this was a note i wrote on facebook on 30 april 2009.. something i wrote not hoping to change anything, but that it’d get people thinking abt such an issue! ",
You are walking along the street, and you start singing humming the song you heard at church last sunday. Later in the day, your casual conversations seem to have fragments of lyrics in them. (e.g. Hey friend! Why u so sad! Turn Your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face! OR, Come on Dude! You’re so gonna be a History Maker in this land. You can do it! ) Haha.. well, that’s uber cheesy and extreme, but know what i mean?? :S
Is that you? Well, that’s me. being cheesy sometimes!! hah!
As Adriel would say, we are a ’sensate’ generation, constantly bombarded by loads of adverts, kinds of music, noises blah blah.. and we just FEED on these things regardless how meaningful (or lackingly) they are. cos there’s just too much, coming too soon, we can’t evaluate the ‘goodness’ of these things! Then, they just sit deep within us subconsciously. Have you heard of any preacher who said something totally off, but shouts AMEN, and have all the congregation shouting AMEN back? Hah.. See?
Now, what about the songs we sing in church? Why sing some songs, and not others? Sad to say, some people remember songs more than they remember sermon points (sorry, Rev Alvin, sorry Adriel :S haha). What if these songs have distorted biblical ideas we don’t even realise??! oops…! Not good, not at all!
Like it or not, it was commented that the songs we sing in church shape people’s theology! (If we’re all consumers in the church, we won’t bother verifying the truth of the songs.) They shape people’s idea of what the Christian life is about. Maybe it’s a Y-generation thing that people are more ‘alert/plugged in’ to songs/music than pastors preaching! Haha.. but that means this danger:
Songs with distorted theology = people with distorted theology (!)
Sometimes we do need to be alert to the songs we sing today. Do they make sense, or do we just feel good singing them even though they make little sense and go ‘man, I’m IN THE ZONE!’ 
yikes.. emotional high.. Maybe we need to go back to singing theologically rich hymns from now on!! haha! maybe not, i can sense some objections already.. then maybe we need to write new songs altogether haha! That said, there won’t be a song that can adequately portray God for who He is… cos… He’s an indescribable, uncontainable God!!!! ", But there ARE good songs around that we keep singing over and over! E.g. How Great is Our God, Shout to the Lord.
The next problem is that songs we sing today are too ‘me-centred’, how ‘I’ feel, how God touched ‘me’. Very individualistic, rather than God-centred. e.g. Oh oh oh, i am Yours and You are mine.. I love You x 3. Nothing wrong, we just need a balance! Are we consumers in worship? Or do we gather, to worship Him TOGETHER, praising Him for WHO He is, exalting His HOLY name, and not merely what He can do for us? There is a place and time for our individual experiences.. again, not saying sunday morning’s not a place but there needs to be a balance!
Worshipping TOGETHER as a body of Christ is not a corporate gathering of individual experiences of worship, but building up of the CHURCH itself (Gordon Fee).
Life-transforming Worship
The question I always ask myself as a worship team member is:
When people leave a ‘worship’ service, will they be more in awe of WHO God is, how good & Holy He is? Have we encountered God? Have we been transformed? Or, will they just feel better about themselves, or feel that the worship team did a great job in moving them? When we truly encounter God, will we feel good about ourselves?? I don’t think so. Like in Isaiah we’ll be so ashamed of ourselves saying ‘WOE TO ME! I am a man of unclean lips!’
Not saying that those who come with heavy burdens and problems will have their needs left out this way, but when we truly understand and worship God for who HE is, His nature.. all our problems/worries will be secondary IN LIGHT OF HIS glory, His Holiness!! And don’t forget, in His presence, there is fullness of Grace & Mercy, fullness of Joy, No condemnation… This is the God we worship. This is our God.
oops.. see what i mean? I can be cheesy with the lyrics.. :S
So anyway, the next time we gather in YM, we could all start thinking more carefully about the words in the songs we sing! Mhm! (: Maybe one day we’ll have the worship leaders pick all the incoherent songs and see whether people still sing them! ", Objections?
(Inspired by Dr Simon Chan’s CDCM series on Worship)
