Very often I find myself in worship contexts.
The band is pumping out some great music,
the worship leader is lost in wonder, love and praise,
an expression intensity on their face,
but I look around
and a lot of people are barely mouthing the words.
I'm thinking 'why'?
I think actually there are quite a number of pretty straightforward reasons
why we're not singing.
There has been a shift of culture.
It's ironic, in one sense there is more music than ever
but singing actually has, I think, become rather specialized
so in a sense we are kind of singing against the tide in church
because we are actually expecting people to do something
they're not quite so used to doing.
I sometimes actually, deliberately begin worship with a vocal warm up.
I get people humming a note or may be doing a little scale.
Sometimes I turn into a little sung hallelujah
and really I'm putting out a message
that we've got voices - let's use them!
Now we're blessed presently with masses
of new songs and that's fantastic.
The downside is if we don't really
teach those songs or let them 'bed in'.
I really think we have to, in a local church situation,
really think about the number of songs that we introduce
and how well we introduce those songs.
I'm obviously making an assumption that it's a good thing
that we should all sing,
and I suppose some people might question that.
I think Psalm 103 sets that out really beautifully;
'Praise the Lord O my soul,
all my inmost being praise the Lord.
Everything! And when you sing heartily it involves your whole body.
You have to give your whole self to it.
And you could argue that the very gift of voice and singing a melody
and the ability to do it together
is gifted to us so that we can give it back
to God even though you might not consider yourself a very good singer.
You might not be able to hold a tune very well but you've got a voice - you can make a noise.
Make that noise, that joyful noise back to God.
Another reason why people aren't singing is very simply that
the songs are too difficult
and the big test of that is that you just listen to the
leap in volume soon as a well-known, accessible song
pops up in the set list - it's astonishing!
I've sometimes heard the volume multiply
two, three, four times over,
because suddenly; 'Oh we know this one' and it's easy to sing.
And I think let's enjoy all the great songs being written and the recordings and so on
but when we come to picking songs for
our local congregation we really have to ask those questions -
'Is this suitable for our people
and where they're at?' and 'Can we really sing this'?
Think of the people of different generations and different ages, different backgrounds...
It can be quite a challenge but we just cause frustration
if we're asking people to sing songs that are
too complex, too high, too sophisticated
and actually the other point is that
if the band can't quite deliver what they heard on the album
somehow it can fall apart, if the song hangs on an arrangement
as opposed to just a really singable melody
it can start to fall apart as well.
I would suggest that another one of the factors in all of this
is that much of the church has embraced a performance style.
I think, to great extent we have copied the sort of concert model
so that what's coming from the platform is kind of almost complete in itself.
We're surrounded by screens
and all sorts of personal devices that deliver entertainment to us,
that deliver performances to us
and we've come to expect that
what happens on that screen is going to do something to us.
It's going to entertain us or it's going to inspire us,
it's going to make us laugh or cry
and it's very easy to find ourselves in church
and what's happening at the front is just another screen
and we are look to that screen to do something for us.
But, of course, the essence of
being part of the body of Christ and being church is that
everybody brings something.
You know, the singing can be a symbol if you like
or an example of
everybody together bringing something.
Don't come to church to worship.
Come worshiping!
It's very easy to think that worship is all about what happens in this building
but I think if we begin to think in terms of
coming already worshiping and bringing something
that contributes to the whole
then, for a start we won't exhaust our leaders quite so much,
demanding that they deliver this thing to us.
The Psalms of course have to be our model
for what worship is really all about.
It's very interesting that as a collection
the Psalms end with a total, exclusive focus
upon God.
Psalm 150:
'Praise the Lord, praise God in his sanctuary
praise him in His mighty heavens,
praise him for his acts of power,
praise him for his surpassing greatness,
praise him with the sounding of the trumpet
praise him with the harp and lyre,
praise him with tambourine and dancing,
praise him with the strings and flute,
praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with the resounding symbols,
let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord.
And that is where we are heading.