Cosper on "Why Do We Sing?"

Mike Cosper reminds us that singing is a gift of a creation with formational effects in this article from The Gospel Coalition site on Why Do We Sing?

At its best, congregational music is a marriage of truth, beauty, and action. Songs that are clear and comprehensible to a congregation, loaded with biblical truth, are set to music that "paints" that text emotionally. By singing with the church, I'm putting truth and beauty into action within me. I'm confessing the truth as I experience its effects. I am "speaking the truth in love" with the church, which as David Peterson points out, is not a reference to interpersonal confrontation, but communal confession. We speak the truth in love when we join our voice with the church, singing together of who God is and what he's done.

In singing, the whole person is engaged. In congregational singing, the whole person is engaged and united with the community around us. This practice takes on its greatest meaning in the church, where that unity shapes and reorients a covenant community to the story of the gospel. When the church sings a lament together, the words and music share the sense of sorrow and anguish of those who are suffering. When they sing a celebratory anthem, the music helps them emotionally taste hope and victory.

It is dangerous to pursue the emotional effect of music without rooting it in the content of God's Word. But it's also dangerous to pretend that music's emotional effects are unimportant or dangerous in themselves. To be stirred by singing is to be human, and it's a means of grace to God's church that such a gift is so easily accessible. You don't even need rock band, or a pipe organ, or a guy with a faux hawk and an acoustic guitar. You just need a song and a reason to sing.

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