singing

So, I preach (hence the name of the podcast) and I am blessed to preach a lot. I have elders who want me to preach, brethren who ask me to preach and a God who allows me to preach. Preaching a lot means that I preach in a lot of different places (I’m allowed 4 Sundays a year but several additional Wednesdays and any other time I can preach on a day or night other than those I take.

Last year I was asked to come preach for a church in West Virginia by a guy who listens to the podcast and follows the blog. I was looking forward to it, for one thing I had never preached in WV before and for another from his descriptions they had worked hard and were excited about the meeting. This was not to be “just a meeting to have a meeting because we think we ought to have a meeting every year.”

I didn’t know till shortly before arriving that it was a “smaller” (a relative term) church. On a normal Sunday they’ll have 60-70 present. All of this is prelude to a point.

I’ve preached at hundreds of places over the last 30 years but I have NEVER preached at a place regardless of size that had better singing than this little West Virginia church!!! They filled the building there with massive and beautiful praise. After the second night I decided to try to figure out what made their singing so extraordinary.

This is where it gets interesting. They didn’t really see it as that special. To them it was just singing praises to God. I guess I expected to hear them say they practiced a lot, emphasized singing, had great leaders, or something like that. But most everyone said - “we just sing.” And they do. Tuesday night I looked around, every man, woman and child - except one was singing. Their song leader is good, but (and no criticism is intended here), he’s not the best by any measure. They sang old hymns and new devotional songs. Didn’t seem to matter which they were singing - everyone just sang. They used three different song leaders over the five day meeting. But it didn’t matter who was leading, they all just sang.

On Friday night before the service began they had these great folks sing a few songs (they are known variously as: Harmony Four and Father and Son).

It was refreshing. I would wish every church, every Christian would learn from these kind Christians. Just sing cause you want to sing. Why wouldn’t a Christian do that? And that is the secret to great congregational singing! Sing, be pleasing to God. Sing, because you want to praise Him. Sing!