"Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God."
- Colossians 3:16
As this passage from Colossians shows, singing is essential to the Christian life. And, of course, singing is also one of the major components of our weekly worship services. The music ministry at New City continues to develop as we constantly seek the best ways for us to encourage one another, and to worship our God, through song. I am looking foward to exploring and growing together with our entire church body in our ability to praise our King.
We give thanks to God for music! We also give thanks to him for his giving Glena and Wes to us, to serve us in our corporate singing. Recently, Wes was able to attend the Together for the Gospel Conference in Louisville, Kentucky. He gained some valuable insight there into leading our congregation in song. More specifically, he came back with one main idea for enriching our singing at New City: hymnals.
Here's what Wes is thinking:
"We should consider purchasing hymnals as a church. Each of us would get the number of hymnals that we would need for our household. This hymnal would be a book that belongs to you, and that you would keep with you throughout the week. It will help you to be prepared for our weekly worship, to sing songs with your family, and to learn new songs on your own.As one historical lesson, Martin Luther took time to create the hymnbooks used by early Lutheran churches. He did this because he understood that our singing truth helps us to think about it, to feel it, to memorize it, to pray, to know it, to live it, and to get it woven into our lives.A hymnbook would help give us a broad variety of songs to sing, each with new things to teach us about God. It will help us to think more on the fullness of the glory of God's character.A hymnbook provides quality. The hymnal we're considering to use at New City Fellowship is called Hymns of Grace. To be selected for this hymnbook, songs must be theologically and melodically excellent. These kinds of songs will help us to better understand and worship our Father.A hymnbook has an additional benefit: Sacred music should be more than just something we do together on Sunday. It should be done in our homes, and with our families. It should be part of our daily worship. We wouldn't want to purchase hymnals merely as books to sit in the back of a pew (or in a storage closet, in our case). Instead, we would want our hymnals to be a part of our everyday worship. These songs will help show us the deep riches of the wonder of the God of the Bible in a way that is memorable, repeatable and singable. They will help us memorize and build our lives upon God’s promises, and on the work He has done for His people throughout history."
I am humbled and excited about this opportunity! I agree with Wes that this could be a good way for us to grow together in the knowledge and grace of our God. Stay tuned for details!
Grace & peace,
-Pastor Josh