Music Ministry

With over 750 direct references to music in the Bible, this is an issue of no small significance in Scripture.

Let me begin by saying I am young in the pastorate, and some would quickly point out that I have no business attempting to share counsel about music in the church. I am somewhat of an enigma because I am soon to be fifty years old, but I have only been a pastor for less than seven years. So I am an older guy with very little experience in the pastorate! My goal is to be biblical in these thoughts!

The purpose of church music is to enable the congregation to corporately worship God in one voice of praise and adoration. The word worship means to, “Ascribe worth to something, to show God’s worth.” True worship should come from our hearts.

There seems to be a great deal of confusion regarding church music. On the one hand, there are those who believe that if music is not of the formal, anthem-ish type, it cannot glorify God. On the other hand, there are those who select music only on the basis of what they like, forgetting that their flesh may like any number of things that are unscriptural and displease the Lord.

Most Contemporary Christian Music proponents say music is neutral and therefore all music is acceptable for the Christian. They say it is only the lyrics that make music good or evil. Through the years, I’ve questioned different people regarding the neutrality of music.

The Bible is the basis and foundation of everything I believe. This is why I reference so much Scripture when I write about music. There are at least 500 verses in the Bible that refer to music. The Bible instructs believers to praise God, “In psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Ephesians 5:19).

Worship and music are as essential to each other as worship and preaching. It seems there is always tension between time dedicated to music and time dedicated to preaching. In our world today, preaching is being shoved into a smaller and smaller time constraint while it seems the services are filled with what amounts to little more than an emotional rock concert.

Music is the accompaniment of life. The music a man chooses as his accompaniment says a lot about his lifestyle and his belief system. The world uses rock music to accompany themselves in their revelry and reflect their philosophy and approach to life.

What would you say the “spiritual temperature” of our society is today? Is it predominantly Christian? Are the world’s morals becoming more godly? Should Christians emulate the worldly cultural system we find ourselves in or be different—set apart?

I love and admire God’s choir directors! After serving in church music ministries for over thirty years, I like to find ways to be helpful to these music leaders. So here are some ideas that choir directors may wish to print, post, or distribute to their choir members.

There are many criteria to evaluate music (technical, poetical, structural, and stylistic criteria). These and other judgments on the subject of music lead to some wide variations in response to the question, “What, exactly, is good music?”

Know your music theory. Well-written music is not an accident but comes from hard work and skilled labor.