choir practice

one of my goals for the choir rehearsals this season is to have a weekly devotional thought from scripture. it just made sense to me to have a small teaching moment along with the music we're doing. it maybe a scripture to help us understand a line we are singing or maybe it some general perspective on God's music.
last night was the latter.
i began by asking the simple question: why do we sing?
a few people broke into a refrain from "his eye is on the sparrow".
but, in the next few minutes (and it really was a brief time), we had a wonderful discussion on what we all agree is a command to sing. i was so pleased to hear the choir members going beyond the typical "i feel..." statements and really hitting the "the bible says..." statements. we are all entitled to our opinions, but unless our opinions are backed by scripture they are pointless and basically worthless. (as americans we have every right to be wrong.)
i also quoted the simple line from psalm 98:1. "sing to the Lord..."
that means we must! "should", "could", "might", "maybe", and "ought to" just don't cut it. the book of psalms (as well as the whole of scripture) is a to-do list, not a suggestion box.
there was a general consensus among us, that too much of the lack of participation in worship service music is because of ignorance of this command. the simple truths are often so simple that they get overlooked. the choir (and their fearless leader) have declared it to be our mission to help make it known through loving, teaching moments that we are all called to sing. even if we don't have an artistic penchant, we are still called to sing. that's the message we're called to deliver, and by God, we will!
ps - i love my choir!