Encouraging Congregational Singing

Well, good morning. It's good to be here again this morning. I'm blessed by your openness and your sharing. I appreciate that, and I feel the Lord blesses those that are open and share with the brotherhood. That's a blessing.

Brother Brandon wondered if we as a family would sing a few songs or sing a bit this morning. And I guess I've been very humbled and very blessed to have children who have enjoyed music as a part of their lives in the ups and downs.

Music is an expression of emotion, and so as a family you have your ups and downs as is normal. And so music can be an expression of joy. It can be an expression of sadness, perhaps, an outlet maybe of expressing yourself. And we've been very blessed to experience that as a family. And I'm going to ask the older children to come sing a song they've been singing.

The question is, "Is he worthy this morning?" And the answer is, yes, he is. He's worthy of all the praise we can give him and much, much more. So they're going to sing a song, and then as a family we're going to sing two more.

Do you feel the world is broken?

Do you feel shadows deepen?

Do you know that all the dark worlds are colliding in the cold? We do. Do you wish to see his eyes all made blue? We do.

We do. We do.

Is all creation coming? It is. Is nation coming? It is. Is it time you have left these alive in our ways? It is. Is it good that we rewrite ourselves our lives? It is. It is.

It is. Is the Lord willing? Is the Lord willing to let the winds blow? The winds blow. The winds blow. The winds blow. The winds blow. The winds blow.

Is it time to sit and sing the song? Is he worthy? Is he worthy of all that he's singing?

Is he worthy of this? He is.

He is.

Does the Father truly love us? He does. Does the Spirit rule among us? He does. Does he love us? He does. Does the God intend to dwell with us? He does. He does. He does. He does. Is the Lord willing? Is the Lord willing? Is the Lord willing? Is the Lord willing to let the songs of the winds blow? The winds blow. The winds blow. The winds blow. The winds blow. The winds blow.

He is worthy. He is worthy. He is worthy to sing the song. He is worthy to sing. The winds blow. The winds blow. The winds blow. The winds blow. The winds blow to sing the song. Is the Lord willing? Is he worthy of all the blessing on earth? Is he worthy? Is he worthy? Is he worthy of this?

He is. Is he worthy? Is he worthy? He is. He is. He

is.

What will it be like to hear trumpets of the mountain, our Savior? What will it be like to look in the sky and see him descend? How will it feel to rise in the air and leave earth behind me?

To fly like an eagle soared toward the sun, to Jesus our Lord. What will it be like to know our next step will be heaven's parzels? To know our next song with glory be sung with legions of angels?

To look in the sky and see on his shining city awaits us? To trade earthly cares with Jesus right there, walking beside us.

What will it be like when that trumpet blows to drop all I'm doing? Oh, just for a moment will I regret to leave all behind? I think the splendor of Jesus Christ, the joy when we see him. With lips and with thought of things left behind, our Savior is here.

And sometimes I fear how great the unknown of everything ceasing. To have the skies rent, the angels stretch toward the land and the sea. But he says, "Fear not, it shall be like a father returning." To children who long awaited the joy of his return.

What will it be like to know our next step will be heaven's parzels? To know our next song with glory be sung with legions of angels? To look in the sky and see only shining city awaits us? To trade earthly cares with Jesus right there, walking beside us.

How great the cares of that lady between us! How high the mountain, I could not climb. In desperation I turned to heaven and spoke your name into the night. And through the darkness, your loving eyes left joy through the shadows of my soul.

Now work is finished, the end is written. Jesus Christ, my living Lord. Who could imagine so great a mercy? What heart could fathom such boundless grace? The God of angels stepped down from glory to wear my sin and bear my shame.

No cross has fallen, I am forgiven. The King of kings calls me his own. Beautiful Savior, I'm yours forever. Jesus Christ, my living Lord. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Praise the one who set me free. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Death has lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain. There's salvation in your name. Jesus Christ is my living Lord.

When came no morning, there still the promise. Your buried body began to breathe. Hours of the silence, the roaring lion declared the grave as. No claim on me. Then came the morning, there still the promise. Your weary body began to breathe. Hours of the silence, the lion declared the grave as no claim on me.

