Singing Psalms Together

One of the many gifts that God has given the church over the last 40 or 50 years has been a resurgence of thoughtful and faithful music for the church's worship as song-writing has flourished and more musicians have written music to be sung by the church. While some of the music is (rightly) derided as being excessively cliche'd or theologically vacuous, we have been given a great deal of music that both honors Jesus and lifts the affections of God's people. We should give thanks to God for his kindness to us over these decades, we should also acknowledge a significant loss that has accompanied this gift: Much of the church has given up the practice of singing and praying the Psalms in worship together.

But here in the Psalms we have the church's prayer book. Here is a marvelous book of songs, meant to teach us about the character and beauty of God, to shape our emotional life, and to help us give utterance to our longings and fears. Here in the Psalms we find what God commands us to ask of him in a world like ours. Here is how to pray for the sweetness of God's presence. Here is how to see and pray in a world where there are very real enemies seeking to destroy the faith of God's people. Here is how to see the glories of God's gifts in the mountains, and in people, and in his great redemptive works. Here is how to ask God for justice - and for mercy. Learning to sing the full range of the psalms can pour steel into your spine, encourage those who need encouragement, and give words, biblical words and images, to the prayers of God's people.

And so, as we continue to enjoy the good music that God has given the church in recent decades, as we savor the rich songs that have come to us through the centuries, we want to return to a steady diet of singing and praying together from the Psalms. We'll me adapting music that other churches have used to regain the use of the Psalms in worship and we have some musicians writing musical settings for Psalms that we can sing together. This weekend we will start to weave this into our weekly gatherings as we sing Psalm 100. Our hope is that we could build a bank of Psalms that we know and love as a church and can continue to shape our life together as a community.