Commentary)

According to the Old Testament, God gave His “chosen people,” the Israelites, very precise instructions for every aspect of the tabernacle, and later, temple and synagogue worship.  However, the New Testament, the foundation of the Christian Church, specifies almost nothing about the architecture for worship space, order of worship, number and frequency of church services, frequency of church ordinances, or types of musical instruments and style of music.  It’s as if God ushered in His age of grace through the Body of Christ and entrusted His blood-bought, Spirit-filled worshipers to use sound judgment and inspired creativity to compose and use the music that would most honor Him and edify His people.

In the absence of a clear “biblical mandate,” we believe the choice of music for worship falls under “personal preference” and Christian liberty.  But Christian liberty does not lessen responsibility of church leaders and musicians to choose worship music that accurately and beautifully presents God’s redemptive plan and purpose for His church.  Because God intends that worship should be an integral part of our work and our recreation, we should be asking what music among all the offerings these days best undergirds our faith and service to God. 

To answer this question, it may help if we review God’s intended purpose for His Church as outlined in Acts 2: 37-47 (See Table below; click to enlarge).  From these and other Scriptures, it is clear that in order for Christ-followers to worship and serve in a way that pleases God, the Holy Spirit must be welcomed among them.  When our hearts are submitted to God and bound together by the love of Christ, the Holy Spirit is free to do His work of teaching, convicting of sin, transforming lives, and bringing unity within the Body.

The fruit of the Spirit’s work in our hearts is wonderfully described in Colossians 3: 12-17; namely, holiness, compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearance of each other, and beyond all of these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.  Within this context of praiseworthy qualities, the Apostle Paul provides a general description of acceptable worship music in the context of the ministry of God’s Word through His Spirit:  Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God (v. 16). 

Theologians believe psalms refer to songs of the Old Testament Psalter, or those derived later from the Psalms; whereas, hymns are “songs that set forth the truth about God.  Spiritual songs are neither psalms nor hymns, but provide a biblically-solid, spiritual message.  What is clear from Paul's comment and from the rest of Scripture is that we must balance our worship between the subjective expression of our thoughts to God (Psalm 18: 1-2) and the objective revelation of God to us (Exodus 15:1; Deuteronomy 31:22, 30; 32:44; Revelation 15:3; 1 Corinthians 14:15)” (From: Trinity Bible Church-Dallas).

Beyond the general Scriptural principles cited above, there appears to be no specific prescriptions from God for the style of music, instrumentation, volume, or lighting for congregational worship.  But God has given us His Holy Spirit who is our Comforter and Counselor. The Spirit of God is also the inspiration behind the abundant lyrics already provided for us in the Psalms and from noted vocalists like Moses (Exodus 15: 1-18; Deuteronomy 32:1–43), Miriam (Exodus 15: 20-21), Hannah when God allowed her to conceive (1 Samuel 2: 1-10), Mary the mother of Jesus (Luke 1: 36-55), some of the Apostle Paul’s writing (e.g. Philippians 2:5-11, Colossians 1:15-20), and choruses the Apostle John heard from Heaven (Revelation 4: 8-11; 5: 9-14). 

From our brief survey of music in Scripture, we can see the important part it plays in both individual and corporate worship.  In order to bring our points together, we should now refer to what we have written earlier about worship.

Hearts and Minds to Worship
In Part 1, the first of three articles on the subject of worship, we considered how true worship ought to be an integral part of our daily lives.  Part 2 discussed how we ought to prepare for and conduct ourselves as a member of a “spiritual family” in congregational worship.  Finally, we considered how we can deal with inevitable tensions and contentions that arise (Part 3).  Our discussion from here on hinges greatly on these three articles. 

“Family Reunion”-- Hosts and Guests
In Part 2, “Value of Corporate Worship,” we compared a congregation gathered for worship to a joyous family gathering for a reunion.  Our main point was that family reunions are great if everyone does their part.  The hosts take responsibility to provide comfortable space and delicious food for the main course; food they believe will be pleasing to the most guests.  Meanwhile, each guest has the responsibility to bring a tasty covered side-dish and other assigned necessities, engage in conversation to encourage fellow guests, and express their thankfulness to the hosts. 

In the same way, God-honoring congregational worship requires thoughtful “hosts” and polite “guests.”  With respect to the worship music, the worship and song leaders serve as the “hosts” in partnership with the pastoral staff.  The “guests” are those who have come to worship, hopefully with hearts prepared beforehand to honor God, encourage the brethren, and “to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4: 2-4). 

