Proclaimer Blog
A sermon on singing
I was on double duty last Sunday – preaching from Numbers 11-12 in the morning and then in the evening we had a different kind of evening where we thought as a church about singing. It was all based on Colossians 3.16-17:
Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
I had three points (hoorah!) interspersed throughout the evening with songs that we sung together. We have a smaller congregation in the evening so it allowed us to work through some of the implications together.
1. Why do we sing?
Paul sees singing as having a vertical dimension ("Singing to God") and an horizontal one ("teach and admonish one another"). It is too simplistic to say that any particular song does one or the other. Often they do both. We tried a few experiments as to why singing serves that purpose -first of all everybody shouting out "Thank you God for……" Chaos. Then saying together, "Then sings my soul, my Saviour God to thee, how great thou art" – then finally singing that together. We thought through how what we sing teaches one another.
2. What do we sing?
It must follow that what we sing is of the utmost importance. We don't let anybody teach anything in the church – our preachers must preach the word of God. And we sing "the message of Christ." Three straightforward applications:
- content rules, not style – this is the other way around from the way most Christians think
- everyone takes part – we all exercise this ministry – no "sitting this one out"
- It can be good to modernise – we want a ministry of the word that is contemporary, i.e. understandable
Some good discussion on these points!
3. How do we sing?
Paul is clear – "with gratitude in your hearts to God." We thought through how we cultivated such an attitude.
A good evening. I hope it makes us value this ministry more.