When you simply don't want to sing...

Hey, friends…
 
Some of you love to sing. Others of you do not. Some of you have beautiful voices. Others of you… well… don’t quit your day job. Nashville will not be calling. But let’s talk church, and let’s be honest. There’s a decent percentage of you who really do not enjoy the music at church at all. Others of you love it, but this week, you might just not be in the mood. So, what’s so important about it? Why do we even do this? Let’s talk (I won’t sing this letter to you…) in Deeper Thoughts below…
 
But first, only THREE quick reminders this week:
 
·      Teens:  Youth Group THIS Sunday, 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. with food, fun, fellowship, and the Word. God is doing some really great things in our youth group!!
 
·      Get in the fun—Trunk or Treat is NEXT Sunday, October 26 from 5:30 – 7:00 p.m.! We need your help decorating cars, handing out candy, greeting folks, and all manner of fun and activities. Sign up in the church foyer on Sunday or email Chris Bowen at [email protected].
 
·      Join me for “The Daily Six” – six minutes each morning in the Word of God, Monday through Friday, on our YouTube channel. If you’d like to receive daily email reminders and you’re not already getting them, click here to sign up!
 
OK…that’s it today for you email skimmers and you who have five Grammy Awards. BUT…
 
 
Some Deeper Thoughts:
 
Some people purposely come late to church just so they can dodge the singing part. Several have been honest enough to admit it to me.
 
I get it. Music isn’t for everybody. While they say it’s the “universal language,” not everyone speaks that language so well.
 
There are a couple of problems with all the singing we do at church. First, we are never going to get it right for everyone. Music styles are so varied, and our individual preferences are all over the map. Some want something more mellow. Others something more intense. Some want more classic and historic music; others prefer the modern, high-energy tunes. Some want it to be louder; other’s ears are bleeding. It is a universal language in the sense that most humans’ emotions can be stirred with music. But I think its universality is really more like food. We all eat. But open a Cheesecake Factory menu and you have to sift through 20 pages with a hundred options to find what will truly fill you up.
 
Here's another problem with church music: Many people don’t know its proper place in their life, how it is relevant, and what they are supposed to do with it. So, it can become little more than Jesus karaoke (if they sing along) or a mellow concert (if they just stand there and listen).
 
So, what’s the big deal about it? Why do we devote 30 minutes every Sunday to music? Why has every church, synagogue, and temple been singing and playing music at every biblical, God-centered gathering for at least the last 3,500 years?
 
And perhaps more importantly, what’s the big deal for you, specifically?
 
Let’s start with this: If the question is about music in church, we are actually missing the point altogether. Music and singing isn’t the important subject at all.
 
Song or no song. Band or no band. Orchestra or no orchestra. Sing along or sit in silence. Hymns or rock songs. None of that is the point.
 
The point is worship. And worship has very little to do with music.
 
Say what?
 
Yep. Worship is not music. Music is not worship. Worship is not singing. Worship is worship. And whether we like music or not—or whether we like Mt. Hope’s brand of music or not—we all need to worship. Our spiritual survival depends on it.
 
One of our greatest weaknesses in North American pop-culture Christianity is that we have thoroughly confused the idea of worship with the style, technique, and content of our music. The more the instruments and melodies stir our emotions, the more we think we’ve worshipped. The more the volume, song choice, or instrumentation grates on us like fingernails on a chalkboard, we think we have not worshipped.
 
Neither of those are true.
 
Music is a tool that will help us worship. God does instruct us to make music unto Him, to sing, to play the instruments, and to make a “joyful noise” (Psalm 100:1-2). (That joyful noise part should encourage some of you. If Nashville won’t be calling you for an audition, go ahead and squawk away in worship anyway. God says you should!)
 
Music is not worship. But it is a tool to lead us to worship. Consider: A hammer is not construction. It is a useful tool to build something. But it is not the building. Music is no more worship than a hammer is a skyscraper. BUT… you can’t build a building without using some tools. And you can’t worship without doing something; making music to the Lord and singing is one of those somethings.
 
Worship is the abundant and thorough assigning of value to God. It is recognizing and expressing—even vocalizing—the worth you place on God. This is where the word comes from: “worthship” used to be how they said it. Somebody with sloppy diction dropped the “th” and it became known as “worship.”
 
When we sing on Sunday, we’re leveraging an emotional tool to assess, contemplate, and express who God is and who He is to us. This process is important enough—and God knew that music is a tremendous language of the soul to aid this process—that believers have been using song both in the Bible and beyond for three millennia to worship.
 
But there’s more. The contemplation and expression of God’s worth to you can take on many forms. The written word. The spoken word. The silent reflection. The anguished cry. The solemn prayer. The bold and joyful exclamation. The contemplation of scripture. The discussion of theology. The serving someone in love.
 
We cannot survive spiritually without worship. And we can’t win against our spiritual enemies without declaring God’s value and standing boldly on our faith.
 
When God wanted the Israelites to decisively overcome enemy giants in the land of Canaan, He asked them to worship. That was His battle tactic. His only tactic. Sing. Shout. Proclaim. And the enemy's walls of defense would supernaturally crash down. You can read all about it in Joshua 6. Instead of trusting their military preparation, their weapons, and their assault strategy, God told them to just sing. And shout.
 
It worked.
 
It will work in our lives, too. When we learn to stand in the middle of our spiritual battles and cry out God’s identity and goodness, the enemy will collapse. The strongholds the devil has erected in our lives are simply no match for God’s identity expressed with passion.
 
This Sunday we will sing like we do each week—and I think our music team is awesome. But this week, would you try something different? Would you focus not on a karaoke sing-along and focus instead on who God is? Let the words and melodies connect with that deep place in your heart where you do indeed value God. And then… then… envision doing this on your own at home. If we learn how to worship anywhere, anytime, in any way, we will be positioned for great victory in any battle.
 
Let’s meet this Sunday… bring your Bibles! And your voices. And your joyful noise!
 
Much love to you all…
 
Chris Eads
Mt. Hope Pastor
Friend