Do You Hear the People Sing?
If you’ve been at our services, you’d have heard about the upcoming Reformation Concert. What is this effort trying to achieve, and more importantly, why is congregational singing important to a Christian’s life?
Singing is an important part of the human experience. From the time we were children, we learnt songs to teach us important information and necessary truth. Anything that needs to be memorised is best done in song.
We also sing to connect with one another. We sing “Happy Birthday” to celebrate, or other communal, cultural and national songs to instil identity and to celebrate. Birth, marriage, life’s major milestones, even death, are commemorated with songs.
Songs and singing are also for enjoyment. Music is at the essence of relaxation, of entertainment and celebration. In older cultures, making music, dancing and singing were the most natural of expressions for festivals and occasion making. We sing because we’re happy, because we find something to delight in.
A songless people is a joyless people.
In fact when we stop singing, we lose truth, identity and our joy. A songless people is a joyless people.
Perhaps this is why there are fifty direct commands in the Bible to sing. Singing is an essential part of Christian worship. The very God we worship, Zephaniah 3 says, is a God who sings (Zeph 3:17). Jesus Christ and His closest group of followers too, sang hymns (Matt 26:30).
The Psalter, the songbook of Israel, collected the poetry and songs for every emotion and all of life’s circumstances — including commemoration of God’s wonderful works for the people of Israel from the days of Moses on. The early church was commanded in the New Testament to sing together and to each other for mutual edification (Eph 5:19, Col 3:16). The book of Revelation records for us songs of cosmic and eternal praise (Rev 5:9-10, 19:6-8).
Our Lord’s Day services are full of songs and singing — songs of adoration and thanksgiving for the gospel and in response to the preached Word. As a church too, we exhort our members to use our voices to declare God’s praise together with gusto and in unison.
But what if I don’t like singing? Or I don’t have a good voice?
That’s precisely what the upcoming Reformation Concert helps us to address. Consider these 3 ways we can use this churchwide effort to improve our congregational worship:
What better way to delight in God’s glory than learning songs that proclaim it?
First, it helps to learn the content of our singing. The theme of the Reformation Concert, “Soli Deo Gloria” is Latin for “Glory to God Alone”. It pairs with the October sermons from Isaiah 61-66, which speak of God’s glory in powerful ways. What better way to delight in God’s glory than learning songs that proclaim it?
We hope GBC members will also grow in awareness of the doctrine of the Protestant Reformation. These truths were lost and recovered in the 16th century, which are the substance of our congregational song. Learn these doctrines: how Scripture is our sole and final authority, salvation is only through justification by faith alone in Christ alone by God's grace alone. And all this is to the glory of God alone — these wonderful truths are worth singing about.
Second, it helps to improve our singing. If we accept that singing is a Biblical command (and it is), we can spend time together getting better at it. After all, worship is not only for the musically trained or gifted, even though the trained and gifted have a good head start! To overcome feelings of self-consciousness in singing, participating in the choir is the best way there is. Over the last 10 years and 4 concerts, many members will testify that learning to sing with and from others in the body is both enjoyable and meaningful.
Moreover, participants can rest assured that full attendance at each rehearsal is not required. Recordings will be sent out to help folks learn music at home.
Third, singing is how we offer the sacrifice of praise to God. Worship comes from the old word “worth-ship”. Worshipping God means we bear witness to His worth and worthiness. Thus to worship God calls us to make what Hebrews 13:15-16 calls “the sacrifice of praise — the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name”. What is God worth to you? Amid busyness, awkwardness and feeling inadequate, even feeling spiritually distant, praising God with a struggling heart is how we find growing faith and trust in God. And participating in a churchwide event such as the Reformation Concert can be a mighty way that we bear witness to God’s glory.
And should you not be able to join us in the choir, we invite you to join us as the larger “choir” of the congregation as we gather to worship on 26 October.
Join us as we sing the truth of the Reformation together, in our identity as God’s people, in the joy of the gospel.
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Find out more about past concerts here. If you’d like to sign up, or find out more about the practice dates, you can do so via this form.