music

Our God is an amazing God! In this Worship Changes Our Perspective Blog Series, I’ve only touched on a few of His attributes. As we’ve seen, God is sovereign, love, wise, good, just, and faithful. Yet, He’s also infinite, all-powerful, ever-present, all-knowing, holy, truth, merciful, gracious, never changing, and the list of His attributes goes on. As we worship God in these and other ways, our thoughts about God and life change. The result – actions that reflect more of God’s perspective.

So, the big question now is how do we grow in our worship of God so that our life and leadership will increasingly reflect His character?

Our knowledge of God influences the extent to which we can worship Him as He really is and order our life accordingly. How do we grow in our knowledge of God? Even though we do see evidence of God’s character in His creation, we learn about Him primarily from His Word, the Bible. How do we get to know someone better? By spending time with that person. In the same way, as we truly listen to God as He speaks through His Word, not just reading the words on a page but really hearing the voice of God as He reveals Himself and His desires for us, we’ll be able to worship God more completely and this will impact the way we think and live.

"Why are you going to seminary to study worship? All a song leader needs to do is open the hymnal and choose 3 songs." 

My aunt said this to me just before my family and I moved to Eastern Mennonite Seminary in 1994. I was pursuing a church leadership degree with a focus on congregational worship and music. My wife and I have often chuckled about her words. Yet they stay with me for two reasons. First, I'm sad that my aunt didn't understand what I wanted to learn. Second, I think congregational singing is often an underappreciated means of forming one another as Jesus' apprentices. 

In November, Mennonite Brethren from across Canada will meet in Abbotsford for the biennial Equip Study Conference. This year's theme is "Transforming Discipleship." According to the preparatory materials, "A growing disciple is one who is being transformed in such a way that the deeds of Jesus, done in the power of Jesus, become an increasingly natural way of life." Simply put, a disciple is an apprentice of Jesus. 

According to Paul in the New Testament, believers gather regularly to build up the church and each other (1 Corinthians 14). Another writer teaches that believers meet to provoke each other to love and to do good deeds; they also meet to encourage each other (Hebrews 10:24-25). Since singing has been a part of Christian meetings since the church began (cf. Ephesians 5:19a), I'm prompted to ask, "How does singing build up the church? And how does singing train apprentices?"