Music Forms How we Live

In the last couple posts I’ve talked about how music forms what we think and what we love. Because of this, music also forms how we live. It strengthens the body of Christ through corporate worship by impacting the individual hearts of the church members and how they live their lives, as well as their personal relationships with God. Christians are called to bring up the next generation to be worshipers of God as well.

Corporate worship is important because when we gather to worship our Lord we are there to encourage and proclaim the Gospel to each other. God wants us to worship as the church, and praising and learning about God is the best way to bring people together. Worshiping God is one of the things we can do on earth that we will also do for all eternity, as citizens of God’s Kingdom, and by worshiping Him here on earth we are preparing our hearts for eternity.

Acts 2:42, 44-47 is a wonderful example of corporate worship from the early church. It reads, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. … And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

Corporate worship should impact our lives, because as Christians, corporate worship is our lives. It impacts everything we do throughout the week, and is not limited to a few hours on a Sunday morning.

Additionally, the way we worship at home and at church sets an example for our children. When children sit in the service or have a family devotion time, they watch their parents and other members of the church sing together. They learn to sing as the body of Christ long before they even understand the words or the theology behind them. They learn to love God like their church family does.

When the church sings hymns to and with children, we pass on a strong foundation for their faith and the orthodox theology that grounds future believers in the truth of God’s character and His Word. This is part of passing on the faith to the next generation of believers and is a part of disciple-making, thus fulfilling the Great Commission.

Singing songs like Jesus Loves Me or To God be the Glory feeds children’s hearts, minds, and souls with sound theology and a love for Jesus. Parents should want the Biblical truths found in hymns to be embedded into their children’s hearts, rather than most of what is played on the radio today.

Children may not understand songs such as Nothing but the Blood, but they need that solid foundation. As they grow, they will learn to ask questions about what the words to the hymns mean, which leads to a deeper understanding of the Biblical truths behind them, and the hymns will become all the more meaningful to them. But if a child is raised on emotional songs with a focus on self rather than Christ, what will be his foundation as he gets older and faces the challenges of life? He will not know to rest on Christ as his firm foundation.

The hearts of our children must be oriented to Christ, His character, and His Word instead of to themselves. We need to break ourselves of the bad habit of self-focus, which became part of our nature after the Fall, and always be looking to Christ. We should be teaching and leading our children to do the same, since worshiping God is the very center of our lives.

This post is the third in a series about Christian worship. Read the previous post here! Series Introduction. Part One.

Photo credit: Rene Burnal on Unsplash