Singing Different
On Friday evening we’re going to start a new monthly (at least) practice around Trinity wherein we are going to begin gathering to learn how to sing together - particularly learning some hymns, psalms and other songs taken directly from Scripture. And while getting together to sing may not be particularly strange for a church to do, what we hope to learn to do is how to sing beautifully together by learning to sing different musical parts together. You see, what normally happens when the church gathers to sing on a Sunday is that a few skilled musicians perform the music up front, and the congregation listens or joins in by singing in unison with the primary vocalist leading the music. The benefit of the church performing her music this way is its simplicity. It allows the church to adopt popular musical styles and allows what we think of as non-musicians (the vast majority of us) to participate in the church’s music without having to learn any new skills (other than lyrics and generally easily mimicked tunes). But when compared to the way much of the church has sung in the past, these gains come with some significant losses. We want to start learning how to do something a bit older and quite a bit different than our normal practice on Sunday mornings and so we’re going to start learning this old way on Friday evening.
The development of music and singing in Scripture provides some wonderful insight into its purpose in the church’s worship. Without launching into a full blown biblical theology of singing and music I want to point to a few things that are, for me at least, newish thoughts:
1 - Singing specifically, and musical development more generally is attached quite remarkably to the coming and enthronement of kings throughout the New and Old Testaments. Saul’s coronation is preceded by a band of singing prophets. David establishes royal and priestly musicians and singers upon his own enthronement as king. One of the great scenes (of many) in Revelation is the commissioning of the Lamb at the Throne in Revelation 5. Here the elders and all the heavenly host and eventually all of creation itself sings in celebration of the One on the throne and the Lamb who is commissioned by God to conquer the nations.
2 - This imagery and the event that corresponds to it (namely Jesus’ own ascension at the beginning of Acts (and described in Daniel 7) points us to another link with the singing of God’s people that clues us into its purpose. It is often attached to the military - or God’s hosts, which is simply our nice way of saying God’s army. The armies of Israel are led into battle by the Levites singing God’s songs. The Lamb who is the Son of Man is commissioned to conquer the nations in Revelation 5 and sends out his horsemen in Revelation 6 and they are accompanied by song. The singing of God’s songs by God’s people marks their commissioning by their King into and among the nations. It is the music of a host, an army, a people sent by their king.
3 - Lastly (though there is a lot more that should be said), you can trace a development from the music established by David throughout the history Old Testament worship (and reaching its pinnacle in the New) as the blood sacrifices are first accompanied by and then slowly replaced by the sacrifices of song (along with the atoning blood of Jesus.) In other words, as central and particular as the sacrifices of Tabernacle and Temple worship were, so also should the church’s music be in its own worship in God’s presence. Our singing should accompany our full hearted belief and allegiance to our King. Our singing should have a militancy about it - it marks us as a sent people. And our singing should be as central to our worship and as intentionally done as many of the offerings were to Israel’s own worship. These realities should shape not only our concern for the lyrical truthfulness of our singing, but also our concern for style and skill and congregational involvement.
Our prayer is that as we all learn some new skills (how to read musical lines, learning to sing different harmonies together, learning to sing Scripture) we will grow as a congregation both in our ability to sing, but also in being formed in some new and enriched ways by the music we sing. Our hope is that soon music will fill every part of our church’s life- whether gathered in a living room or on a Sunday, that we will learn to sing skillfully and with all our hearts together whether there is someone there to play guitar or not.