jonno saunders

Liturgy: Inhabiting the Story of God

Singing

After hearing God’s call to worship we respond by singing. There might be many ways to respond, so why do we sing? Singing is a natural response to God’s call to worship because it uses so many parts of us to worship God. In Romans 3:13-18 we see a terrible verdict on humanity—every part of our bodies is used to rebel against God and serve false gods, from our throats, tongues and lips to our thoughts (what we know), to our feet, to our eyes. Sin affects every part of us. But the wonderful truth of the gospel is that through Jesus Christ we are not only forgiven but also our whole selves can be repurposed to do what they are made for: worship.[1] Singing is both a picture and a reality of this all-of-life worship. That’s why people sometimes call singing in church ‘worship’.[2]

Singing fills our minds with truth. As we sing we think about who God is and what he has done and mentally ‘chew it over’ or meditate on his word.[3] Singing helps us remember these truths and call them to mind when we need them most. Songs have a particular power to make words stick in our minds and memories—it’s no coincidence that so many people born in the late 80s and early 90s can still remember all the lyrics to Mr Brightside, Where is the Love? and the rap from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Similarly elderly Christians losing their mental faculties can often still remember the words of the hymns they sang when they were children. Every week at church we fill our minds with God’s truth as we sing—and it goes with us throughout the week.

Singing sets our heart’s desires on Jesus Christ. Music is powerful. A funky bass line, a mournful cello, a raucous organ, all make us do things. Perhaps we dance, weep or applaud. Music can help us feel and respond to our deepest longings. Church music has that power too, but we are aiming at setting our hearts on Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is producing new desires in us.[4] These new desires don’t want to stay down—they want to break out in life and in song.[5] So singing helps us to desire God more, giving us a vehicle to both express and further shape our desires for him. Of course there will be a diversity of expressions on a Sunday, since God has made us different from one another—we’ll express and experience passion in different ways.

Singing trains our bodies for worship. Where we have used our tongues to tear people down and lie, now we use them to sing truth and build others up. Where our hands had been raised in violence or stubbornness, now we raise them in praise. Where our feet had taken us to places of darkness where we could hide our sin, now we move them to the music as we enjoy God who has redeemed us. It’s physical. Singing on Sundays teaches the parts of our bodies to do what they were made for.

Singing teaches us to worship God together. As we sing we also listen to the voices of those around us. You are not alone. We are in this together. It’s a great display of our unity as we rally each other and all participate in praise and encouragement. There is no sound that’s like the song that rises up from grateful saints.[6] Do you believe it? Singing in church is special because it repurposes our whole selves to worship God—our minds, our hearts, our bodies, all together. And so we can go from church to worship God in everything we do with every part of us.

[1] see Romans 12:1–2.

[2] This isn’t the place to debate the proper use of the word ‘worship’. It should be enough here to say that there is more to singing than worship and there is more to worship than singing. My point is that singing is a particularly holistic worship practice, as all of our worship (gathered and scattered) should involve all of our humanity.

[3] Colossians 3:16.

[4] Romans 6:17; James 1:14-18; Ezekiel 36:26-27.

[5] Ephesians 5:18-21.

[6] Michael Farren, Oh Praise (The Only One), 2014 Farren Love And War Publishing.