It was the end of August and I was privileged to be asked to speak to my own congregation about ‘How music builds the church’.
Teaching about music is good for a church musician to do every now and then, because it’s useful for the congregation to hear the work and thought that goes in to putting a service together. Also, it forces the musician to re-evaluate and articulate publicly to his/her own congregation the reason for doing the things the way we do. I often speak to other churches about music (someone said that my talk should be able to give itself by now), but your own congregation is a bit of a different bag. I found myself spending hours in preparation making sure that I was letting Scripture form my theology of music rather than the many voices I hear every week.
Music serving the Word
However, the main reason it’s good to speak on music is to take the congregation’s confidence off music and onto the Word of God. It shouldn’t be a surprise that one of the first things I said was that music doesn’t build the church. The church is built as God works powerfully by his Spirit through the Word and prayer. Music can help by serving the Word of God and prayer, but as soon we start to rely on music to define our identity or unity then we build the church on the sand and not on the rock.
