My desire as Music Director at Castle Hill Anglican is to see the Creative Arts used purposefully and effectively for the glory of God. I want to give faithful volunteers the opportunity to use their gifts in church and to provide ways for those gifts to be developed so that they can be a blessing not just to themselves, but to others.
Ok…but WHY do we sing? And HOW should we sing?
The singing of songs in church has been occurring in Christian gatherings for centuries. The bible clearly tells us to continue that activity as a response to God, with joy and enthusiasm:
“Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Eph 5:19)
When we sing, we don’t START to worship, we JOIN IN the worship. We are commanded to ‘sing to the Lord’; ‘shout with joy’; ‘praise His holy name’, but singing and music is just one of the expressions of our worship and devotion to the living God.
Praise God for the gift of music and the creative arts! There have been times where I have been moved to tears by something that was sung, played or enacted and the Holy Spirit uses various forms of the Word to teach, encourage and engage us:
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16).
We are mindful of the fact that without this Third Person of the Trinity, music is ‘mere’ performance – a performance that may sound amazing to the ear, but make absolutely no impact on the heart, sadly missing the whole point of worship. There is only one offering which is truly acceptable to God, and it is not ours! Our part is to acknowledge our sinfulness and inability to save ourselves. The Spirit guides and leads us into a right relationship with God the Father, through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection on the cross. Christ is the mediator, our Saviour:
“For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5)
The perfect worship of Jesus is the foundation for our worship; His worship on our behalf frees us to offer our own worship with confidence and honesty (see Heb. 10:19-22). What a relief!
Below are some guidelines, listed in order of priority for the sourcing and singing of congregational songs at St Paul’s:
- The lyrics must be biblically correct and clear in its teaching of the gospel; cleverly crafted, teaching the truth in a new/more interesting way. All new songs used (at any Service/event) must be approved by the ministry team. MD to coordinate this.
- Singing can be described as vertical (to God, from/about God) and horizontal (encouraging each other). There should be a balance of songs that are vertical and horizontal. Ie. Not all encyclopedic theology; not all about ‘me/us’, or how ‘I/we’ feel.
- The music should be contemporary (particularly for 10am, 5pm, 7pm) and inspirational. It has to sound modern, and relative to what the majority (not everyone) of the people in the congregation are listening to (on the radio/CD’s etc). The melody should be singable, memorable and catchy.
- Songs should be sourced from a variety of publishers. Preachers create sermons based on wide reading; Lecturers teach students from a range of sources; and I believe we should sing songs from a variety of publishers. I want to continue to encourage our songwriters and develop the art of songwriting. The power of ‘home grown’ songs cannot be underestimated. In time, I would like to see at least half of the songs we sing at church come from St Paul’s. Until that fine day, no more than half of the songs in the song list, should be from one source.
This decision is NOT to be considered a bias for, or against, any particular publisher (except for US), rather a desire to see diversity and richness in song lyric, theme and musicality. This will allow us to enjoy the rich tapestry of music from the global church as we tap into publishers from Africa, the UK, the US, NZ and Australia.
…”in one voice we will sing”…
