Come, Make Mediocre Music

Come make mediocre music with us at Old Union Church.

Over the past few years, many churches have begun “contemporary” worship, which typically features a praise band providing music at the beginning of the service.  Often, the band members are excellent musicians singing songs that are more complex than the “four verses and a refrain” that you’ll find in traditional hymns.  The quality of their music is exceptional, even if the style isn’t your cup of tea, and at times the production can be quite elaborate.  One of our neighboring congregations even uses a fog machine during the time of singing praise music.  You’d swear you were at a concert.

There’s just one problem.  Worship is not a spectator sport.  When the music leaders are offering professional-quality songs, you’ll want to be quiet and enjoy their music.  And if songs go beyond the what you’re able to sing, you’ll just stand and follow along with the words.  Church then becomes a place where you come to watch other people worship God, rather than praising him yourself.

You don’t have to attend a church with contemporary music to confront this issue.  Even when we sing the old familiar hymns, you may be tempted not to join in.  “I shouldn’t sing,” you may say to yourself.  “I don’t have as good of a voice as Sally or Stan.  I’d be embarrassed if anyone heard me sing.  All I’d do is ruin this hymn for everyone else.”  So you may open your hymnal and read along, or stand and listen while others do the singing.  When my father was growing up, his aunt told him that he didn’t have a good voice and that he shouldn’t sing in church.  No one should ever give this message to anyone seeking to worship God!

At Old Union Church, we are committed to being a place for each of us to share in worship together.  Our goal is to have music that every person in the sanctuary can use to sing their praise to God.  Worship is about participation, not observation.  We’ve just installed projection screens in the sanctuary not to change how we worship God, but to make it easier for everyone to engage more fully in the service.  Our gifted musicians don’t give a concert each week; they lead as we join our voices together in praise.

We have music in worship in order to lift up our voices to the only Audience who matters, our Lord and Savior.  He thinks that your off-key, half-a-beat-behind singing is more beautiful than any angel chorus.  After all, Jesus didn’t lay down his life for the sake of any angels.  He did it for you and me.  God is the one who gave you that tin ear and trembling voice, and he wants you to use it, and everything else that makes you who you are, to express your love and devotion to him.

If you want to hear concert-quality music, sung only by trained musicians, worship somewhere else.  But if you want to be one of the saints who offers your all to the One who gives you life and makes it worth living, join us at Old Union Church.

Being "Spiritual"

There’s something cool about being “spiritual.”  A growing number of people in the US refer to themselves as “spiritual but not religious.”  Typically, they mean by this that they don’t want to be part of any organized or institutional religion, but that they have a sense that there’s more out there that we usually recognize.
 
The fact is, we are all spiritual, whether we realize it or not.  It’s part of what makes us human, like having 23 pairs of chromosomes.  The human being is more than flesh and blood, muscle and bone.  We are an inseparable blend of the physical and the spiritual.  We share a physical nature with the animals, and we share a spiritual nature with the angels.  But only in human beings do the two natures come together in such a wonderful way.  To call yourself “spiritual” is about as remarkable as saying that you have red blood or that it hurts when you step on a nail.  It is valuable to be aware of this, but that awareness does not make you more spiritual than anyone else.
 
We have a special admiration for “spiritual” people, whose prayers seem to be so special, who spend time every day studying the Scriptures, or who have some sort of a glow about them that leads you to believe that they’re in touch with God more than the rest of us.  That’s not what it means to be spiritual, either.  Being “spiritual” has nothing to do with how eloquently you can pray, or how much you can feel the presence of God around you.
 
To be spiritual – or to put it more accurately, to live out your spiritual nature – is to allow your awareness of the spiritual dimension of life and your familiarity with the things of the Holy Spirit to shape your life.  Being spiritual isn’t about thinking spiritual thoughts.  It’s about living spiritually: having your words and deeds flow from the workings of the Holy Spirit within your spirit.  Or as Paul wrote to the Romans, it is about “living in accordance with the Holy Spirit,” and having our “minds set on what the Spirit desires” (Romans 8:5).
 
Being spiritual means acting in a way, and treating others in a way, that reflects the change in your life that comes from the Spirit of Jesus Christ within you.  As Galatians 5:22-23 puts it, it is a life that bears the spiritual fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
 
If you want to be spiritual, it’s important to recognize the spiritual dimension of who you are.  The disciplines of prayer, Scripture reading, and church attendance will help you become more attuned to how the Holy Spirit is at work.  But you don’t become “spiritual” until all of this changes how you live.  After all, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).