I’m asking you to trust me for a moment. This introduction may feel trivial, but you can’t skip it. It is essential to developing a point that could seriously revolutionize your church’s song service. Are you ready?
Several phrases in Exodus 14 (I could use any number of places in the Scripture, actually) use the word unto. This seemingly unimportant word becomes significant once you discover that it establishes the from and the to in a scene. …the Lord spake unto Moses… (v. 1). I’m not certain how He did this, but God communicated with Moses in a way that defined God as the from and Moses as the to. Verse 10 states that …Moses said unto the people…. Moses was the from who spoke directly to the children of Israel, putting them in the to position. We find another instance in verse 11 when …they said unto Moses…, with the people communicating to Moses where they are the from and Moses is the to. In yet another place, verse 10, we’re told that …the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord.
Each case describes direct communication with a clear from and an obvious to. Moses didn’t just throw out words and hope that someone heard them. His audience was specific, and they knew he was speaking to them. Imagine your pastor walking the halls of your church preaching a powerful message with no clear audience. Or maybe the congregation hears a message, but no one knows from whom it’s coming. Unto is necessary to identify who is speaking and to whom he is speaking.
This takes on added meaning in the first verse of chapter 15. Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord…. Since the word unto is the same, the from and to are clearly established. Moses and the people were the from and the Lord was the to. When the children of Israel cried unto the Lord in the previous chapter, He was listening intently and answered them by dividing the Red Sea. The only difference between both unto’s is that the form of communication is now singing instead of speaking or crying. Moses and the people are the from, and God put Himself in the to position as they sang to Him. In fact, the various forms of sing unto the Lord are found dozens of times in the Bible. In the New Testament, we find Paul and Silas singing unto the Lord, as well as instructions to the churches at Ephesus and Colosse to sing a melody to the Lord.
The first conclusion to be drawn from this is that God is the primary Audience of our music. When we sing, we are the from and He makes Himself the to. While singing to a congregation has validity, as does singing to each other, the overwhelming evidence in Scripture is that God is meant to be our primary Audience when we sing. II Chronicles 5 even reveals how He can be moved by the singing of His people.
Singing is the most biblically commanded method for aiding our worship or praising our God. On the other hand, preaching is the biblically commanded method for confronting men about God. Have you ever realized that the two audiences are different for those two methods? Preaching has men as its audience. Music has God as its Audience. Two audiences exist in every service. Man is the audience once the preaching begins; however, during what we call the song service, the primary audience is an audience of One—God. When man is the audience, preaching is obviously the priority. However, when God is the Audience, music is the priority (a biblical case could be made for prayer, as well).
Is the primary purpose of the music service simply to make my job as a preacher easier by preparing the congregation for the preaching? Could it be that a congregation convinced that God is the audience of their singing will be more prepared for preaching as God receives the direct attention He deserves? Many preachers train congregations to listen more closely to them during the preaching than they train congregations to pay close attention to God during the singing. Surely that is disappointing to the God Who has listened intently to every song that we have sung.
Good parents almost universally admit to diligently training their children to focus their attention on the person with whom they are communicating. What could it do for our song services if we truly expected all members to focus their thoughts and full attention on the God to Whom they are singing? What if your thoughts could be read while you are singing congregational songs? How many parents would have the credibility to demand that their children focus on communicating when the same parent can’t discipline himself to focus on our gracious God for four minutes at a time?
Imagine the passion of your congregational singing if you truly believed God set aside that time to tune in to hear you sing. Are many trends in music today simply attempts to get people to be passionate in their singing, when the actual biblical solution is to convince people that God is their Audience? There’s a ditch on each side of this road. One ditch involves following the latest trends in music in an attempt to manufacture some excitement. The other ditch is to throw stones at those using these methods while their own song services would put a fence post to sleep. In both cases, God deserves better. Whether the music is new or old, the instruments acoustic or electronic, the speed fast or slow, nothing substitutes for a congregation fully aware of what it actually means to sing unto the Lord.
What are you depending on to put the passion in your congregational singing? A particular style? Dependence on novelty? Or the reality that God is literally your Audience while you sing?
For those convinced that God is the Audience…
Music Directors
1. Develop the mindset that God is particularly tuned in to the part of the service you are conducting.
2. Take your role as seriously as your pastor takes his and prepare for it accordingly. God deserves more than Saturday-night planning or thumbing through a hymnal to find a song you haven’t sung in a while. Be deliberate.
3. Convey a vision for the One to Whom the people are singing. Don’t just say “Sing unto the Lord,” or “Think about the words.” If the exercise of ministering to the Lord through this song is affecting your soul, it will come out as you highlight some phrase of the song or the impact it’s had on you.
4. Instill a passion for excellence in everyone involved in the music because that’s what God deserves. Singers and musicians will desire excellence more when they truly grasp the reason for it. A side benefit is that guests will see the passion your church has for God through your diligent preparation and participation.
5. Work with the youth leaders to promote an interest among teens in giving their lives to the music ministry.
6. Realize that the God you are directing people toward is attracted to humility, so an attitude of pride among those in music is hypocritical. Being difficult to work with, critical of others, or intolerant of those less skilled than yourself means you need to study the God you’re pointing others to a little more closely before you can lead them to worship Him.
Pastors
1. Be careful of the signal you send during congregational singing. Do you expect people to pay attention when you preach, while you are talking through most of the song service? Participate in the singing.
2. Give God your attention during the singing. Something seems amiss when a pastor is so focused on figuring out who isn’t there that God, Who is there, is being ignored.
3. Promote the possibility among the congregation, particularly the youth, that God might want them to give their lives to the music ministry. Avoid statements such as the call to preach being the “highest call.”
4. Realize that the budget for both finances and time reflects the importance that God’s portion of the service gets from you. Enable the music ministry to flourish by your support.
5. Don’t promote the idea that the music exists to prepare for the preaching. The music exists to lift up the One who is there to enjoy it. Once those in the pew have truly communicated with their God, they’ll be more ready for the preaching than any man-made method could make them.
Congregations
1. Create a trigger in your mind at the start of every service that imagines God sitting on His throne to tune in to your congregation’s singing.
2. Look at the words as you sing them, whether in the hymnal or on the screen. If you have a screen, you will need to work even harder to drown out 100 other movements and distractions in your view as opposed to the page before you. Know what you are singing about by combining the words and phrases into thoughts that have meaning. Attempt to follow the flow of the song. If you miss part of a song because you are thinking about a previous phrase, that’s not so bad.
3. Refuse to multitask. Use your God-given self-awareness to realize your thoughts are not on the Honored Guest before you and rein them in. You’ll be amazed and disappointed at how quickly your mind can wander, so exercise diligence in dismissing any thought that isn’t present in the song being sung.
4. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that a newer style is the key to greater depth as you sing. Your recognition of your Audience is more capable of producing a more authentic singing experience than any gain through manufacturing interest through novelty. The passionate singing of a 100-year-old hymn is more likely the result of an appreciation for its content, while singing the latest song may be as much for the novelty of the product as for its depth. If a new song can produce emotions that recognition of God as the Audience cannot, the authenticity of the experience might be questionable.