Sunday, April 19, 2026 - Importance of Music in Worship
April 19, 2026
Deborah Laforet
“Importance of Music in Worship”
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by your
Spirit and be words of wisdom for this day. Amen.
Anyone of you music historians know who this is? Johann
Sebastian Bach was the youngest child in a musical family. He was well-
educated and had a deep knowledge of liturgy and music. He was a church
organist and choir director and wrote over 1000 musical works, many of which have been lost.
Now, Bach’s work was within the church, and many, for a while, assumed that his personal faith
played a central role in his activities as a church musician, but then, research during the mid 1900’s,
began to view Bach as disinterested in religion, only accepting the appointment in Leipzig, Germany to
further his personal and professional goals. After all, at that time, the Christian church was the centre of
life. It was where you went to be seen and to have influence.
In 1969 though, Bach’s personal bible was discovered and it contained over 400 marginal notes
and underlinings in his own hand. So, we still don’t know what he believed but I think we can assume
that he grappled with his faith and did his best to be authentic in his work. What more can you ask?
A lot of Bach’s notations were in the book of Chronicles, which we read from this week and last
week, and it’s a book from which we don’t often read. Now, we don’t often read from the book of
Chronicles. It tends to repeat stories found elsewhere, and has those of lists of names, which we all find
daunting. The first and second books of Chronicles though have a particular focus. They are often
called priestly writings because they tend to focus on ritual and liturgy, which includes a lot of detail
about music in worship. For example, we learn that the priests played trumpets, while the Levites, those
2 of 6
who cared for the temple, sang and played other instruments. The temple choir had 288 singers of all
ages and genders. There were over 4000 musicians who carried very high status. They lived at the
temple and worked in shifts and had to be available for worship duty night and day. Music clearly was
an essential and integral part of worship.
In fact, there is a story that tells us that music was even used for military purposes. In the second
book of Chronicles, we read that an alliance of foreign armies had breached Judah’s borders and was
about to attack. After prayer and fasting, Judah’s king sends out the army - preceded by the temple
choir. Disconcerted by the sight of these musicians, the foreigners are thrown into mass confusion and
dispose of one another, leaving Judah’s army to mop up and collect the spoils.
Now, whether or not this truly happened, we will never know, but its not likely. The books of
Chronicles imagined a bigger and grander time, before the Israelites’ precious temple had been
destroyed and many of them exiled from their land. The writings offer a vision of glory and power that
they hoped to discover in their current context, and this vision included magnificent worship and music.
Music in worship can be an experience of beauty and unity and can sometimes even touch our
emotions. As I mentioned last week, over it’s thousands of years, since even before Christianity and
Judaism, people of faith have been using music to express awe and wonder, grief and joy, anticipation
and longing. You’ve probably heard that singing is like praying twice - the music behind the words
gives the words that much more power and meaning.
On the other side of the coin though, music in the church can also bring conflict and be the cause
of divisiveness. Believe it or not, not all Christians sing the same music. Every sect or denomination
seems to have their own hymnals and their own style of using music in worship, from the Catholic
Church to Protestant churches, like the United Church, from evangelical churches to Orthodox Christian
churches. Some are very traditional, while others are contemporary. Some use organs and pianos while
3 of 6
others focus on guitar and drums. Some have lots of leaders and paid professional musicians, while
others rely volunteers and focus on communal music.
I grew up in the Catholic Church, which means, when I began ministering in United Churches, I
was very unfamiliar with the old Protestant hymns. When I first began leading worship, I was often
criticized for not choosing the hymns that everyone knows and loves, but honestly, partly because of my
background and partly because of the amount of music to which I’ve been exposed, I tend to love so
many different kinds of music and have a hard time knowing what everyone else knows and loves.
It’s a tricky balance, especially if we want to be a warm and open space to new folks coming into
the church. How do you choose music for those who have been coming to church their whole lives, who
know hymns by heart, and who find assurance in the old hymns, and for those who are first stepping foot
into a church, who have possibly never sung a hymn, much less with a group of people? There was a
time when everyone was immersed in the music of the church. It was played on the radio, TV, even
celebrities put out albums singing the old, traditional hymns. That’s just not the case anymore. One can
avoid songs of faith completely and never know a single note of a hymn like Amazing Grace, which we
think everyone knows.
Church ministers and musicians have a lot to consider when choosing music for a wide variety of
people. On May 3rd, when Alydia Smith, from the General Council office joins us for worship, she will
lead us in some new music that has different cultural roots. As our cultural landscape changes to include
immigrants, especially those outside of Western Europe, we have to consider the different sounds and
styles of music, which can sound stranger to Western European ears. A song from South Korea or one
from Nigeria may be uncomfortable for some to sing, but if we’re striving to create a space where all
can belong, doesn’t that mean we need to be open to being changed, including in our style of music?
4 of 6
In some ways, Bach must have had it easy, right? He didn’t have to worry about style or culture
or getting the words just right. I wonder though if that’s really true. He lived during the early 1700’s,
just after a major time of change in the church, the Reformation, and on the cusp of a time of great
revolution. Is it ever easy to create music that meets the needs of all? All we can do is our best, finding
music that connects with our lives, with the events of the world, knowing when to teach something new
and relying on old favourites, and hopefully, as a community, finding the songs that gather us together
and bring us closer to the Holy.
Let’s again, read responsively from a part of a poetic statement of faith in the United Church,
called “A Song of Faith.” It’ll be followed by a moment of silence.
Join me in this first meditation.
Meditation: (excerpt from A Song of Faith)
And so we sing of God the Spirit,
who from the beginning has swept over the face of creation,
Animating all energy and matter
and moving in the human heart.
We sing of God the Spirit, faithful and untameable,
who is creatively and redemptively active in the world...
We sing of the Spirit,
who speaks our prayer of deepest longing
and enfolds our concerns and confessions,
transforming us and the world.
— Moment of Silence —
May our we feel the Creator with us as we gather and sing, helping us to find the words and the
notes that bring us closer to the sacred - providing comfort, wisdom, and inspiration. May it be so.
Amen.