One of the great privileges we have as a church family is to praise God together in song. Because music is such a powerful vehicle for glorifying God and encouraging one another, our desire is to approach worship through song with deliberate thought and care.
With that in mind, here are five main things we strive for in music here at Gray Gables…
We want to use songs that exalt biblical truth, leading to an appropriate emotional response. God created music as a medium that stirs great emotion in our hearts (Colossians 3:16). We aim to harness this power responsibly by using music in a way that highlights and celebrates biblical truth. Music can lead people to feel certain emotions regardless of the lyrics’ message, so we’re careful both to pick songs that have profound biblical content and to avoid over-emotionalizing our music. The emotion in worship should be a response to the truth of who God is and what He has done.
We strive to cultivate rich congregational singing. In Revelation 5-7, John saw the whole congregation gathered in God’s throne room, praising the Lamb as one. Congregational worship songs should enable our whole church family to participate. So our songs should be widely sing-able, regardless of your level of musical training. Paul told the Ephesians to address “one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Ephesians 5:19). Although our worship music is primarily God-oriented, it can also be a means through which we can encourage each other in Christ.
We strive to keep our style simple for the sake of unity. Our prayer is that Gray Gables would a community of faith that includes people from all backgrounds and cultures, united in trusting Jesus Christ. So we hope that by using a simple style with minimal arrangement and instrumentation, our music can accompany and encourage true, God-honoring worship, not be a obstacle to it.
We strive to appreciate God-honoring music from all eras. In our services, our goal is to incorporate the best songs we can find from throughout Church history. It reminds us that we’re part of a long tradition of treasuring Christ, and that God is unchanging in His authority, character, and love for His people.
We strive to reflect the full spectrum of Christian experience. Our goal is to sing music that captures the whole array of the Christian life—from the sorrow we have over our sin to the the joy of redemption in Christ, and from the happy expectation of heaven to the pain of trials and persecution. The Bible beautifully displays this this variety of expression wonderfully in the Psalms. We hope that with such a range, the songs we sing in services will serve as helpful tools for pointing our eyes to Christ in daily life in every situation.