It has been a surreal experience to return to the church building for Sunday morning worship these past two weeks. Certainly things were feeling pandemically safe, but then again so is the local cemetery (for its residents). We have some imaginative ideas for worship in the weeks ahead: but singing with our voices seems a distance away.
It is easy to OVERestimate the importance of singing.
The viral rise of the Contemporary Christian Music industry (CCM) has left most of us wondering how we ever found God without five of this year's new songs being sung. Yet astonishingly we did. You don't have to be a Quaker to object that God is at work when songs are silent. Countless believers have spent years or lifetimes imprisoned or isolated in such ways as to render congregational singing a distant dream. The Bible enjoins and reports praying far more often than singing (especially in the New Testament!).
But it is easy to UNDERestimate the importance of singing.
Most religions have some kind of music and song, but Christianity is full of it. Whole service forms are based around singing, and whole church traditions defined by its forms (Anglican Evensong, Hillsongs, Gaelic Psalms). One look at our church building gives the clue that singing is part of it . . .
. . . the organ, the choir stalls, the piano, the drums, the screen (mainly for projecting song words).
Singing, in Christianity, is an expression of the fundamental joy of a saving faith. It is not a necessary rite; it is more than that. Christianity is a new song.
It is easy to OVERestimate the importance of singing.
The viral rise of the Contemporary Christian Music industry (CCM) has left most of us wondering how we ever found God without five of this year's new songs being sung. Yet astonishingly we did. You don't have to be a Quaker to object that God is at work when songs are silent. Countless believers have spent years or lifetimes imprisoned or isolated in such ways as to render congregational singing a distant dream. The Bible enjoins and reports praying far more often than singing (especially in the New Testament!).
But it is easy to UNDERestimate the importance of singing.
Most religions have some kind of music and song, but Christianity is full of it. Whole service forms are based around singing, and whole church traditions defined by its forms (Anglican Evensong, Hillsongs, Gaelic Psalms). One look at our church building gives the clue that singing is part of it . . .
. . . the organ, the choir stalls, the piano, the drums, the screen (mainly for projecting song words).
Singing, in Christianity, is an expression of the fundamental joy of a saving faith. It is not a necessary rite; it is more than that. Christianity is a new song.
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