I love music.
My mom tells me that when I was two years old, I would sing at the top of my lungs while she pushed me around Safeway in a grocery cart.
I had a little phonograph, and I would listen to my records over and over … like “Romper Room Do Bee” or “Punchy the Clown” or “How Much is That Doggy in the Window?”
Even now … while I’m writing this article … Bach is playing gently in the background.
But when I attend worship services at my church, I don’t always sing … and from looking around, I can tell that many people feel just like me.
Why do so many Christians NOT sing in church?
Should we automatically conclude that they aren’t spiritual?
Let me speak for myself:
First, I don’t always feel like singing. I’ve always been someone who believes that you don’t wait for positive feelings and then do something … you do the right thing and then positive feelings will follow.
When I was a pastor, I didn’t always feel like singing during worship … but I did.
But now that I’m not a pastor, people aren’t taking their cues from me … and I find that both refreshing and liberating.
After experiencing traumatic events at the hands of professing Christians several years ago, it was a struggle for me just to attend a worship service for months.
When I finally found a seat, I didn’t want to stand up … or clap my hands … or sing loudly.
My heart had been broken. When I tried to sing, all I could do was utter soft, muffled sounds.
My guess is that scores of people want to sing during worship time, but their hearts have been broken, too … and they just don’t feel like it.
Can we cut them some slack?
I think of the final words to the song “The Sound of Music: “My heart will be blessed with the sound of music, and I’ll sing once more.”
Those whose hearts are broken may very well sing again if we just let God heal their hearts first.
Second, I can’t sing certain phrases or songs. Some worship songs are written as love songs to the Lord, and I’m uncomfortable with them.
For example, I cringe every time we used to sing “Draw Me Close to You.” As a guy, I don’t like singing about “the warmth of your embrace” to Jesus … and I am not alone.
I was recently in a service where we were asked to sing a song that, in my view, was poorly written and not conducive to worship. I would have felt silly singing that song … so I didn’t sing it at all.
Remember the old hymn “And Can It Be That I Should Gain?” It’s a classic … but the phrase “emptied himself of all but love” (referring to Jesus’ incarnation) is theologically unsound … so I always hummed over those words rather than sing them.
I’m not trying to be critical, but to sing with integrity, and that means there are some phrases … and songs … that I just can’t sing.
Third, singing wears me out. While I sang in Boy’s Glee Club for a few years in Jr. High, I am not a trained singer. Even though I’ll listen to hours of music during the week, I rarely sing along … and if I do, it’ll be just a few bars.
For 167 hours every week, I don’t sing … and then I come to church, where the congregation is asked to sing 4 or 5 or 6 songs.
The people on the stage love to sing … that’s why they’re up there. I admire their ability and enthusiasm.
But I don’t want to sing 6 songs during worship. 3 is optimal … and 4 is stretching it.
So after 3 or 4 songs, I’m done. My throat is starting to hurt … I don’t feel like clapping anymore … and I’d like to sit down.
I love the Lord, and I love to worship Him, so I don’t think I’m being unspiritual.
But I’m human, and I have limits … and so do others.
So if you see me sitting down or not singing, it’s not a protest … I’m conserving my energy so I can listen to the sermon.
Finally, I’d rather listen to others play and sing than to sing myself. That’s what happened at our church yesterday. I chose to be silent and focus on the words rather than sing them myself.
The best church services I’ve ever attended were at Bay Horizons Church in Silicon Valley during the 1990s. We’d sing two worship songs at the beginning of the service and then have two performance songs later on … usually ending with one more worship song at the end of the service.
For me, that was the optimal use of music during worship. Because we started with just two worship songs, I could sing with my entire being, knowing that was all that would be asked of me.
And then I could sit back and listen to gifted musicians back a gifted vocalist with a song that would almost always touch my heart.
This approach is certainly biblical. The Psalms were the hymnbook of ancient Israel, and many of them were written in the first person, while others were meant to be sung by a congregation.
I know the trend today is for the congregation to sing and for gifted vocalists to sing only on the worship team.
But as I’ve written before, I’d remember those performance songs months or years later … and I would always look forward to them.
In their book Setting Your Church Free, Neil Anderson and Charles Mylander write:
“Why do some people never sing in church – not even a joyful noise? Some, of course, have perfectly normal reasons. They may not know the words or the tune, or some may be tone deaf or feel socially inhibited. But others are being spiritually inhibited from singing hymns and choruses of praise to God. . . . The evil one does not like praise music. David played the harp and the evil spirit departed from Saul.”
