Why do they do songs in church?

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I don't know.

That doesn't make any sense.

Glenn Packiam, thank you so much for joining me today.

So, unlike some of the ones we've been doing lately, that were sent in by people, which this is a reminder, if your kid has a question, if a kid you love has a question, you can go to our website and record it for us to answer. But this is a question that a kid at my church asked, and I feel like I have to preface what you're about to hear with, I asked him first and his sister, is there anything about church that you think is weird or confusing? And this was his answer.

Why not pottery? Why not, you know, drawing, whatever? And I think there is something really powerful about music that has to do with the way that we're made. There has to be the very breath in our lungs coming out, resonating in our facial chamber. I mean, a lot of scholars have talked about this.

There's sort of these effects that it has, the chemicals that it releases in our brains. You know, I mean, there's all kinds of sort of human reasons, maybe the way that we're made, that involve our whole being when we sing. But ultimately, it's not the singing. The power of singing is not in the fact that we're singing, but in the one that we're singing to. And that is what makes singing in church really special, because it's worshipful singing rather than just sort of making music.

I don't know why there has to be music. I mean, we don't need to get into all the big Christian questions of like what instruments and what ways. But it does seem pretty consistent that music is involved. And you've talked a little bit about what that does to us. But I think some people might be asking, like, is that part of it really necessary?

Or does that, just like, happen to be how it's happened in history?

So not just musical expression, as in songs, but physical embodiment of those things. And I think one of the powerful things about music is music has a way of embodying emotion. So there are times that we're feeling something and we don't have the words for it. We don't know what to say. But hearing a particular melody or a combination of notes like a chord, harmonies and melodies and rhythms have a way of expressing or embodying emotion that we don't even have words for.

So it's not that it's, you know, we would say pre-verbal or whatever. It's actually beyond words. There's times you listen to a movie score and there could be no characters talking, but all of a sudden you feel something deeply. So it embodies emotion, but it also evokes emotion. You can kind of use music to lead yourself into the kind of emotion you want to experience.

I mean, you know, if anybody's seen The Sound of Music out there, you know, I mean, when she starts singing, you know, raindrops and roses, and it's this minor key kind of thing. And then, as soon as she breaks into the chorus, you know, it lands on this major chord. And then I don't feel so bad, you know, and there's this, the music itself leads our emotion from a place that, you know, the minor key, quick melodies, quick rhythms, that sort of carries the feeling of angst or anxiety, or fear or worry. And then it settles us into longer notes in a major chord. And so there's just, I don't, I don't understand how it does all of these things, but somehow it embodies our emotion.

It evokes emotions in us. So we can even use music to lead us to the kind of emotional experience that we want.

So this tradition, my tradition, and probably most of yours, might need more of a correction to this tendency.

You know, the Inside Out movies are so fun to me, Caitlin, because they give us, you know, kind of this inside. look at how emotions sort of work. But emotions are a kind of lens for the world. They're eyes of the heart. And so does music lead us into certain emotions?

Yes, but we're always trying to strike that tension between listening to our emotions and leading our emotions. We're trying to do both things. We're trying to say, okay, what are my emotions telling me about how I'm seeing the world right now? So if I feel fear, it's telling me I'm perceiving a threat. And we go, well, should I be perceiving a threat?

And is there, you know, so we're listening and we're leading, and we're always doing that dance. So I think the trouble with manipulation, manipulation happens when someone is coercively trying to create or fabricate an emotion that actually doesn't belong. So if I'm trying to get you excited, but the thing is actually not exciting, that's manipulation. That's dishonest, you know. But I think when a worship leader, high church, setting, beautiful choirs in St.

Paul's Cathedral in London, whatever, you know, and I, you know, we've all been in, a lot of us have been in those kinds of choral, you know, high church things.

If you've ever been in a church that uses incense, the ministers wear special clothes, maybe the building is more traditional and ornate, the structure of the service might involve a lot of standing up and sitting down, that's probably high church. Churches that focus less on tradition and formality, there's a worship band that plays contemporary music, the structure of the service isn't as focused on tradition, the ministers wear jeans, that's probably more low church. Lots of churches fall somewhere in between these two. What's important for our conversation is that music, what to do with our bodies, and emotion, matter for churches across this spectrum.

And so you're sort of trying to say, this is this object that is worthy of art, the expression of all these various emotions, and I want you to see it, but ultimately I can't force you to see it, you know.

And then I've been in other settings where I'm like, whoa, that brought me to an emotional place that I didn't know I needed to go, or that I did want to get to, but I needed help understanding.

So thank you for that. Let's get into the second part of the question, I think is important, where the kid is not just asking, why do we sing songs in church? He's like, I don't always understand the songs, and I'm just a kid. How am I supposed to understand the songs? Does understanding the meaning, the words of the songs matter?

And in what ways does it matter? But I think what he's kind of getting at is like, lots of us don't always understand the things that are happening in church. How much is that important, especially with the songs that we sing?

This is one area where Christians disagree a lot. We disagree on the number of sacraments, they mean, how to practice them. If you're Protestant, the two sacraments are baptism and communion, which Dr. Pakiam is talking about here. There's too much for us to cover here when it comes to sacraments as a whole, but don't worry.

We're going to come back to this a bunch of times in later episodes.

So I have no problem with thinking of singing sacramentally. So now, once we say that, now, we can say, well, gosh, do any of us really understand the depth of what's going on when we take the bread and the wine? No, absolutely not. You know, and I love that, you know, the Greek Orthodox describe it as mysterium, as mystery.

