Habits of Enhancement: Songs

We don't sing songs in our house.

Well, we do, but we don't sit around and sing, like, a praise song or a hymn together after we read Scripture or pray together. Just ain't gonna' happen.

It's not that we think this is bad or corny. It's just not us.

But, music is alive in our home, you can be sure of that. And we are often timely and intentional about when we play certain songs and how we go about it.

We've been in a series of posts about the idea of "family worship" on the basis of a book titled, Family Worship. You can visit the first post here.

In the book Family Worship, one of the things advocated for cultivating lives of worship is singing songs. The book advocates singing a hymn or praise song together, as if it were a mini church service.

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Singing songs is, in fact, how Christian families have done it in the past, all the way back to Jesus and his disciples (which were, as Jesus was intending, a new type of "family").

In the gospel of Matthew, the story says that Jesus and his disciples had "sung a hymn" after they ate the meal and before they went out to the garden of Gethsemane to pray (Matt. 26:30). Likewise in Colossians 3:16, Paul encourages the community of believers to teach and admonish each other..."singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs."

Singing songs has been a part of the life of faith.

But is it only in the act of singing, or is it the effect of singing and music?

Perhaps both. But when it comes to this one can't overlook the fact that music has a generally positive effect, whether one sings or not. And we're dealing with two worlds here when we're talking about singing songs in the home. In the ancient world, there was no recorded music. If music was to factor into the spiritual life in the home, guess what? The people in the home had to sing it and play it themselves. This, in fact, has probably been the case up until when music was able to be widely broadcast into homes.

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I'm not suggesting that we abandon singing songs together. In fact, this might be something our current and future generations needs to revisit. Having said that, I think there is good reason to consider other ways of incorporating music and song in the home for the purpose of enhancing our lives offered to God in worship.

So I ask you: how does music factor into your home life? 

More specifically, how does music serve to enhance your lives offered to God in worship?

Consider trying to use music more in your home, in the mornings, during clean-the-house time, during the evening. Find a handful of songs that can you can play regularly to get into your minds. Obviously, it's best to find music with lyrics that proclaim and reflect the gospel and the message of Jesus. I say this vaguely because I (along with other "Christian" musicians) am not fond of the label "Christian music," nor is all music played on the "Christian" playlists necessarily in step with Jesus' message of the kingdom of God. So we have to be careful, not only of "secular" music, but also of "Christian" music. Better to think in terms of what music reflects the message of Jesus and his kingdom.

To start, check out the camp's playlist on our YouTube page. There are a few songs that can be used to enhance our lives of worship. And you can sing along, or just listen.

And here's a big, important point: you don't need to use "worship" songs to enhance your life as a life offered to God in worship. It's not like "worship" songs are magically more beneficial for our lives than other "non-worship" songs. What matters is how the music shapes our lives of worship.