2. Our Songs Form Our Worldview
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Andrew Fletcher, a Scottish author and politician, as soon as quipped, “Let me write the songs of a nation, and I care not who writes its legal guidelines.” It wouldn’t be shocking if Fletcher’s phrases got here from an statement of the Reformation. Luther considered music as a robust instrument within the palms of a Reformer. He as soon as stated: “I’ve no use for cranks who despise music as a result of it’s a present of God. Music drives away the satan and makes folks joyful; they neglect thereby all wrath, unchastity, vanity, and the like. Subsequent, after theology, I give to music the best place and the best honor.”
He understood that our songs will at all times form our worldview. The Protestant Reformation and different awakenings unfold not solely via its gospel preaching but in addition via its gospel singing. Life-changing biblical truths had been in a position to be encased in acquainted songs. It’s why lots of the early hymns had been set to bar tunes. They had been memorable and transformative when mixed with stable theology.
After I was first doing ministry, I used to be requested to evangelise at a nursing residence. The general public they’d wheeled into the tiny chapel space appeared to be far gone mentally. For a lot of the service, they stared off into the gap with a glassy look of their eyes. (Perhaps this ready me for preaching on Sunday mornings a number of years later. I child, I child). The years had vanquished their minds, and lots of of their reminiscences had been gone. I don’t assume my sermon landed for actually any of them.
However when my spouse went to the piano and commenced taking part in the primary few notes of Superb Grace, it was like standing earlier than a gaggle of youngsters. I used to be completely amazed. It was as if they’d partaken of the fountain of youth. They started passionately singing the phrases of the music. The phrases of this valuable hymn had been so embedded of their psyche that even when they forgot their title, they had been in a position to recall this valuable fact.
The identical is true for kids in our church buildings at present. And our adults. We keep in mind the lyrics. (I can nonetheless sing, to my disgrace, all of the lyrics of Ice Ice Child and a bunch of different rap songs I’d care to not point out). Our worship songs are taught on a Sunday morning. It’s embedding fact throughout the souls of our folks. That’s the reason good theology issues. Gordon Charge has rightly stated, “Present me a church’s songs, and I am going to present you their theology.”
Once we take into consideration the songs we select for a worship service, we must always assume properly past that Sunday morning expertise. We’re aiming for a lot extra. We’re aiming for these nursing residence moments 50 years from now. We’re talking into the nursery, realizing that we’re implanting fact into kids who will sometime quickly be a teen pressed into making essential selections. These lyrics will stick—don’t we would like it to be good gospel theology?
Photograph Credit score: © Unsplash/Shaun Frankland