Jesus, yours is the victory. Yours is the victory. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Praise the one who set me free. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Death has lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain. There's salvation in your name. Jesus Christ is my living Lord.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Praise the one who set me free. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Death has lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain. There's salvation in your name. Jesus Christ is my living Lord. Jesus Christ is my living Lord.

You are my living Lord.

My living Lord. My living Lord.

I trust that's our testimony this morning, is He is our living hope. He's alive, and it changes us. It changes us every minute of every day. At least it should. That's the goal. This morning, I want to think about encouraging congregational singing, but a bit of review, thinking about our tools. Number one, music is a language that communicates, aside from the text, that does communicate emotion.

Secondly, if the motions of the music are wrong, if it brings something out in us physically that is inappropriate, so is the music, because the music causes the motion. Thirdly, music comes as a package. We have the music, and we have the text. If one part of the package is wrong, we reject the package.

Fourthly, Christian music should be distinct from the world. It should have, first of all, a solid text, but it also should have a sound that is steering away from the world's sound. And fifthly, our music should be in unity with the rest of our daily lives.

Last night, Brother John asked about, thinking about how we do worship. And I'd like to spend a little time thinking about that this morning, and that is the use of a cappella, singing in our worships. We have these questions as young people. Is this a biblical form of worship? Is this a good one?

Is there a reason why we, as Anabaptists, maintain a strong a cappella worship service? There's a book written by, I believe he is Presbyterian, I believe, from up in the New England States. So not Anabaptist whatsoever, but that is a powerful book.

And I'd encourage you to find it. I think it's probably 10, 15 years old. It's a fairly new book, but "Old Light on New Worship," and it's a really good resource for thinking about what we do and why we don't use instruments in our worship services. So I'm getting a lot of ideas from that. Brother Harold Dean Miller gave me a copy this many years ago, and it's been a blessing.

So let's think about the scriptures. Let's think about the Old Testament. Many times we go to the Old Testament for, well, they used instruments back then, so let's use them now, those kind of ideas. If you look at the Old Testament, you will find that instruments were very strictly ordered by God Himself in the tabernacle and temple worship. This was not part of the synagogue. This was not part of the local worship service here. It was only when the children of Israel, when the Jews traveled to the temple, that it was part of that service. But on a local level, when they met together in the synagogue, it was always a cappella.

God regulated the specific instruments to be used. It was the trumpets in the tabernacle and the trumpet and the instruments of David in the temple. And He specifically laid out the instruments of David. Now, if you go in your Bibles, let's go to 2 Chronicles, chapter 29, and we'll see this.

2 Chronicles 29. Now, I got to want to be clear that I'm not passing judgment on those that use music. That's God's call. But to solidify us in what we've known and what I believe has been a very powerful influence in our lives as Christians. So 2 Chronicles 29, verse 25. "And He set the Levites in the house of the Lord with symbols, with psalteries, and with harps, according to the commandment of David and of Gad, the king Seir, and Nathan, the prophet. For so was the commandment of the Lord by His prophets. And the Levites stood with the instruments of David and the priests with the trumpets. And Hezekiah commanded to offer the burnt offering upon the altar.

And when the burnt offering began, the song of the Lord began also with the trumpets and with the instruments ordained by David, King of Israel." Very specific instructions here, trumpets and the instruments of David. Now, move forward to Nehemiah.

Nehemiah, chapter 12. Now, there was 600 years between what I just read and what we're going to read now in the book of Nehemiah. 600 years. The United States has been here less than 300 years. Think about how things change in that amount of time. But here in Nehemiah, chapter 12, verse 35, it says, "And certain of the priests, sons with trumpets, namely," and I'm not going to read all the names, but he names the men that used the trumpets. And then in verse 36, "And his brethren with the musical instruments of David, the man of God, and Ezra the scribe before them. They were still maintaining the very strict structure that had been given to them 600 years prior.

