In some circles of thinking, the purpose of worship through song (which we will simply call worship in this journal entry) is to prepare people for the preaching of God’s word. In a Sunday morning service, worship is seen as a way to soften hearts and prepare people to receive the truth coming up in the sermon.
While I know that the Spirit works in us as we sing, and our hearts are softened, I would not articulate worship this way. I think it is misleading to say worship is preparation for receiving God’s truth, because our songs are overflowing with Scripture.
Colossians 3:16 reminds us “Let the word of Christ dwell in you… as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs”.
The content of our songs is the word of Christ.
We sing scripture, we sing truth, and I would suggest that the goal of worship is to get God’s truth on the lips and heart of the church. This isn’t necessarily to prepare to listen to the preaching of God’s word, as sometimes we respond in worship, like we did this past Sunday. In worship, we sing to each other reminding each other of truth, singing songs about God. In worship we also pour out our hearts singing directly to God.
With that said, our repertoire of songs is a little different than many other churches. While you could walk into some contemporary churches and know all the songs if you listen to K-LOVE, a little less than half of the songs we sing are on Christian radio.
We are intentional about our repertoire and you’ll find that our songs are rich in God’s truth.
So many of you have expressed appreciation for the songs we sing, and many Sundays I have people asking what the names of certain songs are. Because of this, we’ve created a playlist on YouTube and Spotify with songs from our repertoire.:
If you are interested, I’ve also created a list of songs I’m currently using in private worship that we don’t sing on Sunday mornings:
It’s a beautiful thing when people worship privately and then come together on Sunday morning to worship corporately!
I hope that these playlists will help you learn the songs that aren’t as familiar to you, and I hope it will help put God’s truth on your lips and on your hearts! May the word of Christ dwell in us through our worship!
My Rightnowmedia pick is a series we’ve used for discussion on our worship teams on the Psalms with Pastor John Piper and worship leaders Shane and Shane.
For His Glory,
Pastor Kyle