Music’s Function in the Church Worship Service
Music functions in multiple ways in a church service. It is used to worship, to teach, to edify others, to give thanks, to offer up prayers and petitions, and to draw people’s attention to Christ. Music is worshipful when it helps us to bow down and pay respect to God, to reverently beseech His name, and reverently adore God. Other words of worship used in scripture mean to esteem glorious, magnify, honour, and to do so vountarily. Therefore, music which is proud, self-glorifying, trite, too familiar, or lacking reverence cannot be used for worship. There are in fact trite sounding hymns as well as praise songs (because of the music or lyrics or both). If you are not convinced, this humorous story may change your mind.
For instance, Love Lifted Me could easily pass for a song on a carousel ride, but the first verse is about sinking deep in sin and being desperate. The second verse is about God’s saving love, and the third verse is directed to the unsaved. It says, “Soul in danger look above, Jesus completely saves.” I would not dare say this to someone in jest, but earnestly, seriously, and sincerely. These words do not match this happy-go-lucky tune. Then, there are praise songs like Knowing You, which sings, “Knowing You Jesus, Knowing You, There is no greater thing. You’re my all, You’re the best, You’re my joy, my righteousness, And I love You Lord”. When praise songs say to God, “You’re the best” it reminds me of what a good buddy might say with a good slap on his friend’s back. God has many names in the Bible, but in this chorus God is reduced to being the greatest “thing”. This informality is not good worship because it reduces God to less than He is and the words do not adequately describe our God. Let’s compare this praise song to word descriptions from a song in the Bible which God gave to Moses to teach the Isrealites.
In the Bible God gives the Isrealites this song which says, ”I will proclaim the name of the LORD. Oh, praise the greatness of our God! He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is He.” It goes on for 46 verses to tell why God is so great and how He is faithful and just. God told Moses to have the people memorize this song so they would not forget it. It was to be a testimony used against them should they forget their Lord God (Duet. 32:21). Putting these words into a song was likely the only way all the Isrealites (young and old) could memorize it, and they probably didn’t have it all down in just a one-hour gathering either! (Perhaps they worked on it at home during the week too!) This accurate, detailed description of how God delivered them puts to shame many of our worship hymns and songs today and raises some questions about our worship: how well can we define the God we worship? Do we detail what God has done for us, or rely on huge generalizations and vague words? The answers to these questions tells how meaningful our worship is to God. Hopefully, the worship songs we use in our churches are not trite sounding, irreverant, or blubbering poetry that says next to nothing!
well, I sure do love the worship at our church. It too, is great!
Unrelated, but as a casual stopper- by-er …
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I would just like to ask, for clarification, what are the goals of this blog? I did read the mission statement. It is just that I see that on the right there are the categories, all of which seem to apply to women,perhaps on a Titus 2 -esque path? If so, then these categories would be “for the purposes of teaching older women to live in a way that is appropriate to serving the Lord ( not gossiping, not alchoholics, instead teaching what is good), the older women also training the younger women to love thier husbands and children , to live wisely and pure,to take care of their homes, to do good,
and to be submissive to their husbands.
Then, they will not bring shame on the
word of God ~ Titus 2: 1-4
Is this what you all are going for
with this blog? It appears that the categories listed match up somewhat with the scriptural commands for women in Titus 2. While adding more interests, of course. I would love to see Titus 2 mentioned in your Mission Statement, if this is the scripture you all are aligning yourselves and your blog with.
Anyways, long way to say, this is a fun blog to stop by and read sometimes and I ( just my opinion) think it would be great to see a scriptural foundation in your Mission Statement, as well as scriptures language in your main Titus 2 categories, just so that it could more readily recognizable what you all are basing your ministry off of. Thanks for listening! <3
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Stacyhoff,
I directed your questions to the creator of this blogg and was waiting for her reply to your question, but I believe she is on summer vacation, which is why most entries this summer are from me. My specialty is music so naturally readers are getting a lot of that subject this summer, but in the fall this blog will again be nicely balanced with many authors writing articles on various topics that they feel need addressing in our culture.
Sometimes our authors write to encourage other women in the Word. We try to address issues that we as women and mothers deal with, to comment from a Biblical perspective on news and world events, and to share spiritual lessons God has taught us through His Word or through a personal experience. Some of our authors read many Christian books and quote from them or comment on their readings throughout the year. To sum all this all up would take a lot more than one verse I think, but Titus 2:4 is one of my favorite verses. Thank you for sharing that this verse relates to what we are trying to accomplish!
The big picture goal of this blog is to address issues in our culture from a Christian world view, which is sometimes a completely different way of thinking than how we are told to think and view things daily in our world!) My place as an author on this blog this summer is to address the music issues which we are faced with in Christian churches all across America and worldwide. I see so much confusion from Christians about what the Bible says (and doesn’t say) about music and how to understand music from a Biblical perspective that I am slowly trying to unravel some of the misconceptions out there and provide a foundation for understanding music in our society (as entertainment, background, and mood to name a few), and in the context of our church (as worship, evangelism, edification, and teaching to name a few). Little by little I will get around to discussing each of these in detail.
Like I said, in the fall there will be many other topics from other authors to glean from and comment on. Thank you for being one of our readers. We hope that this blog will continue to serve you in these various ways.
thanks for the reply, I am sorry I am just seeing it now ~ forgot I had even asked a question for awhile. lol.
I also love Titus 2: 4 . Thanks for clarifying