How Can I Keep From Singing?

       A friend once made me a sign that I had on my office door for years.  It's a picture showing 4 cowboys complete with big mustaches and six guns.  Their arms are on their hips and they don't look happy.  Underneath, my friend put the caption, "We want singable hymns".  He made the sign after spirited discussions during a hymn-writing conference.  Any pastor soon finds out that the most common complaints about worship are about hymns that are unfamiliar or are 'hard to sing'.   That's one side of the discussion.   Other people are tired of hymns that are 'boring, slow, and old'; they want new music and worship that has 'spirit and joy'.
       Although people often think of themselves as being on opposite sides, I have noticed one thing they seem to hold in common: at the base is the concern of what they want from worship.  If television/mega church is an example, people want to be entertained and moved by what is presented while they sit and watch.  As a  small town/rural pastor, there is no way I can compete with all the musicians and glitz and production especially when I pick the wrong (unsingable and unfamiliar) hymns like I did recently.
       The conversations I have had since then got me to thinking about our expectations about worship and what we bring to the table physically and spiritually.
       The ancient word for what happens in worship is "liturgy" which literally means work of the people.  The understanding is that worship happens when the people assemble and  together to the reading, praying, and singing.  In the new testament church worship is not only participation in word and prayer but also it is also preparation for ministry.
       When early Christians gathered for worship on the first day of the week (Sunday), they brought their gifts of food and money.  After worship and sharing the Lord's Supper, those gifts were taken and distributed to the poor, widows and orphans, and the sick.  Worship and communion led directly to ministry to those in need.  People worked together to make worship happen and then worked at doing the ministry Christ put into the hands of the church.
       It is an ancient premise of the Church that our prayer shapes our ministry; 'as we pray, so we do'.
       Those of us whose work includes the preparation of worship and the preaching of the word, really do need to take that responsibility seriously and do our best.  As one seminary professor told us, just because we know and believe that God is at work in worship doesn't mean we are off the hook.  To take God seriously is to take worship seriously both for those of us in the pulpit and those in the pew.  We need to take our cue from the early church who came to pray and be nourished by the Word to go forth and do the ministry of Christ.
       The ancient pattern for worship teaches us to come bringing our gifts, ready to share and to participate in the work of liturgy and caring for those in need.  It calls us out of ourselves and our needs to focus on what we bring to God and then bring to the world on God's behalf.  The words often prayed by preachers are good words for everyone who comes to worship: "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer." (Psalm 19:14)
       Instead of coming to worship looking for what we are to get out of the experience, scripture points us in the direction of the preparation of ourselves and the gifts we bring to the "liturgy" - the work of God's people.   Our prayer and meditation as we read together even in this humble devotion is part of what we bring to God in thanksgiving for our salvation.  As the refrain says from one of my favorite, oh so singable hymns, "No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that Rock I'm clinging.  Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?"  Read Psalm 104:31-34.