Let’s take a moment to review…
If we are to develop mature disciples for Christ, we must focus on developing the whole of man. Worship is a means by which Christians mature by replacing temporal affections with eternal affections.
Worship is an obedient response to the truth of God. We can demonstrate eternal affections through giving, obeying, praying, and praising. The historically proven method through which the church praises God is music.
Having laid a broad foundation in the purpose of the church and then establishing a frame in the meaning of worship. In this article, I address the heart of the problem in corporate worship.
There are two explicit commands in the New Testament concerning the music in the church—Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16.
“Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;” – Ephesians 5:19
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” – Colossians 3:16
These two commands have two characteristics in common. In both verses, we are to sing for each other and both verses end with the three words, “to the Lord.”
So what’s the problem?
If we can clearly deduce from scriptures that the church exists to develop mature disciple…
If that involves developing the right affections for God through worship…
If a significant and historical aspect of worship is singing and music…
Then we must ask, why aren’t more young people preparing to lead congregations in meaningful worship? Why aren’t more of our pastors and Bible college students studying the Scriptures to develop a sound theology of worship and music? In our ministry training, why are we virtually ignoring something that God specifically seeks from us?
Let me be clear. My goal here is not to call for more music majors. My goal is not to convince more pastors to hire better music leaders.
My goal is to challenge any person preparing for ministry to consider themselves unfurnished and unprepared to be a spiritual leader without a biblical theology of worship and a biblical philosophy of music.
You don’t have to major in music for that, though we certainly do need more skilled musicians to train for ministry. But why should any young person prepare to give their lives to an area of ministry (music) that we treat (often unintentionally) as a secondary aspect of our services?
I believe there are two faulty perspectives that have led to our apathy toward preparing for worship and music in our churches.
A Forgotten Audience
In worship, we either behave as if man were the audience or as if God were the audience.
When man is our audience, we give little to no thought about what we are offering God. There’s no need for excellence or for right motives as long as we sing the right songs in the right way at the right time. We will have effective worship as long as our service looks just like [fill in the blank]. This line of thinking could just as easily describe an ultra progressive church as it could an ultra conservative church. Again, my issue here is not style. I’m talking about our approach to worship.
When man is our audience, we tend first look outward at those around us—the people, the setting, the songs, the environment. Then we choose music that fits the criteria we established when looking outward. Once we’ve chosen the songs, styles, and environment that we desire based on our outward perspective, we rarely take the time to look upward and ask, “Do these things please the Lord?”
On the contrary, when God is our audience, preparation is key. We choose songs not because they’re on the approved list but because they communicate God’s truth powerfully. We practice, not so we can sound just like [fill in the blank], but rather so that we can be sure we’re offering God our very best.
When God is my audience, we begin by looking upward and asking, “How can we please the Lord?” Having asked that question and sought biblical guidance, then we can look outward and ask, “How can we most effectively express our worship to God in a way that is accessible to the congregation?”
Remembering the purpose of the church, we must keep in mind that the assembly is for believers. If man is our audience, then, of course, we would structure everything about our church to cater to unbelievers. If God is our audience, the believers are the participants and our assembling is to bring Him worship and praise from the hearts and lips of His children.
God is our audience. The church members are the participants. The pastor, worship leader, choir, and anyone else “platformed” are the facilitators of worship. Therefore, we need Christian leaders to train for excellence in this area of music.
A Faulty Application
Though it has often been said that we believe in the primacy of preaching, I think it is better to say we believe in the paramount importance of declaring truth (sorry it doesn’t preach as well). However you say this, though, you create (perhaps unintentionally) a hierarchical mentality in which every aspect of the service seems inferior to the act of preaching.
Of course, we believe that we do all things for the Lord. I get that. But I want to carefully but consistently point out a problem with our thinking. In preaching, man is the primary audience. We preach to men—believers and unbelievers—with the hope that they will hear the truth of God and respond in obedience and submission. We don’t preach, as it were, to God.
When we worship, God is the primary audience. So my concern is that students are spending much of their time and resources developing their skills to fulfill that part of the service for which man is the primary audience. In doing so, they are often neglecting to develop themselves to fulfill that part of the service for which GOD is the primary audience.
Another mistaken application is the idea that music is to prepare us for the preaching. While I would agree that a corporate agreement on a truth in worship would result in a greater receptivity toward God and His Word, I question the biblical foundation of this claim. The purpose of worship and singing is to declare aloud and publically the manifold perfections of our God and His mighty works among men. We must be careful not to give the impression that it is somehow just a preliminary.
When 4,000 Levites trained, prepared and rehearsed to lead the congregation in worship, the glory of God in the cloud filled the temple insomuch that they could not minister because of the cloud. None of us preachers would have stood there wondering when the cloud would leave so we could preach. Would it take such an extraordinary miracle to get us to stop, step back, and fully participate in worship without rushing or minimizing it in our services?
There is a part of the service in which God is the primary audience and the recipient of our praise. Let us not be so foolish as to diminish the worship service to simple preliminaries and time fillers. We must give proper attention to our worship.
