Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 2-139 (Leadership Issues)

LOUD MUSIC IN CHURCH – A WORTHY SOLUTION

Predictably, CLM-2-133 on ‘Loud Music in Church’ drew varied responses. We thought the following was the most helpful.

Prayer of Dedication of our Musicians and Musical Instruments for the Glory of God.

Lord God, we want to praise You that, in Your grace and love, you allow us to praise You; that You have given us voices to praise You; that You have given us musical abilities to praise You; that you have given us instruments to praise You with; that You have given us the ability to hear and appreciate the music we make.

We acknowledge that music is just one part of the praise and worship that You want.

We acknowledge that more than the music and other physical offerings we give You that You want our obedience and the sacrifice of our hearts, for us to be humble and contrite before You and to walk with You.

So may these instruments and our voices and our music always be just a reflection of our internal worship and attitude of our hearts.

Specifically we pray that these instruments and our voices and our music will never hinder our worship of You.

We recognise, Father, that percussion instruments in particular can be a problem for some people because of the distress they cause their hearing. Lord, please keep us sensitive to their needs and help us to not make it more difficult for them to worship You in our meetings. We don’t want to be a stumbling block to them Lord.

We also pray that these instruments may never just be a source of entertainment for us, but for us to play worshipfully and reverently before You. May they never be a statement of ourselves or how we personally think music should be played. May they be played with joy and enthusiasm for Your Glory but also with sensitivity and tact, with an attitude of worship and reverence and with a proper sense of our privilege in bringing our praise before You.

And also Lord, we ask You to bless all those who make this offering in music to You. We thank You for the skill and sensitivity of our inaugural drummer and we pray that You will help us to find others to succeed him when needed, of like mind and skill.

Finally Lord, we ask You to bless us in our worship of You. We know that You do this anyway and we praise You for this too, but we specifically ask for Your continued blessing of us here that we may tell out the greatness of Your Name, to make Your message known, to bring You glory and honour and that You will use us in the extension of Your Kingdom.

Amen.

Some may find this prayer useful that was said at the dedication of the first percussion kit at Morley Baptist Baptist Church, Western Australia.

– Lachlan Dunjey <>