They were still using the trumpets, and they were still using the instruments of David. This had not become a free-for-all in 600 years. This wasn't whatever they felt like doing. This was still very ordered worship. God specified it. This is how I want to be worshiped, and hence the endeavor to do that."

Let's move forward then to the time of Christ, the Apostolic Church. The local synagogue was the meeting place of the Jews. The singing there, like I already said, was always a cappella. They met, just came together, and there wasn't the instruments and all that went along with that.

Therefore, as we move through into the new dispensation under Jesus Christ, we find the sacrificial and ceremonial worship was not part of the synagogue, only the temple. So that didn't happen locally. The sacrifice and stuff happened at the temple, not in the synagogue.

So Jesus Christ steps into that. And so the worship of Christ in the Apostolic Church, the Apostles, was patterned after this worship. They believed in the idea of a regulatory worship where God specifies how He is to be worshiped. God did not command the use of instruments, so we have no authority to use them, is the approach.

Often we hear the opposite. Well, God didn't say we couldn't, so we can. But rather, it was God didn't say we should, so we won't. And if you look at the writings of Apostle Paul, never is it mentioned how to handle instruments in worship.

If it was that important to God, I think Apostle Paul or Peter or someone would have addressed it, but it's never addressed. It wasn't part of what they did. Neither is there a gift mentioned anywhere in the scriptures on the playing of instruments in the New Testament. It's not specified anywhere. So there's really no discussion about it. So what has often been the logic is, well, again, since it's not been addressed, then we can do what we want. But rather, we look at the Old Testament, we say, "No, God regulated His worship. He doesn't say to use it, so we're going to refrain from that."

If we move then to the early church, some quotes from some of these men soon after Jesus Christ. So they had Jesus had fulfilled the law. He didn't throw it away. He fulfilled the law. And there was no more of the sacrificial system, the ceremony of all that. That had gone away.

And this is what they said. This is Justin Martyr. He said, "The use of singing with instrumental music was not received in the Christian church as it was among the Jews in their infant state, but only the use of plain song or a cappella singing. Musical organs pertain to the Jewish ceremonies and agree no more to us on circumcision." We're done with that. We have something better because Jesus calls us to something better.

"The Council of Carthage said, 'On the Lord's Day, let all instruments of music be silenced.'" Another bishop in the 300s said this, "It was only permitted to the Jews as sacrifice was, for the heaviness and grossness of their souls. God condescended to their weakness because they were lately drawn off from idols. But now, instead of organs, we may use our bodies to praise Him with all."

It's interesting that Russian Orthodox Church today still sings a cappella because that little half-inch set of vocal cords you have is what we are to praise Him with. And if you know anything about Russian music, phenomenal singing from Russia. Why? Because of that.

John Wycliffe, moving forward then about a thousand years, he considered the many ceremonies and images of the church, along with the use of the organ, a relapse into Judaism, which seeks after signs and a departure from the spiritual nature of Christianity.

So he would have been about the 1300s. John Huss and his followers reformed worship by forbidding the use of musical instruments and returning to simplicity with unison congregational singing. Meadows-Imons believed that what is not expressly commanded in the New Testament should not be permitted in Christian worship.

John Calvin, now we disagree with John Calvin on many things, but he was vehemently opposed to musical instruments in Christian worship, very, very against it. And he was very willing to share his thoughts.

So let's look a little bit at a timeline. So we have Jesus, the time of Jesus. We have the time of the Reformation, and I'm going to say this is modern time. And let's think about how instruments were used.

We have Christ. We have the Apostolic Church. We have the early church. We then have the Reformers, and then we have the contemporary worship of today. And if we look at the use of instruments, I should say 2025, when we look at instruments, we see the rise of instruments where you see my triangles. So the early church, the Apostolic Church, stayed away from them. That's part of the old system.

But as time goes on, over thousands of, or 1,500 years, 1,300 years, there was this shift to allowing it back to kind of the Catholic Church really begins to build its power in that time period. Then the Reformer steps out, Martin Luther steps out, and Zwingli, and then, of course, the Anabaptists, and all those involved with that. And they said the same thing, "We're done with this. This is part of that church that was not doing this right, that wasn't living out the teachings of Jesus. We're done with it." So they cut it off, John Calvin, etc.

