mgpcpastor's blog

Zac Hicks summarises Eleven Reasons Singing Is Important from John Bell’s The Singing Thing.
The Singing Thing was among a number of books on worship which which Hicks recently recommended.
Think I’ll grab a copy.
We sing:

1. Because we can.
Singing is natural. Really, everyone can sing. We cannot say this about many other actions.

2. To create identity.
Singing together creates solidarity among groups of people. It is one of the ways we forge a definable identity as a community or tribe.

3. To express emotion.
Whether singing makes us feel or feeling makes us sing, singing connects to the emotional part of our humanity, and we sing, in part, to express this aspect of ourselves.

4. To express words.
Singing words is different than speaking them. It opens up a range of expression of words not possible if they were spoken and not sung. Singing the same words differently (to different tunes, tempi, and chord structures) allow us to more tangibly see the many facets of a single statement.

5. To revisit the past.
Singing, for better and for worse when it comes to congregational song, triggers nostalgia. Singing can have the power of re-immersing ourselves in a past event or time in our lives.

6. To tell stories.
We sing to pass on the content of our history and beliefs from one generation to the next. This was especially the case in aural cultures.

7. To shape our theology and practice.1
What we sing directly informs what we believe about God, what we believe about Christ, and what we believe about mission. This, in turn, shapes what kind of Christian we are and how we live out our faith.

8. To enable work.
Just as singing was the means of energy, motivation, and togetherness of African-American slave-labor, so singing enables “the work of the people”—liturgy.

9. To exercise our creativity.
Inherent in our being made in the image of God is that we all are creative beings. Singing is one of the few art forms where every human being can participate in one, unified creative act.

10. To give of ourselves.
We sing to bless others, to mutually edify, and to stir one another toward righteousness.

11. To obey a command.
Scripture calls us to “sing a new song” (Psalms 33, 40, 96, 98, 144, 149), and so we sing out of obedience, and because God is simply worthy of it.