Scripture teaches that the battle in which the believer is engaged is largely a battle for the mind. We are to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23). We are to “set your mind on the things above” (Col. 3:2). Paul lists things on which to let our minds dwell (Phil. 4:8). One of the blatant items on the list of the Great Commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God”, is “with all your mind”. Scripture repeats over and over that we are to think rightly. Thus, it should be no surprise that God’s word commands that we should be “teaching and admonishing one another with songs, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Col. 3:16). When was the last time you were “admonished” with songs? Music, in fact, is a powerful tool. It is capable of bypassing the mind and eliciting emotional responses. Music is as close as humans come to real magic. Chord structures and sound combinations can actually affect the feelings of other humans. This makes music a wonderful, although potentially dangerous tool. The difficulty comes from two directions. First, when we fail to recognize the real capability of music to induce emotions, we can run roughshod over feelings without paying attention. Second, if we do recognize the ability of music in this regard, we run the risk of using it to manipulate responses. We may feel that this is a good thing – attempting to encourage warm feelings toward God – but in so doing we entirely bypass the higher concern, the mind. If we keep at the forefront this purpose of engaging the mind, it will alter how we build the song service. It must include instruction. It would need to include important truth. The move today away from hymns and toward the contemporary is not, in itself, evil, but in our haste to remain “relevant”, we are discarding deep theological truths for warm, fuzzy ditties. And while hymns are not, in themselves, sacred, it is dangerous to throw them out because people feel they are “outdated” or “no longer appropriate”. (An interesting, if not disturbing, side note: Do a survey sometime of the content of contemporary worship songs. If the primary focus of the New Testament is “Christ and Him crucified”, you will be troubled to discover that an amazingly small number of the modern songs bring any focus to the Cross. Why is that?) Even without the old hymns, however, it would seem that if we are to be obedient to Scripture, it is necessary to engage the mind when engaging in singing. If this is done, then feelings will follow. And when the mind, turned to the sweet character of God, produces the inevitable warm feelings, and these warm feelings are fed by the music, the result is far better than the manipulated feelings produced when the mind is bypassed. In this sense, the emotional responses produced by the mind whose attention is on God will be accompanied by the emotions engendered by the music, not produced. The music, then, becomes the accompaniment of the soul’s expression. Whether, then, you sing hymns or contemporary songs, let all be done to the glory of God.
The second issue is execution. It should be obvious that, if we are to incorporate the ideas I’ve presented, the actual implementation of the song service will change. How would that look? In point of fact, it may not look any different. The real change would be in the attitudes of the “prompters” rather than in the selection or presentation of songs. If my attitude as a worship leader is to prompt the congregation to perform their best for the Lord, it will necessarily affect what I do in front of them. The goal, rather than singing well or obtaining a response from them, will be to point them to the Lord. Leadership will do what it takes to do to remove distractions, insure they are up to speed on the songs, engaged in the content, etc. The performance of the prompters becomes support rather than primary. For musicians, questions will change from “Can they hear my instrument?” to “Is my playing distracting or enhancing?” For singers, questions will change from “How do I sound?” to “How am I directing their attention to God?” The worship leader will ask less of “Is this a quality presentation?” and more of “Is the congregation being set up to worship God?” Necessarily, the answers to these questions will vary, but asking them will change the character of the entire process of leading worship. In this type of atmosphere, the ultimate compliment that can be paid to a worship team would be, “We were so caught up with the Lord that we hardly noticed you were there.” And, perhaps, the ultimate insult to a worship team seeking to direct the congregation to worship is to receive a round of applause. Applause is praise, and praising the prompters means the whole things was derailed someplace.
There is one more thought I need to impart. God details structures (such as elders and deacons) and approaches (such as praise, prayer, singing, preaching) for church in general and worship in particular. The danger in all cases is to believe that the structures and approaches are the end. There is a tendency to think that if we get these structures and approaches correct, all is well. What we have seen throughout Man’s history with God is that even when structures and approaches are correct, if the heart is wrong, the correctness is nullified. We have a predisposition to be distracted from God. We often do that by sinning, but those with the best of intentions can do that with “programs” and “systems” intended to point us to God. They set out to be a finger pointing to the moon and end up focused on the finger, not the moon. We tend to be like the parents of the bride, anxiously and eagerly going about the preparations for the wedding, forgetting all about the bride herself. The structures and approaches ordained by God are not the singular answer to the problem. The answer is a heart that pants after God. His view on worship is of sole importance, and it is incumbent on us to approach Him as He would be approached, but we must never do so mechanically. The approach is never the answer. A heart for God is the answer, and this heart will certainly take into account God’s demands.
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