Thought I’d share a quote from a conversation between DA Carson and Tony Payne. Here, Carson suggests what he’d say during a church gathering/service to explain why there’s singing.
“Historically Christians are a singing people because we have so much to sing about. In this church, we sing songs from centuries past, and songs that have been written in the last five years. We’ll sing some of both tonight. And if some of these lyrics seem strange to you, nevertheless listen to the people of God as we delight to sing to the God who made us and has redeemed us.”
I’d say something like that. Then the very joy of corporate singing can have a telling effect on people. When I was here for the Katoomba Men’s Convention, I heard reports of guys who had never been to a Christian meeting of any sort, dialling up their wives on their mobile phones and saying, “Dear, these guys are nuts but just listen to them sing” and holding up their phones.
And of course there’s plenty in the Scriptures to help us understand the value of singing in a gathering of believers (Col 3:16-17, many of the Psalms, 1 Cor 14).
The rest of the discussion is worth a read – it articulates (much better) some of the same thoughts we explored as a music team a couple of weeks back when discussing our definitions of worship.
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– William
Excellent!