Music for the local church: A Theological and Practical Workshop
Colossians 3:16-17 draws close connections between the songs we sing, our hearts’ familiarity with the truth of God, and our thankful expressions of praise to God. Yet all too often what we sing and why we sing in corporate worship are misunderstood and mis-valued in churches today.
God intends all aspects of corporate worship to edify the church; we gather to build up the saints in their faith and give voice to our praise of God. Songs should function in that same way: aiming truthful declarations of praise vertically, horizontally, and inwardly in order to minister to the saints and ascribe glory to God. When church bodies don’t appreciate this, a good 30-40% of their corporate worship service can be rendered anemic.
This is why it is important to consider the music ministry of a church as well as the preaching ministry. I’ve been in vocational music ministry for 15 years and every year I’ve grown in my appreciation for God’s design for musical worship in the church. The opportunities that I’ve had to teach on the subject have been highlights of ministry for me.
Over the last several years I’ve been blessed to develop a relationship with some brothers and sisters in Italy and their local churches. As an overflow of those relationships a fledgling endeavor with the Italian Theological Academy (ITA) has developed. As you well know, the ITA has already been investing deeply in the development of the pulpit ministry of the evangelical church in Italy. Yet Johnny Gravino and I recently had conversations around the need for strengthening the ministry of music within these churches also so that there is consistency of both message and philosophy between these two significant modes of truth communication.
The theologically solid repertoire of music within the Italian church is very limited, and just as limited are the understanding and appreciation of music as one of the vital forms of corporate worship. In light of that it has been very exciting to utilize the ITA’s connections with the Italian church network while leveraging the current acceptability of teaching via Zoom to pilot a “Workshop on Music in the Church” with a number of Italian musicians and church leaders.
Five churches have been represented in this initial pilot program, and there have been engaging times of biblical exploration and stimulating discussion around a number of topics. These include a broad theology of worship, a theology of corporate worship itself, a proper understanding of music’s role in corporate worship, music team leadership and dynamics, and pragmatics such as song assessment and purposeful service planning.
It has been such an encouragement to teach and encourage these brothers and sisters while also being spurred on myself. While this pilot program is relatively small, Johnny and I hope and pray that this is simply the start of a series of workshops, classes, and conferences that will serve to strengthen the churches in Italy. As we all know, the current COVID-19 roller coaster makes all plans subject to change; yet we know that the Lord is sovereign, and He is the one who builds His church on His timeline. Thank you for your support and prayers; may God raise up excellent and faithful Italian musicians to transform the landscape of Italian church music!
Aaron Johnson, Associate Pastor
Mission Road Bible Church