Again, moving through history, it wasn't until pretty recent that we start using instruments in a strong way in our churches again. And of course, that's where we're at here today.

"The Old Testament temple worship, in all of its outward ceremonies and rituals, has been abolished. We need to look to Christ and His Apostles alone for the worship of the church. And with no command, example, or any indication whatsoever from the Lord Jesus that He desires musical instruments in His church, we have no authority for their use."

Now, again, maybe you can disagree with that, but I think we have a strong foundation, biblically and historically, for what we do.

One of the first things that you hear from people who come visit one of our churches, who has never been in one of our churches, what do they almost always say? Almost always, "Wow, that singing was special. That was special. That was something we've never heard before."

We grew up with it, which we're used to it. But to someone who's not, the expression of the voice, unity, coming together and singing together with expression and enthusiasm is something very special that we tend to overlook.

Scriptures give us some indication as to what we should sing. We can go to Ephesians 5, and it talks about Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. And there's probably some varying definitions of these three. But I think it helps us with some idea of variety, of what was used and what should we use. Psalms, we would say, is a scripture text set to good music.

The Jews took the Psalms of David and sang them. That's what they did. That's what that book is. And so they put tunes to those Psalms and sang them. That was primarily their music. We also have hymns, which is usually defined as songs about God and His attributes, songs about Him and who He is and His holiness and His glory.

And then we have spiritual songs, perhaps songs of testimony, or maybe what we would call the gospel song, the simpler song that sings about my connection to Jesus, what He's done in my life, what a friend we have in Jesus, and so on. Now, all three of those have their place, and we sing all three of them, and we need to sing all three of them.

Now, I have a quote from a Chinese philosopher, Confucius. This was before Jesus, several hundred years before Jesus. And I like this. He says, "What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember." Anyone know what the next one is?

"What I do, I understand." And as a school teacher, I build on that premise pretty strongly.

I can preach or I can teach. And it's also sad to know, as preachers, that you forget 90% of what you hear, which is kind of depressing, but it's the truth. But what I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. And I do the same thing. I'm not picking on you, okay? It's so easy to forget what was said, so much of it. But what I do, when you actually enter into something and participate in it, that's what you understand. It becomes a part of you. It's part of coming, as Brother Brandon said, "We need to come. Who are we becoming?" is the question.

Perhaps not so much what we believe, but who we want to become in the kingdom of God. And that's where it's going to happen. It's when you begin to do the kingdom of God, the work of the kingdom of God, that you're going to start to understand it.

I think the same is true in hymns and Psalms and spiritual songs, all three of those that we, when we do them, we begin to understand them. If we sit on the sidelines and never participate in the singing, we'll hear them. We'll see them. We'll remember a little bit about them, but it won't impact us like doing them.

I would like to think about taking the scriptures and pondering the purpose and the goal of sacred music in order of importance, as we find it in the Bible, and use that as a reference point for how much we use of each of these pieces of music, these types of songs. Number one, if we look at the scriptures, it was used to praise and glorify God. It was songs about who He was. And if you look in the Psalms themselves, most of those are directed to God and singing about Him.

Secondly, it is to teach and admonish and encourage the believers. We find that in Colossians. We find that in Ephesians, that it is part of our teaching program. And I'm encouraged by how much you sing here. That's great.

Too many of us get in a, "We sing two at the beginning and one here," and then that's it. You sing more than that. Go for it. Keep that up. That's important because it's part of our teaching program, which is to teach and admonish one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Thirdly, it's to unify us. And I read Jeremiah yesterday, this flowing together. And Romans 15 talks about being of one mind and one mouth, praising God.

And fourthly, it's used to evangelize. Now, if you ask most singing groups today why they're singing gospel music, what do they say? They start at the bottom, and they say, "We're here to spread the gospel." I'm not saying they're not.

But what happens is, when we start here, we then start to manipulate. Well, remember I said in the 1960s, that's the first time Christians got together and said, "You know what? Music has to be neutral because we want to take popular music. We want to take rock music and Christianize it so we can use it for what?

