Make a Joyful Noise!

Kirste and I served as missionaries in Japan from 1992 to 1994, where we helped with several church plants.  At one location where we helped with a Sunday service — usually by leading music — there was a Buddhist couple, Mr. & Mrs. Takahashi, who attended regularly. I am still not sure why they came as they didn’t say much, and they did not express any desire to become Christians, but they were quite consistent. One week, they asked me an interesting question: “Why do people sing 

Tom Richards

every week at Christian services? We never sing at the Buddhist temple.”

​I was young and inexperienced, but I had learned enough about different cultures and religious traditions to know not to say, “That’s a silly question. Christians always sing at church services because Christians have always sung at church services!” I thought about the question and realized that it was an excellent one — why do Christians sing in our worship services? This was probably the first time that I realized that singing is not a universal part of religious worship. Music and singing are integral to all of the Christian traditions I have been a part of, and I understand that music is also a very central part of synagogue worship in Jewish communities. We lived in Japan for two years, and I don’t recall ever hearing music or singing at either a Buddhist temple or a Shinto shrine — as far as I know, music is not a part of either tradition, at least in Japan. That left me wondering what the more interesting question is — why do Christians sing, or why do Japanese Buddhists not sing?

“I sing because I’m happy — I sing because I’m free …” That is from the hymn “His Eye Is On the Sparrow.”  Having grown up in a church, it seemed obvious to me why Christians sing — we find joy and excitement in experiencing love, forgiveness, grace, and mercy, and music is a natural way to express that. One thing I learned living overseas — what might seem obvious to me will not always be obvious to the next person. The Japanese couple who asked me about singing had been attending a Christian church service weekly for at least a year. They had heard and sung dozens of hymns and numerous messages about the gospel, and after all that, they had no idea why we were singing every week! I decided to answer their question by preparing a series of messages for the next several Sundays on why Christians sing. That time was very rewarding for me as I thought about my own tradition and sought to come up with a better answer than “Because that’s the way we have always done it!” I didn’t come up with anything shockingly new — ultimately, I stayed with “We sing because we’re happy, we sing because we’re free,” but I gained a much deeper sense of what it actually meant to me personally.

Sadly, music can also be a very divisive issue in Christian churches. Growing up, I was a fan of Keith Green and Larry Norman, two early pioneers of Christian rock music. At the same time, I was in a church where the pastors and elders disapproved of any ‘Christian’ music that included a drum beat, electric guitars, or songs about the devil, including Keith Green’s ‘No One Believes In Me Anymore’ and Larry Norman’s ‘Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music.’ I was not the most rebellious teenager ever, but I did cause quite a stir in church one Sunday by singing Keith Green’s ‘Asleep in the Light’ as a solo offertory. I caused an even bigger uproar by following that up with ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water,’ which the elders were quite certain was a song about drugs. They responded with a new policy — all offertory music had to be pre-approved by the elders. Thankfully, First Pres did not do a background check on me before welcoming me into the music program!  

I have also been involved with two churches that almost split over arguments about music. In 1990, Kirste and I attended a church in Portland and were asked to join the worship team.  The church was trying to create a blended service — much like ours — that used both traditional hymns and contemporary music. The compromise they came up with was to do the contemporary music first, while many of the older church members waited outside the sanctuary, then they would join the rest of us for hymns and the message. It was really heartbreaking to see people making their dislike of someone else’s music more important than loving their neighbor. I also remember an annual business meeting at a former church with a heated argument about music. One of the church founders argued that because the church was using traditional hymns when it was founded in 1964, that it needed to stay that way forever, I suppose as a safe haven for people who didn’t like modern music. Again, I found it heartbreaking that music was dividing people rather than unifying them.

We are so blessed at 1st Presbyterian with an overabundance of incredibly skilled musicians. What I find an even greater blessing is the way that music brings us all together rather than dividing us. I love singing old hymns and playing newer songs, and it is such a joy to be part of a community that embraces them both. Rather than clinging to a single vision of what a church service has to look like, we have joyous and unpredictable chaos — one week we have a ‘normal’ service, the next week we are entertained by a bell choir. One week, it is scandalous rocking from Tom & Craig, the next week a beautiful viola calms our souls. Brass quintets, incredible preludes from Deborah, Renee’s joyful and infectious choir, a wide range of vocal styles from Jenny to Carol — First Presbyterian embraces and celebrates a wider range of music than any church I have experienced, and it is such a joy and a blessing!

In His Name, Tom