Singing with your eyes closed
by | Posted on September 10th in Magnification, Pastors thoughts
Have you thought much about why you sing at church? I mean, have you thought personally about why you sing?
‘Cause its easy, I think, to come to church and just go along with the flow… so when the band gets up, and the words appear on the screen, you just do what everyone else is doing, and join in. But its never really a personal choice. Do you “choose” to sing along with everyone else?
I’d love us to be a fellowship of Christians who all “choose” to sing to God for each others benefit each and every week. I’d love you to make that choice this Sunday. I’d love to see you speak and sing every word that comes up on the screen to God with your whole heart. This is something I’ve personally been trying to do more and more. So I thought I might share a tip that’s helped me.
Stop looking at the words. Look at the screen as little as you can, even if it means singing with your eyes closed.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t sing the words! Please sing the words on the screen along with everyone else! But I personally find that if I keep looking at the words, I end up only making the sounds, and I forget to “mean” them (a bit like 1 Cor 14:14-17 ). However, when I try to look away from the screen, and try remember the line, or the whole verse, I (strangely) find that I “mean it” so much more. I find myself singing with more authenticity when I sing them from memory.
It might not work for you, but trying to sing with my eyes off the words has helped me mean what I sing more. And I pray that helps my brothers and sisters around me to sing with more meaning too.
September 10th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Hi, Mikey Lynch just linked to this post so over I came. I love your website! It’s the best church website ever. I bet it makes a whole heap of sense for the non-church-initiated.
September 10th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
There’s a couple of thoughts in my head about this. Firstly, I already make the choice to sing or not to sing. I choose based on lyrics, the pitch of the song, and whether or not I actually know the song. It has been my experience that at the City congregation, we do sing a lot of songs that aren’t within a comfortable vocal range (a lot of Emu Music, Nicky Chiswell etc). And with this, comes the follow up of how culturally relevant are the songs we are singing? I’m not waving a Hillsong flag, but I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet that most of the people at church don’t listen to music in the same musical style as many of the songs we are currently singing. There has, however, been a big improvement in song choice, which is great.
Would I sing with my eyes shut? I’d love to. I try really hard each week to sing to God. Singing with my eyes shut is difficult when I am not familiar with the songs.
As a muso, I’d love to continue to see the introduction of more contemporary songs. I worship God through playing my guitar and djembe. I worship God in my car as I drive singing to CDs. I think it would be great if we could continue to strive to worship God through music, and to do so in a way that is more relevant.
September 16th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
I like this Dave. I absolutely agree with you. It is so easy just to go to church and go through the motions when it comes to singing with the rest of the congregation.
This makes me think of the comments that i recently gave to a group of year 12 Music students about their music performances which are coming up soon. I remember telling those students who are going to be singing christian songs to sing the words believing them and meaning them. Not just to get up there and go through the motions. They need to convince those who are watching them that they believe what they are singing. I think in the same way we need to be making sure that we not only sing the songs but actually sing them believing and meaning what we sing.
March 5th, 2010 at 12:20 am
Could u post another blog like this up again…i feel unichurch needs a bit of a push