Music isn’t just something we do on Sundays because that’s what churches do or because we have space to fill. The Church has always had music because it’s vital.
One
Hope
First, Music puts hope in our pockets—ready to be discovered like loose change in life’s short-changed moments. A melody surfaces midweek. We find ourselves humming a song from Sunday, only to notice a lyric landing right on time. Music accompanies us, carrying Sabbath songs into the ordinary rhythms of our lives.
Two
Home
Second, when Music opens our services with a call to worship that song calls us home. Music invites us to be at home in the best sense—unguarded, open, and free. Week by week, as we begin our worship with Music, we are invited to come as we are and return to that kind of relationship with God through Christ. Music helps us participate with the Holy Spirit, who is gently tuning and re-tuning our wandering hearts so we don’t settle for less than the loving home we already have.
Three
Honest
Third, music helps purify our hurt, harm, and even our hate. In prayers, songs, and interludes, music gives us permission to be honest—to feel what we feel in a way that transforms rather than corrodes. We can be angry without sinning. We can weep. We can rejoice. Music—and those who offer it—are among life’s great gifts.
Kurt Vonnegut, who lived much of his life as an atheist, once said near the end of his life:
“If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: 'The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music.'”
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