Monday Reflections...my thoughts on worship through the avenue of music

It was a Sunday to be the lead singer in our morning worship service.  We started with "Crown Him With Many Crowns" straight out of the beginning of our hymnal, number 3.  Next was the song "The Great I AM" and followed up with another from the hymnal, "Holy, Holy, Holy."  To finish out this bank of songs was the singing of one verse of another song out of the hymnal, "Blessed Assurance" a cappella.  To finish out the music for the morning was "The Doxology" and into "I Will Praise Him" prior to the message and closing with "Take My Life And Let It Be."  This Sunday we leaned heavily on the songs we have received from many years gone by.  I am thankful to say that the congregation bellowed out them all.

I have been "upfront" in the church for 33 years in an official capacity.  I have also been a part of the church since 9 months in my mother's womb and received the singing of the church through the vibrations.  I call upon 55 years of being a part of worship services in my local church multiple times every week, week long summer camp meetings (at least two each year), 2 and 3 week revival services each year meeting each night, quartet concerts singing bass, and participating in youth musical groups.  

My life has been saturated in the church 
and music has been inescapable.

I was taught the piano for one year when I was 5.  I wish I would have stuck with the lessons like my older brother Matthew who strapped on the accordion.  In 5th grade I picked up the trumpet that my older brother put down after jr. high band practice and we would share this instrument throughout our high school days.  I took it to college and ended up playing in the marching, symphony, and jazz bands.  In the church planting years, it was helpful for me to keep pitch in some tight quarters to learn how to strum some chords on the guitar.  But what has been called upon from me the most over the years is to sing.  

I have been in this unique position to witness many changes in the life of the church.  A couple of them stand out.  One is how we have handled all the music that has been written to bring praise to God.  It hasn't all been the same style.  Hopefully we have weeded out the songs that are weak on the theology but the bank of great songs that point to God is ever growing.  

Insert here the Christian radio station and ours was Family Life Radio, 99.7, out of Midland, Michigan.  Now we are flooded with more songs that are not in our hymnals.  It used to be that you couldn't even get the music for these songs until they came out in paper form but now at the touch of a button you can download and print them off for distribution with the proper licensing.  What you heard all week on the radio, because it had become a popular song, could be sung on a Sunday morning.  

What about those other instruments?  

I was from a church that only had a piano, no organ.  Every once in awhile my brother would play his accordion and I would whip out the trumpet but the only instrument that was constant was the old upright piano in the front corner of the sanctuary that needed a good tuning.  The songs on the radio had more instruments than just a piano.  Many were led with the guitar and the beat of the drums was what got your toe a tapping.  A great musical group will pull together all types of instruments and highlight them at just the right moment to keep the song moving along.  Perfectly balanced through a very controlled sound studio produces a sound that is very hard to duplicate in a large hard sided room with no acoustical tiles and diffusion panels.  Feedback is a reality in the life of an old church trying to mimic the sounds coming from that little box.

I have helped bring other instruments into the church.  I am by no means an expert in this field but it takes a lot of knowledge and common sense to introduce another sound into the church space.  The solo player now has to learn how to play along with others.  The band must listen to each other to create a balance so the congregation can sing along.  Many times, the balance gets out of whack and you can't distinguish between the instruments or worse yet, you can't hear the congregation singing back at you.  I have probably typed here more than I have ever said about this subject and what has to happen behind the scenes for a Sunday morning service to be one you remember as worship.

Another huge transition that ties into worship through the avenue of music is our knowledge of the songs we sing.  I have watched us become more familiar with the weekly set list on a station like K-LOVE than we do with the songs in our blue hymnals in the racks on the backs of the pews.  Why?  

We have put ourselves in a place to be more exposed 
to the music of the radio than the real voices of the congregation.  

Nationally, many of the church have limited their exposure to what could be sung.  I could introduce a "tried and true" song of old and some would not know it because there is no way to introduce it with familiarity that the power of the air waves has, in your car or in your hand, and our limited time together to sing it.

Why don't we get together to sing to our God more often?  Why isn't this happening with a "must do" on our calendars?  My answer would be that we have replaced the coming together to lift up His name in song with other things.  We catch God on the fly from one event to another and rely on the Christian radio station to be the main feeder of our souls when it comes to music.  I have found that we as a Christian church in this nation have slacked off on the spiritual disciplines given to us in Scripture.  

• We are to gather together for authentic fellowship.  
• We are to be people of persistent prayer.  
• We are to hear and study the Word of God.  
• We are to be in service to one another by fulfilling the "one anothers" among the body of Christ.  
• We are to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to and with one another.

I question, "Could some of the struggles the church has gone through have been handled better because we were more attentive to the spiritual disciplines that we have minimized in our lives because we have maximized other things?"

Again, these are just some thoughts of someone who has a lot of skin in this effort of guiding God's people in faithful and genuine worship of Him.

Adam