Thinking that Is
Balanced part 3
Every fellowship of believers has
the God given right and responsibility to music unto God in accordance with that
Christian community’s convictions and
preferences. Furthermore, Christians
have the responsibility to not offend those who attend corporate worship with
styles and ways of musicing. Worship
leaders must always remember that a fellowship of Christian believers always
worships and musics in community. Those
who are responsible for the use of music in worship, i.e., church pastoral
leadership and the musicians who are worship leaders, are placed in their
individual responsibilities to facilitate “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord…”
(Ephesians 5:19)
Being a pastor or a Church musician should
never become a platform for personal music preference. Ps 133:1 explains, “…Behold, how good and how
pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity [yachad 3162”! Yachad means to function as a unit or
in unity i.e., togetherness. When
religious music and ways of musicing offend those in the Christian community
fellowship and unity are hindered because the musicing creates division. Speaking, as found in the Ephesians 5
statement connotes musicing “to yourselves’ or perhaps better put “among
yourselves” is accomplished through “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”. This musicing has as its object the holy
triune God. One of the great, powerful,
efficacious outcomes of corporate sacred musicing is the unity that it is
capable of bringing to the Christian community.
Church pastoral leadership and music leadership should constantly be
protective of that unity. St. Paul
admonished the church Ephesians 4:1-3, “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord,
beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called With
all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;
endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”.
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