When talking about worship, it's easy to fall into the trap of seeing singing in church on a Sunday night as “worship”. This is a problematic attitude because when we reduce worship to merely the 15 minutes of singing we do on a Sunday night we give ourselves permission to treat the rest of our week like it isn't time to be spent in worship of God. I could write at length about this point, but frankly it's been pretty thoroughly covered by, well, pretty much everyone else with a Christian blog, and there's another issue with our Sunday singing I want to tackle.
We, in our Sydney churches (singled out because I do not have much experience outside of Sydney), do not in my experience grasp the extent of the power and weightiness of our singing. We tend to sing because, as Christians, that's just what we do. Or because the band is playing music and everyone else is doing it and we feel like that's what is expected of us. We sing because to not sing is to be marked as different in a congregation full of people who are singing. While the enthusiasm seems to vary, the majority of people are singing so we feel obliged to join in.
Now don't get me wrong. I love singing. I can't sing well, but make up for it with volume and enthusiasm. More importantly, I would love to see the significance of praise through music and song recognised, as well as utilised for all it offers in our services. This is not a post in any way opposed to singing in church.
That said, I do think we have two very serious problems when it comes to our congregational singing. The first is that we don't seem to give enough consideration to Whom we are singing, and the second is that we rarely put any thought at all into what exactly we are saying to the Whom we are singing to.
We make some pretty hefty declarations when we sing in church, we make massive promises and some pretty serious requests. I often wonder, particularly at conferences and evangelistic events, how many of those belting out their favourite worship song actually stop to think about what they are saying. Or, more importantly, if they believe what it means. In other words, would we pray the same words we are singing with a sincere and contrite heart? I just wonder how much quieter our Sunday singing might be if the full weight of the words being sung were consciously acknowledged outside the melodies that accompany them.
Really simple example. The song “Ancient of Days”. I love this song, it's easy to get enthusiastic and there's even the opportunity to clap at points which is pretty fun. One day on beach mission I was chatting with a fellow leader who expressed his distaste for the song. I was understandably a little put out that anyone could dislike such a great song and asked him why he opposed it so much. “What is the Ancient of Days?” was his response. This was awkward because I had no idea... I loved this song and sang it regularly, and it turned out this guy actually liked the song too, the problem he had and the problem I am attempting to raise are the same. I didn't know that the term “Ancient of Days” is in fact used to describe God. I was singing “Blessing and honour, glory and power be unto...” without ever stopping to wonder exactly who or what I was ascribing blessing, honour, glory and power to.
Which brings me back to my two concerns.
1. We don't give enough consideration to Whom we are singing.
Do we understand to Whom we are directing our voices when we sing? Do we stop to think that we are singing to God? He breathed the stars into existence. He appeared to Moses through a burning bush. He sent plagues upon Egypt when Pharaoh wouldn't let His people go. He parted the Red Sea. He broke the walls of Jericho. He raised up King David and, after he sinned, He humbled him. He humbled Himself and took on the form of a man, Jesus. He performed miracles, healed the sick, restored the sight of the blind and raised the dead. He died on a cross so that we could be in restored relationship with Him. He defeated death forever. He appeared to and blinded the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus and turned him from murderer to martyr. He causes the sun to rise and rain to fall. THIS is to whom we are singing brothers and sisters.
Our God is living and active. We believe this — why else would we pray? He hears our prayers and petitions. He answers. When we consider this in the context of our singing this should terrify us! When we sing empty words, halfhearted praises and meaningless promises He hears us.
Our songs to Him are a form of prayer. They are words we speak to God, they may not start with “Our Father in Heaven” and we may not end with “Amen” but they nevertheless constitute communication with the God who formed our lips and our hearts. When we sing songs of praise, we aren't just singing songs about how good things are, we are praising Him—for who He is and what He has done. We are praising God, the King of the universe. How hypocritical, therefore, for us to sing such songs insincerely. How appalling it should be to stand up and loudly sing “How great thou art” or “Our God is an Awesome God” in skepticism or indifference. How empty our words when we sing of “Amazing Grace” in unbelief. How dare we! We would be better to remain silent.
We don't think about what we are saying.
When we consider to Whom we are singing, the actual words we sing suddenly become a whole lot more important. When we ask God to “Take it all” we are literally asking God to take everything we are and everything we have and to use it for His glory. If you want to know what that looks like, read the book of Job—that's what you are asking God to do. When we sing that “There is no other name” we are declaring the belief that there is no other way to be saved except through Jesus Christ. When we sing “Lead me to the Cross” we are asking God to humble us before the foot of the cross, to bring us to our knees in humble recognition of the cost of our salvation, we are asking Him once again to take us and use us however He pleases. We are declaring our confidence in His will, in His plan. We are asking the God of the universe to humble and challenge and use us to declare His gospel. When we sing we are declaring ourselves God's, we are promising Him that we will bow to Him alone, acknowledging that His will is of utmost importance to us, and we are willing to cop whatever comes at us in doing so.
This is huge! It flows far beyond our 15 or so minutes of singing on Sunday. God doesn't only act on our words during Church. I wonder how often we sing those words expecting God to act. I wonder how many of us would be comfortable singing those words if we were confident that He would do as we asked.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German evangelist, pastor and martyr at the beginning of the 20th Century. He dedicated an entire book to the Psalms—the song book of The Bible. He was convinced that the Psalms had value beyond merely helping us understand that the Israelites sang to God and that they could sing to God about the realities of their situation whatever it was at the time of writing. Bonhoeffer saw the Psalms as having value beyond even showing us examples of repentance and trusting in God and relying on God when things go bad. Bonhoeffer believed that there was immense value in Christians taking these songs and praying them. Not merely reflecting on them but taking the songbook of the Bible and making it the prayerbook as well.
The challenge for us as Christians is this: Would you pray the words you sing in church on a Sunday? If not, why are you singing at all? Are our pews alive with the sound of sincere praise, petition and humility before God or are they alive with the dead sounds of our echoing hypocrisy, insincerity and closed hearts?
