The teaching takes place not only by hearing the message that people around us sing, but by singing the message ourselves. This benefit is confirmed by modern observations about how people learn. People learn more effectively and more deeply if they not only hear, but try to re-express what they learn. Getting one’s voice involved deepens one’s participation. Singing engages our emotions, and may help to make the message more memorable. People remember songs that they have sung repeatedly, and embrace them more deeply. Their active participation reinforces their memory.

For decades now, Christian congregations have had to deal with differences in musical styles in Christian worship. Some prefer “contemporary music.” Others prefer “traditional music.” The differences become a source of contention. Sadly, we now have the term “worship wars,” as a label to describe the extent to which music in worship has become a battleground.
We should not want more wars, especially within the bounds of the church. Therefore, a discussion of music and singing in the church must begin by recalling Christ’s command: Christians should love one another as Christ has loved us (John 15:12 ESV; see 13:34; 1 John 4:19). Loving one another is a central principle in the life of the people of God. We need not only to teach the principle, but to practice it. Any disagreement or tension in the body of Christ should be seen as an occasion to practice Christian love.
My purpose here is not to talk about Christian love, important as that is. My focus is rather on one specific element: congregational singing. I wish not to create tension, but to ask both pastors and musicians, both leaders and followers in the Christian faith, to approach the issue of congregational singing with wisdom and with balance. For the sake of the health of the church, we want congregational singing to contribute to that health.
How do we best do that? In this four-part series, I briefly set forth my own thoughts. Even if other brothers and sisters may not agree, I hope this may help lead the conversation in a positive direction.
As we have observed, one prime factor is love, and with love, patience. We should bear with other people in the congregation, and bear with decisions about singing with which we disagree. But now what else should go into the decision-making and practice of a Christian congregation?
Mind the Goal
What should be the long-range goal in congregational singing? Everything that we do in Christian worship and in all of life, we should do for sake of honoring God, that is, for sake of promoting the glory of God: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). The glory of God is primary and essential.
In addition, the Bible indicates that church meetings should have the aim of building up the church: “Let all things [that take place when the people assemble] be done for building up” (1 Cor. 14:26). The goal is that the people should grow in spiritual maturity, not only individually but as a body, as a community. Nearly the whole of 1 Cor. 14 is about the importance of building up the church, and how this goal regulates and guides the details of what happens during a congregational assembly. Likewise Eph. 4:1-16 has a focus on building up the church. According to Eph. 4, the goal is “the stature of the fullness of Christ” (verse 13). We are “to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (verse 15).
We have two goals before us: the glory of God and the building up of the church. These two goals are not two diverse goals that pull in opposite directions. Rather, each implies the other. Building up the church takes place properly only when we are serving God and seeking to please him. So we need to seek the glory of God in Christian worship.
We can also reason the other way, starting with the glory of God. Seeking God’s glory includes seeking to honor his commandment to love one another. This means we cannot seek God’s glory properly without attending to the goal of building up the church. Seeking the glory of God and seeking to build up the church are two sides of the same coin. The two aspects, oriented toward God and toward fellow Christians, are intended by God to work together harmoniously.
How do we build up the church? Much is involved. We need the power of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us and among us.
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On Jesus’ last day, we see that He spent time with God and with those He loved. The Gospel of John describes his conversation (John 13-18). Jesus spent the day in meaningful conversation with the disciples, as well as spending much time in prayer. While with His disciples, He washed their feet and ate with them. He still was teaching them throughout the day. Jesus talked about heaven, life, glorifying God, and loving others. 

I recently have been thinking through the question, What would I do if I only had one day to live? Maybe this has crossed your mind at some point, too. Many other questions swirled in my mind as I considered this question. What would I talk about? Who would I talk to? What would I do? What would be important to me? Have you ever considered this question or these questions?
Two people come to mind when I begin to contemplate this. First, my friend Jack Drury. I remember receiving the phone call from the hospital. It was during the COVID pandemic. Because of the news they had given to him, the hospital allowed my brother and I to go see him. When we arrived, he told us with a smile on his face, “I’m going to heaven.” His medical doctors had explained to him that a recent bout with COVID had left his lungs in terrible shape. And, although he looked great sitting there in the bed, he was very sick. They anticipated he would die, possibly that day. He had only his church family nearby. Throughout the rest of the day, Pastor Craig and I, alongside his wife and adopted church daughter, sat with him. We listened to him; we talked to him. In a situation like this, you wonder what the conversation would be. Well, on this day, it was all about heaven and the Bible. He couldn’t have been more excited about going to heaven. Even with death staring him in the face, I have never had a more sweeter time than those hours spent together reflecting on the Bible and heaven, plus a few more topics of interest. As I walked away from that day and since, I have wondered what I would have talked about, thought about, or done.
Another friend also comes to mind. Near the time of Jack’s death, I had another close friend die. Beth Adams enjoyed a perfect day. She served others with her morning, supported a grandchild with her afternoon, enjoyed supper with her husband, and was headed to go serve at her church when it happened. A twenty-year-old man running from the police blew through a stop sign in a stolen box truck and crashed into my friend’s small SUV. She died immediately. Shock rocked all of us as we tried to wrestle with what had happened.
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If you want a Christian culture, forget American politics. That is as fruitful as drowning yourself under a waterfall. Instead, if you wish for Massachusetts, California, Washington, Nevada, Montana, and all the rest of these fifty states, to bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ, then put down your politics, lay down your mail-in ballots, and grab a shovel. We have work to do! 

