Is our church music and singing still biblical and spiritual?

It looks as if the “quality of the performance” of musicians and the worship group in church became more important than anything else in many congregations. 

To me the most worshipful experience still is where you can only see the words to be sung on a screen, (the worship group and band, or organist or pianist, not central, perhaps even behind the congregation). I find it much easier to focus on God, than in those congregations where the musician or the band and singers is the central focus point of the service (taking up a central position liturgically speaking that exceeds the Lord’s Table, the pulpit and the baptismal font in importance.)

Where the worship groups are less prominent, and liturgical symbolism remains in place, you are not distracted by what the members of the team are wearing, how they play the instruments and how they express their own worship through their body language. Where you see less of the performance of the worship leaders, it is easier to see more of Christ.

Our heart's desire must be to lead God’s people to truly worship the Lord with the expectation that as we do this, as we engage in the search for authenticity in worship, we will also become more motivated to surrender our lives to the Lord.

To worship while you engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth (reinforcing biblical teaching through lyrics); to worship out of our very being, our true selves, in adoration (focussing on God, rather on an entertaining performance of the worship group), we should seek God’s presence, also when we sing, through the Word and the Spirit, rather than through the emphasis on style, fashionable trends and performance.

Here are some guidelines to consider:

Through the work of the Holy Spirit, express love for the Father in Jesus Christ;

Pray to be delivered from the distraction of “how well we perform musically” as first priority;

Seek to be humble and sincere in desiring to come into the presence of God and first of all express humility through the choice of music and style;

Test each song in terms of its content with the question: “Is the teaching biblical and Christ centred;

Do not be distracted from the main purpose to worship God by passion for my own preferred music  style, beat, sound, instruments or hymn book;

Mainly try to understand how through practice, style and choice of hymns and songs, we can remain authentic and inspire adoration, and only as an afterthought ask how we can produce the best possible music too.

Pray that God will bless our musicians and those who lead our worshipful singing with a desire for his anointing and to be inspired with true adoration of God in Jesus Christ our Saviour.