I love my Savior Jesus and Christian music, but I don’t always want to sing. Does that make me less spiritual?
How many times are we told that Jesus sang? Just once … after the Last Supper (Matthew 26:30).
As a man, a veteran believer, and a former pastor, I don’t pretend to speak for everybody else in the church.
But I’ve tried to lay out four reasons why I don’t always sing in church, and my guess is that many others would resonate with what I’ve written.
What are your thoughts on this issue?
Check out our website at www.restoringkingdombuilders.org You’ll find Jim’s story, recommended resources on conflict, and a forum where you can ask questions about conflict situations in your church.
Restoring Kingdom Builders 
As a woman who is about to start her first appointment as a Methodist pastor, and who has spent her entire adult life in one music group or another, I can honestly sympathise with you. There are a lot of people who either can’t sing or don’t feel comfortable singing, and that has increased over the years. Yet, there are a lot of churches who would accuse worship planners and musicians of putting on a show if there were regular performance pieces in the service each week.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d LOVE that. I’m hoping that my new assignment will be with people who like to sing but who also appreciate the chance to listen to good music done well by people who serve God as musicians. But we’ll see. There always seems to be someone who will take it the wrong way.
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Thanks for your comment, Darcy. I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would object to gifted Christian musicians and vocalists using their gifts in a worship service. Where else are they supposed to use their God-given gifts? The same people who pay to go and see Chris Tomlin or Phil Wickham in concert don’t want their songs performed inside a worship service. Granted that a few people might act like rock stars in church – and I’ve rarely seen this occur – I long to hear well-sung, well-played, thought-provoking songs during worship. May God give you a wonderful experience in your ministry … and may your music ministry honor God and touch many lives!
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You hit on two reason that I observe a lot in churches. First of all, unless they are in a particular setting, people (usually, men) do not sing regularly. I have worked in offices all over the country and I have never heard any one sing a complete song while at work… or at a restaurant, or at the grocery store. We don’t sing publicly in our culture. But we are expected to at church. It’s a shift for many.
Second, too many worship songs are are written from the “bride’s” perspective and tend to be feminine in language. Many men do not relate to God in that way. Interestingly enough, not many men in the Bible did either. Biola magazine published some insights into this a couple of years ago and I agreed with their conclusions that men have to relate to God as He made them – male. Feminizing our worship services does not enforce this.
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David,
We do sing at baseball games – maybe the National Anthem, and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” later on … and we sing “Happy Birthday” a few times a year … and maybe some Christmas carols. But that tends to be it!
So you’re right … we’re more of a listening culture than a singing culture.
I read the Biola Magazine article and found it fascinating and accurate.
A little story … a couple weeks ago, I had dinner with a Talbot professor and that day’s lecturer. After dinner, someone mentioned the phrase “the day the music died.” I said that was the day Buddy Holly died in the song “American Pie,” and the three of us spontaneously started singing, “Bye bye, Miss American Pie …” It was hilarious! We were all off key and didn’t sing in unison, but we knew all the words!
Jim
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YES! We do THAT, but never really finish a song. I have my boys convinced that there is a song for everything, though.
As for the national anthem, I rarely ever sing it. I usually listen to it. And if you have ever heard my boys and I sing “Happy Birthday,” you would be reluctant to categorize it as music (we kind of do it poorly on purpose).
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David,
I can just imagine you and your sons messing up some songs! But as for your voice … I still remember how well you sang performance songs at BHC. As I recall, you were known as Michael W. Ekstrand.
Have fun in DC!
Jim
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I find this post very helpful and interesting. I love to sing in the worship choir. But in church I look around and see many people not singing. I have always wondered whether they didn’t know the song, didn’t like to sing, or felt it unnecessary to participate. Some of these additional reasons you enumerate had not occurred to me. Thank you for adding this clarity to my understanding!
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Trish,
I used to become really upset that a lot of people weren’t singing during worship. (Kim reminded me of that fact just today.) I usually attributed it to their lack of love for the Lord, or their lack of spirituality … but then I found myself in a position where I didn’t feel like singing, either. I wondered, “Is this spiritual in nature?” But it wasn’t.
Two Sundays ago … when Kim was away … the worship band was on fire … and I sang all the songs … and loved it! So maybe knowing the songs, liking the songs, and believing the songs is necessary to singing the songs.
Thanks for your input!
Jim
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I also cringe when I hear certain lyrics, Jim, and I won’t sing them. When people don’t sing in church I never think that they are less spiritual. I usually assume that they don’t want to, they don’t like the song, or they don’t feel comfortable. People often grow up in churches that are very different than the ones they attend as adults, and they are a litle bit out of their comfort zone as far as music and singing are concerned.
