Thursday, January 31, 2008

Philosophy of Church Music

Church Music Ministry is apartment of individual duty. It is really important for the church and ministry. When we are in the ministry preaching the Word of God is not enough. The Word of God should be through music. Music is one of international languages and also music is the universal language. Most of musicians express their feeling through their songs. They use their ideas on their composition, tone, and tune for a song. They deeply think about for writing or composing a song. They use their own ability for becoming a good song. As the music is international language, we can speak in music, we can understand in music and we can communicate each other. Though, we can not understand the language, the speech, and words, we can understand through melody, feeling, tone, and tune. The music is one of the solemn wish things. Therefore, the Church music used differently in denominational churches. Every church or every denominational church was not the same in music. When we observe the way their worship is different, such as feeling, the forms, the styles, the tune and any else. Non evangelical church is also more different than other protestant church. In the church, music has a great impact to lead to the congregation to worship God to draw closer to God. In the Church, the Word of God through music and the Word of God is the first priority and the second ought to be music. There is no music in the church which might be corrupted.

Some fundamental churches used the church music ministry in many different ways. Some like joyfully, gracefully but some are not. Some fundamentalist do not want to be like Pentecostals or do not like the modern praise and worship. They just want to sing the Hymns. In nowadays, the Pentecostals influenced their feelings, motive, styles, and music. Some do not want to sing the Hymns. Some are very inspiring and really touching. I have encountered a ‘corrupted music’ in the church and nowadays, as Christian we have to really acknowledge what kind of music must play in the church. We should know what kind of music is the best for the ministry.

My mother church is one of evangelical churches but the way they were using praise and worship is different. In the Lord’s Day they must use the Hymns rather than praise and worship. We never sang the praise and worship songs. Some conservative church does not want to use the drum, guitar, and other instruments during the worship service. The church accepts to use the piano only. Nowadays, there are a lot of music styles and forms and some are not biblical. They just use their feeling. We have to be careful those kind of composition and word. But the lyrics must be coded from the Scripture. I have many experiences in worship service. Some churches more focus on singing or praise and worship service. The Word of God is more important than the praise and worship. The praise and worship must be shorter than the sermon. Some song leader lead a long times in praise and worship. And many worship leaders forget about this matter and they imbalance the order of the church because too much emphasis only in one side. We have more focus on the Word of God or sermon.

The things happened in the church today. I heard about one of the churches in the world that we don’t need to preach the Word rather than praise and worship. It is enough in praise and worship service. They seem emphasis singing rather than listening to the sermon and the Word of God, even the way of their lives. Worship is not only listening to the sermon or sing a spiritual song, but the real worship is our relationship with God. We have to understand the meaning of worship. Worship gives important hints about the nature of this human-divine encounter. The Bible gives a number of pictures of worship experiences, many of them involving individuals who are representative of groups. Christian worship is our affirmative, transforming response to the self-revelation of God.

In my opinion, worship service through music is the biblical. But we have to adjust. The worship must be biblical. Some, Pentecostals use extremely praise and worship. We have to set a rule for those who are involves in music. Today, it is a wise decision to choose this subject and learn how to be a helper, pastor, and teacher, professor in the church or seminary and contribute the lesson that we learnt from this subject to improve our church music. Our church must has her own identity concerning the music. It is really a blessing to have music impart of our worship, because through music we can express our emotion to God. Through, music also, we can evangelize people with it different way when we use it in correct way and with right attitude.

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