To evangelize, to hang on to our young people." So when we start here, we tend to throw away the principles of scripture, and whatever works is what we're going to use, rather than starting at the top and saying, "You know what? I want to sing the songs of God and of Him. I want to sing songs that teach me, that bring conviction into my life."

If we do number one and two, what's going to happen? Three and four will follow. Absolutely. But we need to keep in focus one and two as our primary reason for singing.

Do you know that singing is the only ordinance in the church that is in heaven? You know that? We no longer will have the word because we will be in the presence of the word. We will no longer be praying because we will be in the presence of the one we pray to.

But we will be singing.

Question I get many times on a more practical level: Is good singing hereditary? Is it in the genes? Well, I know some good singing parents that have poor singing children. I know some poor singing parents that have poor singing children. I know some poor singing parents that have good singing children. And I know some good singing parents that have good singing children.

And you probably all do too. So if all four of those are true, the answer to that question is, no, it's not in the genes.

I personally believe everybody can sing unless they are born an absolute monotone. If, and there are people that way, but if they're a monotone, they will speak completely flat. There would be no inflection in their voice. Nothing like that will ever happen.

But if a little child can say, "Nana, boo boo," they can sing, right? Absolutely, because that's pitch. That's pitch. So no, it's not in the genes. Now, let's look at the two bold statements: poor singing parents with poor singing children, good singing parents with good singing children. Why? Not because it's in the genes, but it's because it's in the environment.

It's in the environment. It's what your children are exposed to. Your children will absorb whatever you give them. That's just the way it is. It's amazing what little guys can learn very quickly. I'm glad the alphabet is learned in first grade and not in 12th grade, because the first graders do way better at simply absorbing the facts given to them than high schoolers do, because they're a sponge. It's wonderful. And I love to see them taking those. And if you think about it, it's a miracle. All these little funny shapes that are in here, and all of a sudden, ideas are communicated, and the light goes on. You see that? That's powerful, because all of a sudden, they're gaining something from this page that they never could have before.

So that's a miracle in and of itself, but they absorb it. So what you give them to listen to and what you have them do is going to determine what they do with music in the future. So how do we encourage good singing? First of all, I think it needs to begin in our homes.

And I would suggest, "Sing, sing, sing."

Sing together, ladies especially. Brother John Dee said this last night in our conversation. He said, "The best thing for a child is a mother that sings." I think that's true. I know of a family that I had encouraged, or we had talked about this, and the husband had kind of discouraged his wife from singing because she wasn't a very good singer.

And it would teach the children wrong. You know what happened? The children don't sing very well. They're not very interested. If Mom would have been allowed to sing, even if she's not that good, it would have made a difference, I think.

Sing, please sing, even if it's not the most polished thing in the world, because it brings enthusiasm. I'm blessed when I hear someone who sings with enthusiasm, even if they're not really sure where they're at. There's a blessing in that, and that's all right.

We are to make a joyful noise. Listen to recordings of good singing.

They will sing what they hear. And so your children will sound like and sing what they listen to. That's why it's so important that we evaluate what's coming through their earbuds, if they're using earbuds, or what's coming through the sound system. Any more these days, you're connecting your phone, your Bluetooth, into something, and you're listening to whatever's on the screen.

And then you can listen to anything you want in 30 seconds. What are they listening to? It will make a massive difference. Now, be still and know that I am God. There's a time to turn it all off, okay? And be still. Sometimes at our house, we wish maybe that would happen a little more. There's a lot of music going on, singing and playing and piano and so on, and it's good. But sometimes we need to be quiet and be still. There's a space for that.

Is there a posture? Is there anything physical that goes along with singing? Now, this morning, one of the first things that impressed me was when our brother said, "Let's pray." Boom, everybody knelt. They weren't told to kneel. You just did.

We at our church specify what we're going to do so that we know what we're doing, which is fine. But you knew there's a posture to prayer. Absolutely. We all knelt. We teach our children to bow their heads, to close their eyes, to kneel.

