Dear Faith Congregation, Applegate Community, and Household of Faith Community,
This past Friday evening was especially encouraging to us as worshipers. We witnessed the blending of around 130 voices with the rich expressions of harmonies and melodies. After hearing from different ones about the intensity of the singing at our Good Friday service, I determined to write and continue in that same vein of praise and thanksgiving to God on how He facilitated the hearts and voices for the gathered people of God that night. Here’s what I heard from several:
Isn’t our God good?“Wow. The acoustics brought the singing to life.”
“I sat next to ________________ (family name) and it was incredible. You want to learn how to sing, sit next to them.”
“Fantastic! May Jesus Christ always be praised.”
“The music was marvelous! I was transported by the beauty and majesty. Please let the flautists and accompanists know I was so blessed by it.”
“I had no idea that our voices would sound so rich in this room.”
“When we get together and sing like that, it sure makes for an encouraging time.”
“With the singing tonight, now we know what it is like in our church building to have more worshipers and more voices.”
To round out this brief note of thanks, I reference a few sentences below that I came across in my reading 5-6 days ago:
“Christian assembles have at all times and in all places read the Scriptures, prayed, and sung. The Christian liturgy was born singing, and it has never ceased to sing…The Church used music and singing in its worship well before it began to ask itself questions about why and wherefore, and such questioning was a first sporadic and empirical, connected with matters of discipline, devotion, and even polemics...”
A few sentences later, I read this:
“The first and most distinctive characteristic of singing would appear to be that of musical time. Singing places man before God as a creature existing in time.”
See the chapter, “Music and Singing in Liturgy” in the book, The Study of Liturgy by Jones, Wainwright and Yarnold Oxford Univ Press, 1978, pp. 440-441.
I am guessing we all see that music and singing in a worship context are to be praise. They also focus on the use of the Word for prayer, praise, confession and instruction. These things are true; however, I am struck by the Jones, Wainwright and Yarnold point that “Singing places man before God as a creature existing in time.” Interesting.
Singing shows God that He is God and we are creatures—His creatures! You cannot get more fundamental and basic than that! He is God. We are men and women. When we sing, we must make use of key signatures, timing, intervals, and volume. There’s submission involved. We submit as creatures to elements and applications of time.
In order to speak with musical expression of God’s God-ness and to show our creaturely-ness, we sing. And it all happens with air exhaling through our throats, bouncing around briefly within the small space of our cheeks and then forced out with rounded or sliced lips. Sounds rush forward for verbal chorus.
We show our limits with time and space; but within our limits, we get to praise our God and Redeemer. O for a thousand tongues—right?
Thanks be to God for this past Friday’s joint worship as congregations. We will treasure the worship for a good number of weeks ahead. Our voices became glory-filled vessels of claps, peals, laments, and tones. It was Good Friday worship—and the worship was good last Friday.
Pastor Sumpter
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