Some Personal Reflections on Worshipping Through Music

This was prompted by our friend Jason Sessoms.

1. Music is powerful. I am often amazed at its power to affect me. I can still remember the first time that I heard a song where the music (not the lyrics, mind you - the music itself) absolutely overwhelmed me and moved me to tears. Not everyone is as easily affected by music; sometimes I can be overcome listening to a guitar solo while my dear wife just looks at me and rolls her eyes.

The power of music can be used for good or for evil. It seems to me that music is best used when it compliments truthful lyrics. So, for example, sometimes speaking a doctrine does not affect my soul the way it ought - but singing that doctrine does. Music is a means of grace given by God to His Church to help move our souls towards the kind of emotions we ought to have toward Him and His truth.

In this regard, I love personal, private worship through song. I enjoy singing to God while I cut the grass. I am not an opponent of the "just me and God" mentality - I treasure the times when it is just me and God and I get to sing to Him privately from my heart.

2. All that said, I do not believe that corporate worship was designed to be a "just me and God" time. I sing differently during corporate worship than I do in private worship. You see, music not only works to move our souls towards appropriate affections towards God, but music is also a gift that helps hide the Word of God in our hearts. This is why almost all of us can sing the lyrics to our favorite songs - because music helps us memorize words and instill them into our souls.

If I understand Ephesians and Colossians correctly, corporate singing is worshipping God through the edification of our brothers and sisters in Christ. It is worshipping God by singing truth into the ears of our fellow believers, helping them to hide God's Word in their hearts. That's why Paul speaks of corporate singing in the context of the Word of Christ dwelling in us richly, and in the context of teaching and admonishing one another.

In this regard, I am much more theologically aligned with Ligon Duncan than C. J. Mahaney. At Covenant Life, the lights go down and the atmosphere lends itself very much towards a "me and God" mentality. At First Prez, however, the lights stay up, and Ligon looks around the room as he sings boldly, making eye contact with members of his church as they all sing. They are very much singing to one another, purposefully seeking to glorify God by edifying one another. Remember, when Paul talks about corporate singing, he tells us that we are to be "addressing one another" (Eph. 5:19), not just God. In fact, we are worshipping God by singing to one another.

When I think of the early church gathered and singing, I sincerely doubt they all stood in rows facing a podium. Rather, I speculate that they were in a circle (as we often are when we have Bible studies in people's homes), and that they were facing one another as they sang. How to recover such a practice is difficult in our modern churches, though continues to work well in small groups when the members all share this theology of singing.

There is more that could be said, but I've got find some grub and get back to the dome before the meetings start again. I'd love to hear your thoughts on all this.


P. S. That very first song that really affected me emotionally was called "Rain". You can hear it here. A song that has affected me lately is this one by Andrew Peterson (the recording is not the best quality). Perhaps I shouldn't admit this, but on a recent drive I was listening to that latter one on "The Far Country" cd and suddenly found myself crying as I thought about the glories of heaven and the temporalness of this life. Crystal laughed at me.