On a Friday, I visited Aunt Frances. She will be 95 on April 26, 2022, and misses my Uncle Fred Crain, who passed on in 2018. Aunt lives in the memory-care wing of Spring Park, an assisted-living home in Travelers Rest, SC.
Aunt sat in a wheelchair near her dining area. Ms. Lisa, introduced herself as the home’s assistant director and asked if I — holding my guitar case — had arrived to play for the group. I was there just to visit Aunt Frances, but Ms. Lisa invited me to sing and play for eight folk sitting near Aunt. Most memory-care residents (those who could walk easily) had gone on a bus trip, she said.
“OK,” I said, getting out my guitar and finding a seat. I sang a few hymns and persuaded Ms. Lisa to sing a solo verse of “In the Garden.”
“I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses … And He walks with me, and He talks with me, and he tells me I am His own,” she sang before hurrying back to work.
Many older people remember the song “In the Garden.” A study reports that if songs spur personal memories, those songs can cause stronger positive emotions than even looking at photos of by-gone days. “Music represents who we are and how we feel, so it’s what we remember,” someone said.
“Music has a way of forcing itself upon our attention as no other art has,” someone said.
Music can promote faith in God as we worship him in song. The Bible tells about people who sang:
After the Israelis crossed the Red Sea (Exodus 15), they sang: “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord … saying, ‘I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.’ … And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.”
Jesus and his disciples sang: “And when they had sung a hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives” (Matt. 26:30).
The Apostle Paul said, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God” (Col. 3:16).
Does your singing have to be perfect? No. The Lord likes to hear all birds sing, even if they “can’t carry a tune in a bucket,” I think. “If only the best birds sang, the forest would be silent,” Henry Van Dyke said.
In 2017, Nielsen estimated that Americans spend over 32 hours a week on average listening to music. Often it’s background music — muzak in stores, CDs, radio, or TV, says “Faithforward.” “Outside the church there are few opportunities … for people to sing together. Much of the popular music (including Christian music) composed today is for performance rather than for participation.”
Congregational singing is important. “Music unites the congregation so that God is worshipped with one voice,” someone said.
Music is a gift of God and part of the created order, says Faithforward, adding, “The human voice has priority in praising God: Other instruments are to be used primarily in the service of the singing of God’s people. The congregation is always the primary choir. … While it is possible to be actively engaged in worship and in prayer while listening to an anthem or solo, a diet of worship which does not regularly include ample opportunity for all the members of the congregation to join in song will be impoverished worship, and the life of the church and the faith of its people will suffer.”
The main focus of congregational singing is to the Lord. “O sing unto the Lord a new song: sing unto the Lord, all the earth” (Psalm 96:1).
Faithforward says that music is made first of all to the Lord and only secondarily to each other: “Music should communicate and express a sense of awe and wonder in the presence of God; it should lead our thoughts toward God rather than toward ourselves. … People tend to remember the theology they sing more than the theology that is preached.”
“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing” (Psalm 100:1-2).
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