We shouldn’t limit ourselves to major key songs! The Psalms reveal that much of the Christian life might be spent in a minor key, and it’s time that the church became honest about this reality as well. The church needs to be able to lament together, and minor key...
To be sure, the standard choral contribution of call to worship/anthem/response is a bit tired, and certainly unworthy of the potential of the potential of those most gifted and equipped to prompt and model worship. I dare say, in most churches where choirs are not...
Make no mistake about it: the most important musical group in the church is the congregation. Worship is for all of God’s people; the New Testament doctrine of the priesthood of all believers calls for the saints to lift up their voices (whether musically gifted or...
“I will sing with the mind and also the spirit.” (I Cor. 14:15) Music engages both emotion and intellect, so directors should clearly enable their singers to sing with intelligence, expression and faith. Complex and overly challenging music could stand in the way of...
The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of our souls. If heed is not paid to this, it is not true music…just a diabolical twanging.
When we ask God to move a mountain, God may give us a shovel.
The role of worship is foundational to the work of the church… God must be first in our private and corporate lives. If we have not placed our private and corporate relationship with God in first place, we cannot expect God to be active in our lives and church. Music...
Singing is a spiritual activity best experienced in community. The documented benefits are as significant as those in yoga, a healthy diet, and prayer. Our culture, however, has commodified singing and turned it into a perfected idol that is performed by the few and...
It was like the effect of some great orchestra when all the separate notes have melted into one swelling harmony that leaves the listener conscious of nothing save that his soul is being wafted upwards, and almost bursting with its own emotion. The perfect stillness...
When Paul tells his churches to “let the word of Christ dwell…richly” among them by means of “psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” (Col. 3:16 NIV), he’s inviting them to do more than use music as a “warm-up” to the sermon. The song is not ornamentation; it is...