There's a posture. There is a physical change. It is now time to pray. So we're going to do this, and that's good. Is there a posture to singing?

I think there is. And I think you do pretty well here. I think you need to sit up straight. I think you need to get your back off the back of your bench. Sit up straight, get your book out. Where, in your case, you don't have a song leader here, but if you have a song leader, if you get your, if you're down in here, you can't see what's up here. You got to get your book up here. And that also helps you sing, and you can see the song leader at the same time.

There's a posture to singing. It's a physical activity, isn't it? Absolutely.

So encourage your children to sing and to sing and to sing well. Sing with enthusiasm, and then listen to hymns. Listen to things that bless this, that bless what's happening here, so they can come and sing at church. I love to hear a little eight-year-old belting it out. That's wonderful.

If they're doing that, it's because they're hearing it at home.

What about school? And I'm not sure where you're at with schools here. I know there's some homeschooling, and that's great.

So I think this applies to all places of education. I think in our schools, we need to teach it young. I think it's very, very important that it is a prevalent part of first grade. At our school, we do not teach theory in first grade. We simply get them to try to enjoy singing and try to match pitch. The most important thing at that point is pitch. Make sure they're singing with the teacher, with their classmates, not theory, just trying to get them excited about the singing. And again, they soak it up, and they love rhythm. If you can clap some rhythm with them, you can sing with them. They get it right on board very quickly.

Secondly, make it part of your rudimentary educational program. Tuesday afternoon at two o'clock, we have music. This happens every week. It's not Friday afternoon if we have time, because again, it won't happen if you put it on that kind of slot. It needs to be prioritized and put to use and made happen.

Don't neglect it. Be enthusiastic about it, and that falls on the teacher's shoulders. If the teacher's not excited about it, I can assure you the students won't be. So it's up to us as teachers to get excited about it. Sing with understanding. Help them understand what music's about. Where's it going? What are we doing with these songs? And like I mentioned last evening, it's just fun to have students respond to because they like it. It gives them something to work on. If I just stand in front of them and say, "Blow the pitch," and we're going to sing the song, and there's no discussion about how, what, when, where, it becomes pretty mundane very quickly.

But if we spend time thinking about what we're doing, how we're doing it, why we want to do it this way, it's engaging. It's engaging, and it's something they can pour themselves into.

So be enthusiastic as teachers. Make it interesting. Make it fulfilling.

What about in our churches?

Again, parents, be involved in the music. Little Johnny sitting beside you, sing, sing. If you want to transmit that to him, you have to be a part of it yourself. And I feel like we're facing a lot of values in our culture that are pushing, pressuring in on us: the values of sports and the values of entertainment, and all these worldly values that used to be way out there. It's pretty easy when I was little: no television in the home. That was pretty simple. We're not there anymore.

So technology has brought all those value systems right around us: sports, movies, YouTube, influencers. Isn't that a great word? Influencers, that's what they are. What kind of influence do you want on your children? And that's a worldly term. Christians didn't coin that, but they're influencing us. Is that what we want? What kind of influencers are we allowing? So I think one of the answers to that, men, is us, me as a father, exemplifying staying what I'm doing with those values, because if I don't, my children certainly won't. And that's a massive challenge for me.

What am I doing with those value systems? What am I doing with my phone and how I relate to what's coming in on me?

So if we're going to instill in our children an interest in church music, we have to do it ourselves. That's the best way.

More is caught than taught. Perhaps have some special weekend singings. And I know you do a lot of music here, and that's wonderful. Spend some time learning new songs. I had an aunt, a great aunt of mine, passed away probably 15 years ago now or so. And she talked to me about the Lancaster Conference in probably the '40s, where they had singing schools, where they had traveling song leaders. You know, we talk about circuit riding preachers. They had circuit riding song leaders, and they would come to the church. And I think she said a week, but I'll be conservative and say a weekend, where he would come and he would take the hymnal, and he would teach them songs, and they would sing together, and they would learn how to sing together.