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Thanks for your insights, Ce Ce. Most lyrics are okay … some of the ones we sing contain really bad poetry, though … but I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way. Sometimes the best thing to do in church is to LISTEN to everyone else singing. It can be quite an uplifting experience!
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Oops, I meant “little”.
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I’m a former ‘was going to be’ worship pastor but my training was so filled with bands and secular music, that I withdrew as most of the paid worship pastor positions call for a radio style, contemporary and largely entertainment driven worship set. So you probably won’t be surprised that I agree with everything in your post.
I could go into pages of what’s wrong with today’s music but I’ll try and stick with the topic at hand.
From my view of reasons why people don’t sing in church today (and a lot of these echo your post and comments to the post.
1 – I’ve yet to hear a worship band play in the correct key. All songs on the radio are way too high. Congregations aren’t trained singers, so the keys of songs need to be in comfortable sing-able ranges.
2 – Songs are not sing-able. Drums, loud electric guitars and fast tempos belong on the radio, not on Sunday morning. Not to be offensive to the contemporary movement and I love jamming to good Christian music, but most of it belongs on the radio
3 – A lot of the songs require clapping. I take the Keith Green’s position on this. If you’re clapping, you lose focus on singing worship. There’s a time to sing and dance for the Lord, but I don’t think on Sunday mornings.
4 – Intimidation. Even though I’m a musician, I do not raise my hands and dance in one place. Some believers like it, some don’t – and some worship pastors make the mistake by, hmm let’s call it “over-encouraging people to raise their hands and sing. New believers are normally very uncomfortable with hand raising and it becomes intimidating therefore taking the focus off worship.
5 – The music is too often focused on “I love God” and repeat 16x. Yes – I do love God but sometimes my week sucks and I need the Gospel. When my father died, the last thing I wanted to sing about was “How Great is our God”. I wanted to sing songs like “Praise You in the storm” and songs that identify that life is hard but I will keep trusting in God. Psalms anyone… Even though I love to sing, sometimes I also will sit in the back, lean forward in my chair with eyes closed and let the music soak in, I’ll pray and really concentrate on the words. I wish that was encouraged. When I sit and pray during a song, unfortunately it creates more attention and I feel like the worship cops are going to tap on my shoulder any minute….
I’ll stop there. I’m saddened that the choir director position in church is all about dead. Why isn’t singing a spiritual gift? Because we ALL were given a voice, we’re all commanded to sing his praises. Do we have to all the time? There’s good argument to not. But largely if you don’t like to sing, its not your fault. It’s the contemporary environment of today’s growing flat screen church. In college I was part of a 60 person choir – only 6 of us were soloists, the rest were focused on non-musical majors and most of them could barely sing in tune, but put 60 (largely untalented, remember) singers together on a piece they know and practiced, Oh my… it is the most beautiful sound and there’s nothing like it!!
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Thanks for your thoughts on music in our churches today. I think that many churches are trying to create an “event” feeling, like “something great is happening here today.” When I was a pastor, I liked that approach, but now that I’m an anonymous worshiper, I’d like more times of quiet, and they seem few and far between.
Clapping is okay … it’s biblical … but there’s a bit too much of it, IMHO. I like clapping sometimes, but I don’t like being told to clap at any time.
I definitely agree with you on the repetition issue. If Christian songwriters were told that they couldn’t use 100 overused words … like “praise, throne, majesty, great, and Lord” … they’d stop writing. I get really tired of hearing the same lyrics … just in a different order … all the time.
And why don’t we sing Psalms of Lament? When your father died, a song with some sad but hopeful lyrics might have ministered to you in a profound way. I don’t think we have an adequate theology of music in the church. Like you say, it’s dictated by what’s popular and on the radio, but also by what’s going to sell to the greatest number of people.
More than anything, I wrote my little article as a way of saying, “If I don’t sing in church, it’s not because I’m unspiritual. There may be factors at play that you can’t see.” On the other hand, if I do sing in church, I can still be a jerk. I remember a time when I was flipping through the channels and I came upon a worship service from a nearby megachurch. The guy in the front row was singing to the Lord with his hands raised high … looking real spiritual to everyone … but I knew he was involved with a married woman in our church. You can look unspiritual, but still be spiritual, and you can look spiritual, but still be unspiritual.
Thanks again for writing! Write anytime.
