Worship, music and singing are much misunderstood today. So we need to be clear about these because they all affect our walk with God.

Worship in the New Testament centres around Jesus. Matthew 12:6 states that “one greater than the temple is here.” This means that the new meeting point between God and man is not centred around a place but a person—the person of the Risen Lord Jesus!

The Lord Christ Jesus alone is the Worship Leader who brings us into God’s presence! We cannot get any closer or be any more right with God than through Jesus (Hebrews 10:19—25). Worship is everything God does for us in Christ, not anything we do to be acceptable to God.

The fundamental act of worship is submission and homage to Jesus as Lord and Saviour. The right response to Christ is life worship, not simply “live” music worship.

In Romans, our life worship includes prayer (1:9-10), submission to God-given authorities (13:1-7), love for one another in the body (12:3-13), living out the unity of the gospel (15:5-7), support of God’s people (15:25-30).

We do not “enter” into worship by our prayers, rituals and songs. None of these gets us any closer or makes us more right with God. This means that sharing the Good News is the way to bring people to submit and pay homage to God and Christ.

So why do we sing and play music? Why we sing is part of a bigger question: “Why do we meet as God’s people?” Colossians 3:16 instructs us to allow God’s Word to dwell in us as we “sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” with gratitude in our hearts to God. Indeed, Ephesians 5:18 tell us that singing “God songs” is one expression of what it means to be continually filled with God’s Spirit. What does all this mean?

1. We should be concerned about Christian lyrics, not Christian music. This should free us to praise God with different types of music — hymns, choruses, Negro spirituals, Asian melodies — as long as the words are Scripture or Scriptural in meaning.

2. Our singing has both a vertical focus on God and a horizontal focus on one another. We should sing songs — about God and to God—as we sing to spur one another on.

3. Emotions vs Emotionalism. There is a difference between using music for emotionalism and feeling emotional while stirred by hearing the Gospel in song. Our singing of gospel songs may evoke emotions as part of the total life response of faith in Christ, love for the saints and hope in heaven. Singing alone is not worship but life worship in the Spirit should include worshipful singing (Eph 5:18, Col 3:16)!

We should avoid extremes. We should not end up as “songless” Christians because we are reacting to bad theology and practices around us. Rather, Christians are the only ones to have every reason to sing with all our heart to God and one another of the great God who loves us enough to save us! We aspire to be a church which sings distinctively Christian songs — and sings full heartedly — to God’s glory!

Come and join us! Indeed, why not be part of our heartful and tuneful music ministry? We can always do with more musicians and singers to build up the body of Christ with love!