Church Songs

Today, I was song leading in church. I spent the entire day yesterday preparing for it, and the night practicing with my fellow worship team members. By the time, it was over, it was 11 plus and I was physically and mentally drained.

What I did not prepare for was our guest speaker. He took the pulpit and straight away, blasted his criticisms of a song which is probably familiar to most Christians, 'Change my heart, O God'. By his perception, Christians do not know what they are singing and what they are asking. Apparently, Christians should not utter things like 'May I be like You' because we do not understand what it means. Hmm.

Then he continued with more angsty rantings about the church. One could see that he had a lot on his mind by the 'overpained' expression on his face. This speaker had apparently spent 3 years in the mission field and had not said a single sermon during that period. (What's the point of this admission?)

Anyway, it left me wondering as to how to close the service. It was disturbing to have a speaker come in and say these disturbing remarks. You could sense a certain tenseness in the air.

Thank God I'm not depressed today and in my cooler moods. I think I managed to close it without having to resort to any sarcasm. (argh I'm boasting here, help help)

Okay, okay, I threw in a witty remark 'Well, looks like we can't sing the last song after that sermon'. If you must ask, our closing song title was 'Ku Rela' which means 'I am willing', ha ha ha. Then I ended with a prayer, as all good Christians should. (somebody stop me, please)

I think most of the songs we choose don't accurately reflect the way our lives are at the moment. But they have their place. Songs lift us and encourage us. Songs can serve as prayers when we don't know how to pray. Well written songs admonish us and convict us. True, sometimes we don't know the totality of what we ask for, but we are not totally ignorant, either.

Well, there are Sundays and there ARE Sundays.