Jim
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Jim,
Many thanks for this article, and for the discerning comments above as well. Hearty agreement on so many points — the need to avoid an “event” mentality that leads to subtle coercion of actions (c’mon, everybody look happy!), the need for times of reflection and silence, and for musicians to deeply serve the body and not simply mimic CCM trends.
We are occasional worship leaders, and your writing mirrors many of our deep convictions in this area. We also sometimes write music, including new settings for wonderful hymn texts that are too often in the process of being lost. I treasure the words of a woman in our fellowship (a reserved and thoughtful sister not given to rash statements) who came up to me after I had shared an ancient hymn in a new setting during Advent nearly a decade ago. Her simple statement given with a level gaze to communicate its import — “When I remember this Christmas season in the future, most of all I will remember your song” — reflected that she had been deeply ministered to by a simple piece. I will gladly forego dozens of easy “attaboys” for a quiet handshake and subdued word of thanks from one who is passing through deep waters. We indeed need to learn to corporately weep with those who weep.
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Thank you so very much for your comment. I believe that music has the ability to touch God’s people at the very deepest levels of our spirits and that most churches are focused on music that inspires and uplifts but doesn’t connect.
I sat in church yesterday next to a woman who told me during the greeting time that she had dementia. She needed to know that God loves her even though she feels alone and isn’t always coherent. Fortunately, there was a song done that communicated that truth effectively, and the service ended with a deeply moving song that acknowledged our pain but pointed to God’s sufficiency.
When I listen to songs on iTunes, I don’t just listen to upbeat songs … I also like hearing songs that authentically express how people really feel. I don’t think people want “church” just to deal with superficial emotions … they want to know that God … and His people … understand the complexity and range of human emotion … especially as that is expressed in song.
Thanks again for writing and commenting!
Jim
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Hi Jim,
I think you might enjoy a recent article by Eric Ortlund on the lack of lament in our modern music approach:
http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/a-missing-piece-of-north-american-worship
I also highly recommend Michael Card’s book A Sacred Sorrow; some of his songs well reflect the pain of life when following Christ.
When we are in those places of fiery trial or deep waters, the only hope of connection in music is to that which reflects those realities of life; songs (and song leaders) that simply urge us to “put on a happy face” are only salt (or worse, scalpels) in our wounds.
I am convinced that the principles of the widow’s mite apply to the world of worship — the slightest costly unfolding of a heart doubled over in pain may be a far greater and deeper expression of worship than many public proclamations.
I read through all of your 2014 posts and found them to be very valuable. Thank you for sharing your insights learned at such a great cost — to you, your family, and so many others. At times I wonder what is wrong with our whole local church model if we are so prone to self-inflicted fatal wounds — but then again, we are indeed in a war.
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You honor me by reading all of my posts from last year. I’m humbled. Thank you.
The Ortlunds have always had a good grasp on worship. I look forward to reading the article.
Good old Michael Card. I have his greatest hits around here somewhere. “Celebrate the Child” … “That’s What Faith Must Be” … good songs.
Thanks again, Brian! Keep on being honest for Jesus.
Jim
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Jim,
Responding offline to put a name with my words. Thanks again for your blog and wonderful responses.
PS — If you’d like I could forward a lament we wrote based on Psalm 143. We wrote this a number of years ago, and felt more than a little out of place for doing so, given the absence of similar music. The one time we shared it (as a solo piece) providentially coincided with a dear sister in Christ finding she had inoperable cancer. I don’t have a recording per se, but my scoring software can export a digital music file which, after a few more steps, sometimes(!) results in a decent music-only track that can be played as a MP3. Don’t want to clog up your inbox, so I send only when asked!
PS#2 – I love how one of your first responders to your blog was your mom 🙂
–Brian
Brian K. Richards
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Brian, since my mother reads all the comments on my blog, she’ll smile when she reads your words!
Yes, please forward the lament based on Psalm 143. The Jewish Psalter seems much more balanced than much of our worship music today. When I left a ministry I loved five years ago, I could only read the Psalms and 2 Corinthians. It’s like my Bible shrank to two books. The Psalms scream out, “David understands! The Sons of Korah understand! God understands!”
But when I hear a lot of worship music today, I’m forced to conclude, “You don’t understand.” (The same goes for a lot of preaching as well.)
Christian vocalist Kim Hill put out a song around 1988 called “Unspoken Love.” It’s a song about marriage … how couples have the hardest time saying what they really feel to each other. We did the song in church before I spoke on marriage, and it was POWERFUL! It was authentic. I long for that kind of authenticity in the church, and thank God for those churches that have it.
Jim
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