Maybe you've done that here, but that doesn't happen very often. And I'm not talking, and I'm not talking about music camp and so on. That has its place. I'm talking about right here, right here.

And I think there are some good things that will come out of that. I would encourage you, if you want to do that, get a song leader that's not here. Get someone who you don't know, because sometimes that can, you know, how it is. Get someone you don't know to come and just do that freely and help you learn songs.

Work on how to sing the songs. Work on the elements of that, which then takes me to the next question: Where do we get the tools to teach and to train our children, our students, and our congregations how to sing well? Where do they come from? It's going to have to be something that's musical, because it's music. So where are we getting the tools? Which takes me to the question: What about choral music? That has become much more prevalent in our circles in the last 20 years. So what about it? Where does it come from? I think it's important to look at the foundation of it, first of all. It was founded in the church.

It began in the Old Testament. We have the choirs of the Old Testament singing. We also have the choirs of the Christian church over the last 2000 years. Now, it's been abused. It's been misused, but its roots are still sacred, not secular.

You can go to the most liberal college in America and take a choir program, and you will be singing sacred music probably at least 50% of the time. Doesn't mean they believe what they're singing, but you will be singing Christian music, because you cannot divorce choral music from the sacred. It can't be done, because that's where it started.

What we heard Friday night was music that began in the world. Its foundation is in the world, and we tried to bring it in. The opposite is true for this. But I would like to make a strong distinction between what I call a choral style versus the choral music itself.

A choral style is a style that gives us the tools. Bluegrass doesn't teach us how to sing well in a congregation. Southern Gospel doesn't. Christian country doesn't. Contemporary music doesn't. There's no tools for singing there. There's none.

But the choral world brings some, because they teach us how to sing a cappella, first of all, and how to do that well. Part of that choral style is respecting the composer of the music. I find it fascinating, and I don't think you do the radio here, but periodically, I'll turn on National Public Radio, which is liberal as the day is long, and turn on a classical. They're playing some classical music, and I just heard it last week.

They don't hardly talk at all about the performance. They talk about the composer, which fascinates me. When I went to hear the cathedral sing in my day, they didn't talk about the composer. It didn't matter who wrote the song. It was about the performance. You see the difference? So the classical world respects who wrote it. Why did they write it? How was it written? How did they want it performed? And I think that's pretty important for us as we look at our hymnals and we look at why it was written. How was it written? How can we sing it in a way that blesses the text?

John and Charles Wesley published a book in the 1700s, and I wish I had it. I have it at home or buried in my computer somewhere. But on the very first page of that hymnal, they wrote a scathing article: "If you are not going to sing the music the way we wrote it, please do not sing it at all. It was strong.

This is the way we wrote it. This is what we want you to do with it. You don't have a license to do anything you want with it." That's interesting. It's just interesting. Maybe it was too strong. I don't know, but it was strong. Sing it the way we wrote it.

And so the classical model, the choral music, brings that to the table. It also brings us a lot of tools about how to sing. Now, the choral world has its pitfalls. We get a ditch on both sides. The choral music that I'm talking about is perhaps the music that is so complex, we can't understand any of it. You hear those kinds of discussions, or perhaps in different languages, and maybe there's a discussion about all that. Maybe there's a place for that. There'd be, I'm sure there's probably 50 different views on that in here this morning.

But I'm still saying that usually what you're challenging, if you say, "I don't get it," it's this right here, not this. It's the choral music itself. It's what it is.

So I think it's important for us to understand that if we are going to teach our children well, that we have to go here to get the tools to do it.

The message of Christ must always be in priority over the beauty of the music. I love beautiful music. But if that becomes the end goal, then we're missing it. The end goal is to glorify Jesus Christ, and we want to do it to the best of our abilities. But the beauty of the music is not the end in and of itself.

It's what we're singing about. The other thing we can't let it do is cause a generational divide. And I've seen that. The older folks, "I don't get it. I don't understand it. I can't." And we don't want that, because that's what happened in the rock and roll world of the '50s. It split the generations, and it rolls into our churches, and we don't want choral music to do that to us.

