Have you ever attended a service celebrating a minister who’s stepping down after many years of service? I heard this tribute that one speaker gave during such an event.
‘Listening to the congregation today, you have clearly taught us all to sing!’
It’s a strange compliment, perhaps, but an insightful thing to say, for you can tell a lot by the singing of a congregation. There’s an old story of a king who asked his stewards to go round the towns and villages to listen to the singing of the people. If the singing was healthy and joyful, so was the town. If the singing was feeble or mournful, then the king knew there was serious malaise within the community.
JOY
Congregational singing enables the local church to express one of the key marks and fruit of the Christian life—joy. ‘Joy’, wrote C.S. Lewis, ‘is the serious business of heaven’. Joy—that is, rejoicing, exulting, and praise . . . is the proper expression of the human heart when it sees with clarity the magnitude, certainty, and permanence of our salvation.
But often ‘the music’ is a cause of conflict in church, and the minister knows this more than anyone. Whether it’s working with a music director and band or just a pianist/organist, there is often a struggle over songs and hymn selection. It could be over a new song, or the lyrics, or the placing of the song in the service.
And there is one other significant–and often unrecognised–factor. Our own sense of self.
BEWARE YOUR OWN IDENTITY
If the minister’s identity is wrapped up in how well the service goes, then that comes out in tell-tale ways. When I was pastor of a large church, my friends noticed how often I felt the urge, mid-service, to go to the back and fix the PA system! Similarly, a musician’s sense of self-worth can be affected by a request to play a difficult piece of music or a song that requires a challenging musical style. When a musician’s vulnerabilities are exposed, we have a recipe for frustration and anger.
THE PURPOSE OF MUSIC
So, it’s worth asking the following question. What, biblically, is the aim of congregational music?
One answer is provided by Eugene Peterson.
Music enables a congregation to be attentive to God.
We are moved from our own preoccupations to look to the one who made the heavens and the earth, our Redeemer and Saviour.
But there is a horizontal connection too. Recently, after a service, someone complained, ‘I simply couldn’t hear the congregation sing!’ My mind went back to the services I attended as a child with my father in the RAF Wattisham chapel. It’s now a museum. Even on parade days, my father and I and the Station Commander were the only ones making a sound. ‘How can they not sing?’ I said, with all righteous indignation of an eight-year-old!
The command to ‘sing to the Lord’ is joined by ‘sing to one another’. A couple of verses in Ephesians come to mind:
Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit.
Eph 5.18-19a
When we sing, we speak out our hidden, heartfelt convictions about our God, and by singing them, we declare them loudly to each other, involving our heart, mind, and soul. In this way, we ‘gospel’ each other through a unique, reverberating means of communication—singing. It’s a beautiful gift from our heavenly Father.
The question of ‘the music’ now becomes much clearer.
THE CHALLENGE
Both leaders and musicians must answer the following question.
What can we do to help our congregation sing with all their heart, mind, and soul?
With this servant-hearted aim, we will grow in wisdom about which songs to sing, and where to place them. When we are other-focused, we will discover an appropriate way to play, and at a speed that helps the congregation offer their hearts to the Lord. If the aim is to encourage the congregation to ‘gospel each other with the gospel’, then musicians will choose a key that suits most of the people, and not simply the vocalist.
In a nutshell, the right hymn/song at the right time, with the right tune and pitch, is like a sharp arrow that penetrates the heart with the truth of the gospel.
RIGHT SONG, RIGHT TIME
On the first day after the Covid lockdown, when congregations were finally allowed to sing, I was at the Keswick convention. The band stood up to play the first song, and the opening strains of ‘Great is thy Faithfulness’ rang out. When we reached the third verse, the band stopped playing their instruments. The vocalists stepped back from their microphones, and hundreds of voices blended in harmony as the entire gathering sang a cappella.
We declared to each other God’s faithfulness for the first time in many months.
It was the right song, at the right place, played in the right way. In that moment, our horizontal encouragement raised our attention vertically towards our God.
And it was beautiful.
There was health, and wonder, and tears of joy among the King’s people.
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