THE PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH
What is the purpose of the Church? It’s a big question, and it’s likely that the strongest ministry emphases at your church are a reflection of how the leadership answers it. It’s also likely that the church you attend reflects how you answer that question. Is the purpose of the Church to evangelize the lost? Serve the community in which it exists? Disciple people in the Christian faith?
Of course, all of those things are good things — and there are many more biblical answers we could give. But the reality is that in her multi-faceted ministries and in her countless local expressions, the Church’s ultimate purpose is to bring eternal, undivided, undiluted glory to God. Think about it. Isn’t the goal, the telos, of any ministry or church activity ultimately that God would be more fully praised by those whom he has saved? Community outreach and evangelism ministries rightly desire converts who become worshippers. Discipleship efforts are intended to deepen someone’s faith and grow their love for God. And our Sunday gatherings — big or small, simple or complex — ought to have as their unwavering focus the glory of God, the beauty of his Son, and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.
It’s a sad but observable fact that when a local church begins to stray from this ultimate telos — this commitment that it exists solely for the glory of God — it begins to sap itself of real spiritual power. Granted, it is unlikely you’ll ever hear a church leader articulate this mission-drift out loud. You won’t see it reflected in a church’s doctrinal statements. It will show up in subtler ways: in man-centered preaching, in leaders who seek personal platform and crave influence, in an unwillingness to partner with other gospel churches. Spiritual vitality drains out of such churches because we were never intended to rule our own kingdoms. Human beings weren’t made to receive glory, we were made to give glory.
In Paul’s magisterial opening chapter of his letter to the Ephesians, he makes crystal clear the purpose of the people of God. His people have been blessed by him, chosen, predestined, and adopted to the praise of his glorious grace (vs 6). We have an inheritance in Christ that we who hope in him might be to the praise of his glory (vs 12). We have been sealed with the Holy Spirit, the guarantee of our inheritance, to the praise of his glory (vs 14). Note the clear Trinitarian focus. In his beautiful description of all that God has done for us, Paul makes it clear that Father, Son, and Spirit have done it for a singular purpose: to the praise of his glory.
THE THEOLOGY OF WORSHIP
If God’s glory is the purpose of the church, then we must think biblically and robustly about worship. This may seem obvious — isn’t giving glory to God just another way of describing worship?
Yes and no. When we think about worship, many of us in evangelical contexts will immediately link worship to music. In our services, we sing worship songs. Our church staffs have worship leaders. Our musicians are part of the worship team.
Of course, thinking about worship in that way is not wrong. The Scriptures are filled with examples of musical praise to God, like Paul and Silas singing in their prison cell (Acts 26:25). Beyond scriptural examples, we are given commands to worship in song (Psalm 150).
While linking worship to music is good and right, our understanding of worship will be anemic if that is as far as we take it. If we want a robustly biblical understanding of worship, then we must see it as an all-of-life submission to God (Psalm 25:1). It’s an all-encompassing devotion to the One who made us, the only One worthy of our adoration and devotion (Psalm 96:4). We belong to God every minute of every day, and our whole posture and orientation are to be Godward.
If we understand worship in this way individually, it will shape our understanding of worship corporately. Our Sunday worship is far more than our songs. Worship is given expression through the preaching of God’s Word, eating and drinking at Christ’s table, and celebrating the Spirit’s life-giving power in baptism. We thank God for his sovereign protection over our families in child dedications, we give financially because we have been given much, we use our Spirit-endowed gifts to edify the saints, and we pray heartfelt prayers to a God who hears us. Even church announcements and that awkward greeting time can be worshipful when rightly understood!
Our fully-orbed understanding of worship shouldn’t lead us to minimize the particulars in our services, however. The fact is that most of our church services will devote the majority of their time to preaching and music.
Consider the familiar hour-long service. An average sermon is 35-40 minutes. Announcements, greetings, or a baptism will take far less time than that. (Hopefully your church announcements don’t rival the sermon for length.) But given an average song length of 4-5 minutes, our church services might include anywhere from 20-30 minutes of singing!
The importance of our corporate singing can’t be overstated. Why? Because many of the people in our pews haven’t fellowshipped meaningfully with other believers since last Sunday. Many of them wrestle with their own personal quiet times. Many of them have deficiencies in their theological understanding. Many of them have come to church discouraged, burdened, tired, and doubting.
And all of them have come into church that morning from a world obsessed with the self, a world that relentlessly appeals to their sinful nature, a world that preaches the wisdom and glory of man. All week, they have been living in a world of disordered and false worship.
That’s why our 20-30 minutes of singing is so critical. It has the power to shape or reshape our minds and hearts. Our songs can reorient us Godward, expressing both our individual and corporate purpose to bring him glory…or they can reinforce the man-centered, lesser glories of the world.
So if we are going to sing, let’s sing songs worth singing.
THE IMPORTANCE OF SONG SELECTION
I’ve always been fascinated by the reality that at the end of their lives the saints often want to sing. I’ve sung by the bedsides of the dying, sat in funeral planning meetings, and then sung at those funerals.
To my recollection, I’ve never had a dying saint recount their favorite 3-point sermon outline. Of course, preaching is paramount. But it accomplishes a different kind of work. It’s the songs that people remember. Songs give expression to the deepest experiences of our existence.
Make no mistake, the music we sing molds our affections. The world understands this perfectly well, which is why music powerfully shapes our culture around power, money, nostalgia, and sex.
If music has such a profound influence on the human mind and heart, then it follows that a church’s songbook has the power to shepherd the people of God. Good songs have the power to teach us, train us, rebuke us, and encourage us. Bad songs have the power to draw our eyes not upward but inward. They leave us wanting, empty, or even worse — merely entertained.
In Colossians 3:16, Paul gives clear instruction for any church considering its song list. He instructs us to “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”
Notice where Paul begins: let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. This is the bedrock of a church’s corporate singing. The Word put to meter and melody. But before I elaborate, let me outline several things that are terrible at shaping God-glorifying hearts in our congregations: Great melodies can’t do it. Upbeat songs that rouse attention at the start of a service can’t do it. The newest K-Love hit won’t do it, and neither will the oldest hymn. Fast songs, slow songs, loud songs, quiet songs — none of them can do it either.
Why? Because music is a medium. It’s what that medium delivers into the heart that really matters. The stork ought to receive far less attention than the baby. It’s not that form, style, setlists, and sound systems are unimportant. I love a beautiful melody more than just about anything. But we cannot allow the pragmatic concerns of a Sunday service overshadow the lyrical content of our songbooks. The reality is that the songbook of a church will be an indication of its spiritual maturity. Given that 20-30 minutes of soul-shaping, affection-reorienting singing we do together one morning per week, are we singing songs that are birthed from and rooted in the word of Christ?
That’s where Paul goes in Colossians 3:16. The word of Christ bursts forth in teaching and admonishing one another (side note: we ought to be able to hear one another sing) through a rich variety of songs. So yes, we draw from the old and the new. We sing simple praise choruses and we sing theologically rich hymns. We sing personal songs and we sing corporate songs. The medium is malleable — the message is not.
Finally, note where Paul ends: we sing together with thankfulness to God. There it is: the unmistakable Godward orientation of Christian worship. We sing His Word back to him, and in so doing, we fulfill his ultimate purpose for His Church. And the happy byproduct? God-adoring saints with a deep catalog of biblically rich songs they can sing on their deathbeds.
Ben Haley is a Pastor Elder (Worship Ministry) at Calvary Englewood
