More Singing Together

We’re continuing our foray into singing the Psalms together and in parts the Friday - Here are some more reasons why:

One of the stranger things, culturally speaking, that the church does when it gathers for worship is singing. Public singing has all but disappeared from broader life in our century with the exceptions of the strange phenomena of karaoke bars and concerts. Add to this absence the significant lack of clarity concerning what exactly the church is doing when we sing or why we sing and you have all the necessary ingredients for the church’s music to slide into entertainment and merely experiential categories. We start to evaluate the church’s music merely on the basis of how it made me feel and approach singing on Sunday less as the labor of God’s people and more as a service or product to be digested. But the singing of God’s people, when they gather for worship, is intended to be a sacrifice of God’s people. It is supposed to be, in the first place, the work of God’s people in God’s presence. In other words, it isn’t designed to entertain or to grant a certain experience. We should sing in spirit and truth - in other words, we should truly believe the stuff we sing, and the musical setting helps to align our affections with what is held out to us in the Psalms, but we can’t forget what it is we’re doing when we start singing together as God’s people. We are bringing offerings of musical labor into God’s presence - offerings of thanksgiving to the one who has redeemed us and invited us into his presence. We find joy as the byproduct of this work. We do receive marvelous gifts as the fruit of this labor. But it begins as the worshipping response of God’s people to his grace.

As David begins to develop the liturgical life of God’s people in 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles, the sacrifices of God’s people are accompanied and even overshadowed by the work of music. The songs and prayers of God’s people are collected in the Psalter and a whole musical culture develops. There is some foreshadowing here. The complex and bloody sacrificial system will ultimately find its fulfillment in the blood of Jesus, the church’s covenant meal, and the liturgical music of the church. But the sacrificial system was precise, it was labor-intensive and it called on God’s people to offer their very livelihoods before God. When we gather for worship we come to offer sacrifices to God in song and in bread and wine each week. We should approach the music of the church in the same way - with intentionality and excellence. And while the lyrical content of our singing should be of great importance to us, so should the musical quality be of great importance. It involves a set of skills we should give ourselves to developing. Furthermore, we should be sure that we are using the gifts that God has given to the church for this task. While our music shouldn’t be limited to only the Psalms or the songs given to us in Scripture, these, if for no other reason than that God has explicitly given them to us, should serve as the foundations for all our other singing. 

These are some of the reasons we’re gathering again on Friday night to learn how to sing together with greater skill and to learn how to sing the Psalms. We’ll have beer and wine, and plenty of room to laugh and to make mistakes. But the goal of our gathering on these monthly Friday nights is to learn how to sing Scripture together, in parts, and with excellence and joy.  Join us Friday Night