Hey gang! I hope everyone is doing well this week as we prepare for church choir music and all other church music activities for this Sunday!
I wanted to give you a little something that I think may help you as a choir director or worship pastor/worship leader. This is a very simple concept that I myself have used, and it has changed my life. This simple idea can revolutionize your worship services and it can change your life as well! I’m sure by now you’re thinking, “Joe, what single piece of free information can you possibly offer to us that can both revolutionize our worship services and change our lives?!?” Well to that I say, “You’ll be surprise!” You see, when I reveal the details of this “thing” that will change everything, your initial reaction may be, “We already do that! We don’t need help in this area, and this article is clearly not for us.” Well, just give me a minute; If you’ll really get honest with yourself and think back into the past when things may have gone wrong with your church choir music, or maybe just didn’t go as well as you had hoped for, you’ll see what I mean. Ok, enough with the waiting game, what am I talking about? What is this thing that is going to change everything for me?
Preparation.
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Most of us have surely heard the church building on the corner referred to as “the house of God.” Have you ever heard the Word “Ichabod”? Other than the first name of the schoolmaster character in Washington Irving’s “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” – the word “Ichabod” was originally mentioned in Scripture. “Then she named the child Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel! “because the ark of God had been captured,” (1Sam. 4:21). The original meaning of Ichabod is this: “the glory has departed”.
Logic tells us that the word “has departed” denotes simply that there used to be glory, and now there isn’t. The term originated in reference to what many refer to as “the Shekinah (SHE’KEE’NA) glory” which is the manifestation of the glory of God in the temple at Jerusalem – the place where God resided. This “Shekinah” was displayed in several ways in Scripture including the burning bush, the bright light when the angels announced the birth of Christ to the shepherds, etc. The Shekinah was only present when the Ark of the Covenant was in its proper place, in the Holy of Holies. Historically, whenever the Ark was NOT in the temple, the temple was said to be “Ichabod.” The real substance and meaning of the temple was missing. It was merely an empty habitation at that point because the essence – the glory of God – was gone.
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Don’t you get frustrated with the system of unwritten rules that restrict the “proper” use of music in worship? Who wrote those rules, anyway? I can hear the Spirit of God laugh as we poor human build our cages out of fear and ignorance, and say, “Stay in there!” These are meant to be funny (Come on, they’re a little funny.) but also thought-provoking and even liberating.
1. The only hymns that should be sung in worship are the old ones, the ones “we” learned as children. (Note: Was the writer of Psalm 96 wrong? At one time ALL hymns, anthems, and other pieces of music were new.)
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