Song Singing at Church: Part Three

When we throw away God's worship songbook and come up with our own, or when we add to God's worship songbook by adding new songbooks, what are we doing? Are we saying that we know better than God?

What has singing our own way with our own songs led to? Singing our own songs in the worship of God has led to the creation of a God who is in our own image. The book of Psalms pictures God in the way that He wants to be worshipped. Our songbooks always seem to miss something or add something that is not there.

If you were a loving husband and father who hired a writer to tell the story of your life, and you told the writer that you wanted to make sure that he mentioned three things:

1. You loved your wife

2. You loved your children.

3. You hated sin.

you might hope that he mentioned those three things in the book.

What would you think about the writer if he wrote the following instead?

1. You loved all women.

2. You loved all children.

3. You loved sin.

The writer wanted to picture you as being a loving and inclusive person. He wanted to add a little and subtract a little in order to come up with an improved version of you. He knew better than you what you should look like. The writer wanted you to look like the person that he would like to look like. The writer wrote a book about you in the writer's own image.

We have done this to God. He has given us His worship songbook. This songbook is perfect in the way that God describes himself. But we, who know better than God, need to clean God up and get rid of one or more of His "negative attributes". We need to put more emphasis on God being a positive loving God. We can do this since we know better than God who He is and how we should worship Him in song. And some of our New Impoved Songs (NIS) are considered to be so good that we sing them over and over and over and over and over again even if there are only seven words in the whole song. We were never able to do that with the Psalms. And the Psalms never gave us that feeling of euphoria that NIS songs do. NIS songs lift us up to heights of feeling that are indescribable. NIS songs picture God in the way that we want Him pictured.

We have redefined God to improve upon who He is and how He wants to be worshipped. We are pleased, happy, and downright euphoric. Do you think that God is pleased and happy?