Responsibilities of “Guests”/Worshipers
Let us consider first how we as “guests” ought to respond to the music and worship setting provided by the “hosts.”  First, we ought to pray that God will keep us from ever taking for granted the privilege of gathering with either our biological family or our spiritual family!   After all, we owe our physical lives to our family elders.  And, we owe our spiritual lives to Christ and His Spirit who called us out of spiritual darkness into the Light to be “born again” spiritually into “New Life” (2 Corinthians 4: 6; Ephesians 5: 8).  Every time we gather to worship, may our lives be sprinkled clean with Christ’s blood from known sin (Hebrews 10: 22) and ready to join with God’s people in singing and making melody with our hearts to the Lord (Ephesians 5: 19).” 

When Spirit-filled lives congregate and sing together songs and hymns of praise to God, individual personalities, life stories, ethnicities, and music preferences ought to be laid down at the feet of our Savior.  Individual preferences should give way to a unity of mind and spirit, all focused on God who alone is worthy of glory and honor and praise.  Even if we are not professional singers, when we join our voices to the “congregational choir” of praise, we are professing our faith, love, and devotion in word and song to one another and to God.  The following call to worship from Keith and Kristyn Getty is very convicting:

Our motivation to sing comes from so much more than ourselves-- our likes, our comfort levels, our musical tastes and preferences. Intrinsically, it's driven by the one who died and was raised. It is driven by a heartfelt desire to convey gospel truth to those of us who already know it and need to be refreshed and renewed by it--and to communicate it to those who don't yet know, but who might be drawn to Christ through seeing and hearing people who clearly mean it because of the way that they sing about it (Keith and Kristyn Getty, Sing! p. 22).

The text box below offers suggestions we have used to help prepare our minds and hearts before and during congregational worship.  We hope these will help you as we each strive make our worship more intentional, fulfilling, and God- pleasing.  Click on text box to enlarge.

One concern that we often hear voiced in opposition to contemporary songs is that they fall short of traditional hymns in providing a rich store of biblical truth and edification.  We believe this concern is justified with regard to some contemporary songs.  But the same might be said of some traditional hymns.  Nevertheless, in keeping with the suggestions above, we have asked ourselves, “Do we concentrate on the lyrics of the song in question to find Scriptural truth and respond to it?”  After all, if we were “guests” at a family reunion, wouldn’t we want to taste the “host’s” food before being critical?

May we each try harder to give careful attention to “new songs.” Allow God’s Spirit to help us find Scriptural Truth that is contained in the lyrics.  To illustrate what has been helpful to us, we are sharing below the results of our meditation on the lyrics of one of our favorite contemporary songs, “King of Kings” (Hillsong Worship).  Click on table to enlarge.

We imagine that if you were to meditate on these same lyrics, the Spirit might bring other Scripture verses and truths to mind.  Indeed, well written songs and hymns are marked by both the beauty of the musical score and the richness of Scriptural truths evident in the lyrics. Why not try meditating on and finding Scripture in one of your favorite contemporary praise songs or traditional hymns?  Or, you may want to continue what we started above by meditating on the lyrics of verses 3 and 4 of “King of Kings.”  We’d love to read your insights, so please send them though “Comments” below, or by e-mail. 

To listen to a video recording of  "King of Kings" as sung during worship at West Hill Baptist Church, Wooster, OH, click HERE.

Before we venture to discuss responsibilities of the “hosts” (pastoral staff and worship leaders), we should remember that the Scriptures command us to obey (Romans 13: 1-10; Hebrews 13: 17), submit (1 Peter 2:13-25), appreciate (1 Thessalonians 5: 12), highly esteem (1 Thessalonians 5: 13), and pray for (1 Timothy 2: 1-3) those in authority over you.  Hebrews 13: 17 states clearly our responsibility to pastoral leadership: 

Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.  

The Apostle Paul elaborates on this command in Romans 15: 5-7 using a vocal music metaphor.  He encourages us to be of the same mind toward one another…and with one voice, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…accept one another, just as Christ accepted us to the glory of God.  What better way for a congregation to express the unity of Spirit and submission to God and to His under-shepherds than when we, “with one voice, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?”

Responsibilities of “Hosts”/Worship Leadership
We begin this final section with a reminder, if it is not obvious, that we are not experts in music, or theology, or church leadership.  So, it is with even greater fear and trembling that we conclude this article by considering the responsibilities of song and worship leaders, the “hosts” in our “family reunion.”  We do not have “all the answers.”  Nor do we want to cause disunity, but rather to promote constructive dialog that God could use to bring understanding and unity in our worship.

