What Do You Do While Singing at Church? - Apples of Gold - June 18, 2008 -vi-

Apples of Gold
 

Radio Script for June 18, 2008

“What Do You Do While Singing at Church?”

Hello, I’m Doug Apple…with Apples of Gold.

What runs through your mind as you sing at church?

I know, there are thousands of things to think about, right?

You can think about the song leader, or the worship team.  Your thoughts can range from admiring to bored to downright critical.

And what about the song selection?  “Why is it the same old songs?  Oh, wait a minute.  What?!  I don’t even know this song!”

“And why do they sing so long anyway?  Then when you finally get into it, they quit.”

Where do you get the song lyrics at your church?  From a song book?  In the bulletin?  On a big screen?  This alone gives you a lot to think about while you sing.

Here’s a favorite pastime:  watching other people sing.  It goes from how they are dressed to their hair to their movements.  Are they stiff or animated?  Do they look like they love God when they sing, or do they look all sour and scrunchy?  Must be some secret sin…

And that’s just the beginning, because we all know how the train of thought takes off from there.  It starts with, “Hey, this song reminds me of another song.  What is it?  Oh, yeah, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’  That was my cousin Frankie’s favorite song.  Oh, man, he did it karaoke at that wedding!  Bob and Sally’s wedding.  They didn’t make it, though.  Bob got married but forgot to stop dating.  I wonder if he still works at the newspaper?  Oh!  I need to get our ad in for the yard sale.  I better write myself a note right now.”

The next thing you know, you are making up a to-do list right in the middle of the singing!

Then later when someone asks you about your church you say, “Well, the worship’s just not as powerful as it used to be.”

Now what happens if you multiply that across the whole congregation?  Sure, their lips are singing, but where are their hearts? 

It’s like Jesus said in Matthew 15, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  They worship me in vain…”

This is what we do when we sing at church but we don’t really engage.  We honor God with our lips, but our hearts are wandering off willy-nilly like undisciplined children.

Now let me use children as a positive example.  With four kids of my own, I have been to countless birthday parties.  Have you ever tried to uber organize a kid’s birthday party?  It’s just not possible.  It’s like herding cats. 

But there is always that one moment when everyone is on the same page.  Can you think of it?  What is that one moment at every kid’s birthday party when there is unity?  All distractions cease.  All other activities halt.  Everyone is unified in this one action.  What is it?

It is the singing of “Happy Birthday!”

Think about it.  As soon as you start singing, the chattering stops and everyone joins in.  Kids even run in from the other room.  They want to be a part.  This is the main event.  Everything else is just prelude and postlude.  Do whatever you want the rest of the day, but when we sing, we all sing together.  We are in unison.  For that moment we are one.

This thing of singing together is a blessed gift.  What brings the most warm fuzzies at a concert?  It’s that moment when the band stops playing and all you hear is the audience singing as a mighty chorus.

I remember signing up to go to Promise Keepers, and they gave me a recording of the songs we were going to sing.  It was important that we all knew the songs ahead of time so that we could sing together in unity.  And how awesome it was to be in the Georgia Dome, full of men’s voices raising the roof together, praising God.

Singing together brings about a certain unity.  In a way, we melt together – from individual parts into one unified body.

But this only happens when we are engaged in the singing.  However, because of a lot of reasons, it’s easy to sing at church and not be engaged.

So what can we do about it?  Here is the key.  When we sing at church, we need to focus our minds on the Lord.  We need to open our hearts directly to Him. 

Remember how He said we honor Him with our lips, but our hearts are far from Him?  So what we need to do is make sure our hearts are drawing near to Him. 

The good thing is, that’s easy to do simply by paying attention to the lyrics.  So when we sing at church, we push aside all distractions, we open our hearts to the Lord, and we pay attention to the words we are singing.

And the result will be just what we find in Romans 15:6.  When we sing the Lord’s praises together, we will, “with one heart and mouth…glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And our worship will not be in vain.


Comments?

E-mail me:  dougapple@wave94.com.

May God bless you today!  With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.
 

© 2008 The Arrow’s Tip
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(Proverbs 25:11 – “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”)

Why “The Arrow’s Tip”?  Each morning, after diligently seeking the Lord, I write Apples of Gold.  Then before I release it to the public I pray one final prayer, “Lord, send forth your arrows.”  I envision Apples of Gold as arrows, tips dipped in the river of the water of life that flows from the throne of God (Rev. 22:1), sailing toward the hearts and minds of men and women around the world.

Doug Apple
General Manager - Wave 94
Christian Radio for Tallahassee
PO Box 4105
Tallahassee, FL  32315
(850) 926-8000
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