Music & Worship

I have been told throughout my whole church life how important music is. Many churches today revolve their entire church around their music department. I find this surprising considering that we don’t even know if Jesus could sing, let alone play an instrument. You would think that if music was so vital to our Christianity, Jesus would have mentioned it once or twice in his lifetime.

Music has definitely played its part throughout history in many extraordinarily miraculous events, such as the fall of Jericho, and even the fall of racism in more recent years, but I think that somewhere along the line we have mistaken music for worship.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the “praise and worship” we find in a lot of churches these days. In fact, I was a worship leader for many years. But I came to the point where I found that I had lost the meaning of worship in my life. I began to question whether the “worship” I was performing was for God’s benefit or for mine, and I realised that I had lost my ability to worship without the aid of music.

Although music is a valid expression of worship, I believe that so much more is required of us. Studying the bible, meditation, generosity, social justice, visiting sick people and providing for the needy is all part of true worship. Anything that gives expression to our devotion to God is worship. I have realised that for me music is often just the easy way out.

Darlene Zschech says “Music excludes, worship does not.” If anyone knew how to worship, Jesus did. His style of worship was simply wholehearted devotion, even to the point of death.