Paddling Up the Niagara
The neurotic optimism accompanying the American quadrennial election cycle seems as cockamamie and asinine to me as a man attempting to ride his homemade rowboat up the Niagara Falls. With a horde of eager tourists staring on in pure bewilderment, picture the hapless virtuoso of absurdity, paddling with the finesse of a drunken lifeguard, flapping as frantically against the currents as a penguin in a cheer competition, nearing the aquatic torrent of a three thousand ton wall of falling water, thinking he could scale it with such misplaced bravado, only to be consumed by the avalanche of its fury.
Every four years, we are invited into the same cultural absurdity. Each election, we are presented with a new brand of idealogue who will bring about the “Change We Can Believe In,” who will “Make America Great Again,” and who will help us all “Build Back Better.” Yet, like the magnificent fool, paddling with a boundless reservoir of natural stupidity, change, American greatness, and cultural betterment never come.
The reason for this could not be any more obvious. We were not meant to rowboat against the currents to travel up waterfalls in the same way culture does not change from a top-down point of view. More simply, politics flow downstream of culture; culture is downstream of the family, and the definition of insanity would be for the American people to get trapped in an endless cycle of mindless optimism, thinking: “Well… This candidate will be different.”
But, if there is one thing the American people are good at; they are incomparably resilient. Against all evidence to the contrary, over and against everything we have seen and experienced, every political season, we dutifully don our little row boats once more, falling for the same old lines, expecting this time it will all be different. But it isn’t. Each time we come underneath the mountain of watery lies; however, all we have done is drown ourselves in blind political positivism once again. My hope in this article is for us to stop getting wet and to change our perspective.
Today, I would like to paint a different picture of how to make America great again. I want to posit real change that you and I can believe in. And I want to give us all a robust Christian plan for when America eventually crumbles, enabling us to truly build it back better. If all that sounds good and lovely, then onward, Christian soldiers!
Changing Our Perspective
When the faithful pull back the societal curtains to survey the smorgasbord of today’s cultural malaise, feelings of disgust, confusion, and shock inevitably rise to the fore. If this is not happening, then stop what you are doing and check your pulse. With that out of the way, it is normal for Christians to feel like aliens in this God-forsaken land. For many of us, and by “the many,” I mean those who were not born yesterday, we remember the good old days (just a few years ago) when girls could not have penises, when teenagers at least needed parental consent before they could murder their babies in utero, and where it was biologically impossible for men to have periods and to get pregnant. Apparently, the grown-ups are now in charge, and that “reality” is on full and morbid display.
Clinging to such antiquated “myths” and apparent “fables” these days will land you in the same company as “flat-earthers” and “science deniers,” whatever that means. And yet, the same body politic viewing us as “moral dinosaurs” are the same ilk beckoning us to participate in their futile system. A system that has produced both Democrats and Republicans (ad nasuem) that fill the highest levels of power but without any perceivable change we can believe in.
This is because top-down politics do not work. Politicians are not the makers of culture; they are the products of culture. We have corrupt leaders because we are an evil people and not the other way around.
We must understand that the problems ailing this society run much deeper than a ballot box. If we want to change the world, this nation included, we need a plan that runs much deeper than the superficial two-party system we have been offered. We must also realize that we live in a microwave culture that is no longer patient enough to wait for the brisket on the smoker. We want our change to happen yesterday and can barely stomach a solution that has to be worked out over decades. Yet, this is precisely how we got here, refusing to engage this rotting culture for a hundred years while it willingly marinates slowly in its own skubalon.
We need a bottom-up, Biblical approach with the long view in mind.
A Nine-Step Biblical Approach
Step 1: The Conversion of Sinners
While the cultural Marxists continue to goad us into joining the next half-baked revolution, Christians must plod along faithfully and locally, sharing the Gospel with anyone and everyone who will listen (Acts 1:8). We do not march into the halls of power and demand anything from our pagan overlords… At least not initially. We humbly labor wherever we are so that men and women will know Jesus, which is precisely the model we see in the book of Acts. Whenever the faithful are parachuted into a world where exactly no one else around them has a Biblical worldview, the first step is always to declare the Gospel. Some will reject that message. Others will be converted by that message. But, our job is to preach it boldly, lovingly, truthfully, forcefully, and joyfully.
If we want a Christian culture, we must begin with making Christians.
Step 2: The Discipling of Believers
After someone is converted, we do not notch our Big-Eva Billy Graham-sized belts, plastering our conversion numbers on an 8k gigascreen, so that an overstuffed room full of mega-church consumers can be entertained. Unlike Lady Gaga and many in evangelicalism, we are not in it for the “applause” of men but for the obedience of God. Instead of letting new converts slip through the proverbial cracks, ill-equipped and unprepared for the Christian life, we have been commanded to disciple them. This means baptizing new believers and their children into the local, visible church, and teaching them what it means to obey Jesus in every aspect of their life (Matthew 28:18-20).
If we want a Christian culture, we must teach believers how to live like Christians.
Excursus: The Benefit of One and Two
If the first two steps (mentioned above) were undertaken with any degree of regularity, we would not be in our current predicament.
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