To begin, we should note that Hebrews 13: 17 as quoted above addresses responsibilities of both the church and its pastoral leadership.  This important Scripture provides both commands and benefits as follows:
(a)  Command to the church:  obey them that have authority over you, and submit yourselves.
(b)  Benefit to the church:   for (your pastors) watch for your souls, as they that must give account…. 
(c)  Command (implied) to pastors:  watch for [their] souls, as [you who] must give account….
(d)  Benefit to pastors (from an obedient flock): so that you may do it with joy, and not with grief….  How much more tightly could God have interwoven the responsibilities of members of the Body of Christ to their pastors and the pastors to members?   As Christ-followers, we are to submit to God and to our pastors, and pastors are to give account to God for the quality of their shepherding of our souls.

Within the above framework of accountability, what are the responsibilities of the pastor as relates particularly to the song/worship leader or to an assistant pastor who leads worship?  Obviously, congregational music must honor God and His character and His plan of redemption through Christ as we have outlined above, in “Does the Bible Prescribe Church Music?”  Music must also honor Christ, His sacrifice, death, resurrection, and promised return.  Choice of songs and hymns to accomplish these goals, coordination of themes with the message from the Scriptures, and coordination with any closing challenge or invitation will require prior communication and coordination.¹

In view of the above considerations, it is crucial that both the leadership and the church bathe the planning and execution of each worship service in prayer.  This need is obvious when we consider the wide range of musical choices available and the varied needs and preferences within the congregation.  We believe that our analogy of the “hosts” at a family reunion is helpful as pastors or worship leaders seek to discern how best to minister to their congregation as “guests.” 

Below, you will find a few questions to highlight some of the considerations that many pastors and worship leaders address as part of their ministry as shepherds to “watch over the souls” of those who have chosen to worship and serve Christ as part of their flock:¹

Congregational Preferences:  As we constitute the worship service, will we consider input from the congregation in order to understand their preferences among music styles, worship formats, and instrumentation?

Generational Consideration: Should choice of songs, instrumentation, and worship format be considerate of the varied needs and preferences of a multi-generational congregation; for example, including praise songs that stir the hearts of many younger worshipers while including timeless hymns to reinforce the faith commitments of older members?

Historical Scope: How important is it for our worship to occasionally stretch worshipers beyond the focus of "what God is doing at the moment for me" to what God has done in past church history and what He promises to do in the future, all of this through great lyrics and music?

Worship Venue: How does choice of content, music style, tune, instrumental accompaniment, volume, and lighting contribute to the worship environment and complement the pastor’s message?

Variety and Congregational Involvement: How much priority should be given to using varied formats to enhance the purposes of  worship services and provide opportunities for more and varied congregational involvement in worship—e.g. occasional special music by  soloists, choral groups, choir; or, occasionally, the congregation singing acapella?

Worship Leader(s): How can the participation of song or worship leader(s) promote active participation of the congregation in worship and focus the worshipers’ attention on Christ while discouraging the congregation from becoming passive observers who focus on the worship leader(s) and their musical skills?

New Songs: To improve congregational singing, is it worthwhile to invest time during worshipto teach new songs, explain the importance of their message, and reinforce learning with frequent repetition?

Conclusion
As we conclude our discussion of music for worship by God’s people, we should remember the reference of Proverbs 6: 6-8 to the lowly ant which (emphasis ours),
Without a commander,
without an overseer or ruler,
it prepares its provisions in summer;
it gathers its food at harvest.

We might also say, “Consider each songbird species which, without even having a song leader or worship pastor, they consistently and harmoniously sing the unique song that declares who they are (e.g. song sparrow, robin) while they offer up praises to God their Creator.” Likewise, may we as the people whom God has called out of darkness into His marvelous light realize what great debtors we are to God's grace.  In light of who we are, how can we help but sing praises to God our Savior?  

As part of our worship, may we submit ourselves respectfully to our pastor and worship leaders as those who watch out for our souls and who themselves must give account to God.  And may our regular “church family” gatherings here on Earth become more and more like a pleasing prelude to our worship and ministry in the New Heaven and New Earth.  There, many of us will sing to our Great God and Savior, maybe for the first time “on key.”  Until then, each of us ought to do our part in making our church gatherings for worship to be among the most harmonious places on this fallen Earth--both by our musical harmony and by our expressed love toward one another.

Care to Comment?
How has this article affected your thinking about music in congregational worship?  Hopefully, it is evident that we have written in a spirit of humility and with a desire for harmony--both musical and spiritual.  Because we are neither musicians nor theologians, we can use your help.  Please take time to use the “Comment” link below where in the past readers have added much to the value of an article.  Or, if you’d like to comment privately, just email to silviusj@gmail.com   Thank you for reading.

Sources:
¹ Some of the thoughts within this sentence were inspired from Sing! by Keith and Kristyn Getty. 2017, B&H Publishing.

² Song Sparrow photo used by permission, Mike Lentz Nature Photography, https://www.facebook.com/MikeLentzNaturePhotography