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 PrintableVersion The Music ExchangeDo we really need musicians to help our congregations to sing?There have been many responses to an article written by Mike Raiter from Australia about the death of congregational singing1. Some of these writers have pointed the finger at the singability of contemporary songs. One of those fingers was mine. Others have mentioned the lack of skilled musicians. Recently there have been some who have questioned the need for musicians at all. Here are some quotes from some who responded: ‘I was at a meeting recently where the leader declared that, as we had a piano, we could sing. Wrong. All you need to sing is a voice; musical instruments are not necessary.’ No instruments?Others hold an even more cessationist view. They suggest that because instruments are never mentioned in the New Testament, then they should have no place in the congregational meeting. ‘Instruments were only added because of men’s earthly desires and hardness of hearts. We could make the same claim for the ‘praise teams’ so popular now.’ After reading this latter article, I needed to go back to Hebrews 4 to remind myself that God’s measure of our hardness of heart is in relation to our response to the Word of God, which is much more serious than the ‘disobedience’ of playing the piano in a church meeting (though that may be just my view, being a pianist myself!). Only some instruments?A (slightly) more moderate view is the belief that the only instruments that should be allowed in the Christian meeting are those mentioned in the Old Testament — e.g. lute, harp and lyre (Psalm 92.3). Tambourines and cymbals (or anything which provided a beat) were confined to secular festivals, so there should be no rhythm instruments in Christian gatherings. Proponents of this view have to work very hard to explain away all the instruments mentioned in Psalm 150, in which the psalmist encourages us to praise God with a whole orchestra of trumpet, lute, harp, tambourine, strings, pipe, cymbals and loud crashing cymbals. They explain that, because v.6 says ‘let everything that has breath praise the Lord’, it means that the instruments mentioned in the rest of the Psalm are just figurative illustrations of the different timbres of the human voice, because only humans can praise the Lord with their breath. To be honest, if you think your voice sounds like loud clashing cymbals, I suggest you go and see a doctor. Holding all these views in mind, I think I agree with the first statement in principle — that musical instruments are not necessary for the accompaniment of singing. I’ve certainly never felt the urge to get my violin out when I’m in the shower to help with the Rocky theme tune. We should be able to sing with no accompaniment at all. I’d also agree that any Christian song ought to have a tune simple enough to be sung unaccompanied. However, the fact that instruments aren’t necessary doesn’t mean that they have no place in the Christian meeting. Common senseThe danger with some of the views mentioned above is that the writers try to take Scripture as their authority to deny us instrumental accompaniment. However, the New Testament is not prescriptive at all about whether we should use instruments, but leaves such small things up to us to decide to use or not. It’s true that the New Testament doesn’t talk about musical instruments being part of the Christian meeting, but neither does it stipulate the necessity for chairs. If we carried the same logic through, then it would be disobedient to sit down! The only principle Scripture gives us about what props we use in church meetings seems to be to use our gifts (whatever they may be, assuming the lists in 1 Corinthians 12-14 not to be exhaustive) to serve the body of Christ. Servant heartIt’s on this point that all the writers above agree (and me too) that instruments are often not used to serve the body of Christ. When used selfishly they can often drown out the singing, which is no good for praising God. This needn’t be the case if they are used with the right attitude of service and humility. This is one of the reasons I and others are keen to help church musicians and pastors better understand how to use music in congregational meetings to be of the best service to the body of Christ. Slowly we’re beginning to train Christian musicians to think biblically and, therefore, congregationally about how to use music to serve the Word of God and help people sing praise to God. I’m helping to run a day conference on November 15 at which we’ll be focusing on these issues — details at http://www.lmmc.org.uk. I hope that there and in the future we will be able to learn how to use our voices and musical instruments to the glory of God. 1 The Briefing, April 2008Richard Simpkin© Evangelicals Now - November 2008 |
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