One of the parts of worship you will experience when visiting with us is singing. We love to sing praises to God! God loves to be praised with the fruit of our voices and we love to sing to Him! Music uplifts us and focuses us on praising God. At the Blackman church of Christ, we may do things a little different than you are used to. The reasons why we do things are found below. As always, we would love to study this topic further with you if you desire.
The Command
Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 tell us several important things:
- To speak to one another in song
- To make melody in our heart to the Lord
- Admonish one another in song
The Action
When you visit with us, you will notice that we sing without the accompaniment of mechanical instruments of music. We sing ‘A cappella’ only.
The Reasons
We sing A Cappella because the scripture doesn’t approve the use of mechanical instruments of music in worship. The above passages actually tell us which instrument we should use in worship. It tells us that our heart is the instrument.
We want to please God in all aspects of our worship. Part of pleasing God is worshipping Him the way He desires to be worshipped. He asked us to sing with our hearts, so we sing with our hearts.
We also participate in congregational singing rather than having a choir. We do this because the above verses tell us to speak to one another in song. That is a command to every christian. We can’t speak to one another in song if only part of us are singing, so we all sing.
The Method
Since scripture doesn’t have an opinion on how we sing (only that we sing with our hearts), there are certain things that we do for expediency. When you visit with us, you will notice that we have a “song leader”. The person leading the singing isn’t really important. He exists for the primary purpose of announcing the song number we will sing and starting the song. Some song leaders choose to keep time with a beat of their arm and others choose to do this with only the sound of their voice. Some use a pitch pipe or app on their phones to make sure to start songs on pitch, others may use a tuning fork, still others may not use a pitch pipe at all.
The important thing is that singing isn’t about the song leader. It’s about praising God together with our hearts and voices.
Another expediency is the song book. To sing together, we all need to know the words and which song we will be singing. The song book exists to show us the words. It also shows us the music if you are able to read music. However, this is just one way for everyone to know the words. Some congregations use song books, but others may project the words of the song on screens at the front of the building. Since the scriptures don’t give an opinion on how we should all stay together, each congregation is free to choose a method that they think is best.
Hebrews 13:15 ~ Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.