So there's a balance to all of that, as in all of life. One thing I try to do at school, and I'm not sure I do very well, is knowing who my people are, who the church is, what they represent, to try to have a mixture of all three types of songs, where we do sing a challenging piece or two that helps. The better children do at something difficult, the better they're going to do at something simple when they come here. That is the way it is.

And so if they learn to sing some difficult music, they can take those tools then and bring it back to the simple, solid hymns we sing and sing them very well. And so I like to sing something that is challenging for them, but then sing some simple pieces that I know the congregation will appreciate, that the children learn and the children sing. And we need all of those.

Like I said, I'm not sure how well I'm doing, but that would be an honest attempt every time we give a program, that there's a balance of all those things.

But again, this is where you're going to get the tools to teach your children how to sing well. Now, I decided I'm just going to go with what I usually go with. You folks don't have to stand up front here, song leaders, which is perfectly fine. But I want to address that just a bit, and I'll move through it pretty quickly. But I think our song leading plays an important role in our worship service. In this case, you sit on the bench and lead the singing, and that's fine. But I think we need to lead with enthusiasm as song leaders. We are to be song leaders, not song followers. Too often, our song leaders get up, and they follow whatever happens.

Whatever the ladies want to do, whatever soprano wants to do, is how fast we go, how slow we go. We don't lead it. We just follow along. Well, then we're not being leaders. So a song leader is to be the leader, and he needs to do it well. I think as song leaders, we need to find the spirit of the song and endeavor to lead it accordingly, to see what kind of song is it? Is it soft? Is it a song of meditation? Is it a joyful, joyful, we adore thee with a lot of strong rhythm? What is it? And then we need to be contributing that to the congregation.

I mentioned these verses last evening, but to offer the sacrifice of praise. Our sacrifice is the best thing we can give to God. That's what he asks, and that's what we need to do. And whatsoever you do, do it heartily, not for man's purposes, but for men or for God.

So what are some techniques? Very quickly, for song leaders, sing with confidence. Sing with a tall and open sound. Don't sing in a way that you have to have this microphone so that we can hear you. Sing so we can hear you.

Sing to the man across the street, and this is an illustration I use at school. So if there was a man that was almost deaf, and he was walking across, he was going to walk out in front of the car, and you saw him, and you know this is going to be disaster, and so you have a moment to do something, you would say, "Hey, hey, hey!" You would go, "Hey!" Wouldn't you? Yeah. What's the difference?

What you do with your vocal establishment there. I hope it didn't wake up any babies. But you see the difference? So when we get up here and sing, we want to sing in a way that it carries down the street. I love to go Christmas caroling with people that you can hear three blocks away.

I've been caroling with people that you can't hardly hear at all, and it's just depressing.

You can ask my wife about that. Yeah. We need some sopranos that do this, that carry that joy to the world, because, by the way, that's what those people know. They know the melody of those Christmas songs, not the bass and the tenor. We need ladies that let it go.

So sing with confidence, and as song leaders, we need to do that. Sing the vowels. Articulate the consonants. That's a discussion from the choral world. There is no sound to a T or a P. There's no music to that. You have to sing the A, you know, the vowels. That's it. And so how do we do that?

And I think, as song leaders, we need to work on that. Now, if any of you song leaders ever are up front here or at another church, what are some things that I think should be there? You need to be enthusiastic, be excited about it. Get to the front before you announce the song number. I've seen song leaders, they say the song number over here, and they're walking over here. Stand here and look at us, connect with us, and then tell me what you want to sing.

And then for sure, finish the song before you go to the next one. The song's still, the sound's still spinning, and he's flipping the pages to the next. No. The song's not done till it's done, right? Let it settle.

Give long enough pauses between the verses. Give your audience a chance to breathe a bit before you go into the next verse.

And try to, and this is a hard one, but try to look at your audience at the end of the verses, the whole way through, from the end of the verse into the beginning of the next one, without looking at your book. That's an important connection. If you can do that, sometimes you can't. But I think it's important to do that. So I've had people ask me, "What can a song leader do?" And I failed to get a song book, but take your song books to number 812. Thank you.