Being honest or authentic about something false doesn’t make it right. As a sit here writing, I have a glass of water sitting by my computer. If I choose to hold that glass of water over the floor and turn it upside down, I have two options: 1.) I can believe that its contents will hit the floor or 2.) I can believe that the water inside will stay inside the glass. Even if I sincerely and honestly believe that the water will stay in the glass, I’m not exactly following in line with the truth of the situation. The water is going to hit the floor. The same truth applies to our belief systems as it also applies to our worship. What we say and sing in worship must be grounded in Biblical doctrine.
Now when I say Biblical doctrine, that doesn’t mean its boring or cold or it has a lot of thee’s and thou’s. Look at “Our God” by Chris Tomlin, “If our God is for us, then who could ever stop us? If our God is with us, what can stand against?”. That’s right out of Romans 8:31. That’s just one example. Doctrine is not a bad or uncool word, it is simply a set of beliefs. When I say that our worship must be grounded in Biblical doctrine, I mean that the words we sing must be true about God. Because of this, the words might not always be convenient to us or make us feel comfortable and fuzzy inside. In the context of music, what we sing about has big importance in the worship life of the Church. So if you aren’t singing truth in the Church, don’t sing. Like I wrote earlier, building on truth doesn’t make music boring, it makes it powerful. The world doesn’t need any more confusion about what kind of God we worship.
I could cite some examples of some songs out there in CCM, but that may be another blog post. I tend to get fired up and I don’t want to say something I may regret. So I’ll need to sit on that for a while. However, one of the countless reasons I love the team at Seacoast is that there is a desire to ensure that what is sung on the weekends is singing Truth while still being Spirit-led and Spirit-filled. Dig it. I write this blog out of love for the Church. I want people to grow closer to God in worship and I’m passionate about seeing people learn more about who God actually is through singing. My prayer is that this post doesn’t sound like I’m pointing fingers , I’m simply saying that our worship can be led by our feelings as longs as our heads and hearts are led by the Word.
This blog is the result of my own thoughts over the past few weeks as well as the reading of Glenn Packiam’s recent blog post. He puts these thoughts together much better than I ever could, so check it out!