And there's a layer of it that ought to include and ought to engage, not to appeal to our understanding. So I would say it this way. I would say when we sing to God in worship, we're doing three things. We're forming our memory. We are preparing ourself for an experience.

And we're tapping into a sense of anticipation. So past, present, future. Memory, experience, and anticipation. And for kids, this is the same thing that happens when you sing happy birthday at a birthday party. Because when you sing happy birthday, you're remembering a past event, the day you were born.

They don't remember it, but we're gonna help you remember it. And we're experiencing the love of your friends and family around you, singing happy birthday. And you're anticipating what it's gonna feel like to be 10 years old now, this upcoming year, this new thing, what's ahead of you? What are you excited about now that you're... So past, present, and future come together in a very simple song, happy birthday.

And I think, in a Christian sense, this is what happens when we sing is we're remembering what God has done. We're experiencing something beyond our mind in encountering the living God. And we're anticipating what God will do on that great day when heaven and earth are made new and all is well in the world. And now a word from our sponsor. Wait, what's a sponsor?

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Yeah. And part of, I think, maybe even what this kid is thinking, combining these two questions, like why do we sing songs? And the emphasis is kind of on the songs. Why songs and not other things? And then the like, I'm just a kid, I don't understand, is partially like, why is this something we do together?

Why is this something we do when we meet every Sunday?

You've said a lot that could answer that, but is there anything you want to add about why this is important for the gathered community?

And I think there's something incredibly unifying when we join our voices together and we sing. And so again, if music embodies emotion, maybe corporate singing embodies the unity that's in the church. And so now let's work that out. Unity in corporate worship is so powerful because we come into church at all kinds of different places in our journey of faith. Maybe someone's in the room who doesn't have faith, but they're curious.

Maybe someone's in the room who's on the verge of kind of letting go of the faith that they grew up with, but they're still there. And I think that that's a parallel to. maybe someone really understands the words of this hymn, and maybe someone doesn't really, but they kind of get the main idea. When we sing together, it's like our faith is bolstering one another. The weak are with the strong, and together we become one voice.

That's the power of what we're embodying when we sing together. We're all at different places, but we're singing the same song.

And we've talked about this a bunch on the podcast, our last episode, we talked to Dr. Scotty May about how we talk to kids about God. But it really is important too to think about kids in worship. And I've been in lots of churches who did lots of different things, and, you know, don't wanna pass judgment on how different churches decide to do this. But I'm curious if you have any thoughts about.

kids aren't gonna understand everything, about. they're not gonna understand as much as adults do, even, even if none of us understand everything about communion, they're not gonna get some things that maybe they will when they get older. They're not gonna understand all the words and the songs that they might get when they get older. Do you have any thoughts about how we think well about kids in worship? And, as you just said, like, this is part of what's beautiful about the gathered community is, we are all in this together and unified.

What could that maybe look like for our littlest ones?

I have four kids and our youngest is now 12 and our oldest is 19.. But we've been in that stage where four kids in a seven year span. So there's a lot there that can be helpful for parents when they come to church to say, could I just have some moment that is a little bit more, allows me to focus on the Lord. On the other hand, I've been part of churches right now at Rock Harbor in California, where we are. We do it once a month.

Before, when I was at New Life Downtown in Colorado Springs, it would be once a month as well, where kids would come in for the first 30 minutes or so of the service. And that was the first, that was the sung worship portion of the musical worship part of the service. And I think what's helpful there is not to just have them in the room, but to actually do things that are welcoming to children in the space. So I think the mistake that we make is we go kind of this, let's have them in or not have them in. But when we have them in, we act like nothing's different.

And I think when we do this best, in my experience, when we have done this, the best is when we have kids on the stage, helping with the worship leaders, maybe doing actions, or we're instructing the congregation, hey, look at the kids around you and say this or do this. So the idea is that kids look around and these are your uncles and aunties. And this is, I grew up in Malaysia, Caitlin, where every adult was an uncle or an auntie. You know, I mean, this is just how it was. You don't call them Mr.

and Mrs., it's uncle and auntie. And that's what we want in church. And, you know, you talked about the value of saying the creed, you don't know if you believe every line, but others are with you. I've certainly heard from people over the years, pastorally adults, who've said, I couldn't raise my hands or I couldn't sing during that song. But watching others sing and knowing that actually, five years ago, they went through their cancer battle.

And now here they are, and I'm going through my battle now. And it was that watching one another worship that inspired them. I think there's that same dynamic that happens when kids are in the room. They go, maybe it's not just their parents, but they see someone else. So they see a kid, you know, who's in college that they admire and they look up to.

I want my teenagers seeing 20-somethings and 30-somethings, you know, worship the Lord and value faith. So the intangibles of kids in the room, is totally worth the inconvenience.

I'm like, okay, well, maybe someone can help. And another sweet lady in the church, you know, and my wife was nursing our youngest, our baby, at the time. So I think those are the moments where everybody has a laugh and we recognize children are not an inconvenience. Our society tells us that they are, but children are a blessing, children are a gift, not just to parents, but to the entire community. And this is the power of it.

I mean, Jesus saying, let the children come to me. There's something here. So I relish moments to even say to parents who are embarrassed and they're taking their kid out to say, hey, this is okay. Like, if not in church, then where, you know?

It's like someone a pew up. There was, it was in my church a few weeks ago. I watched a baby get fully handed down a pew and back for the whole service. And her mom was like two pews back. And I was like, yes, that is, that is a picture of the family of God.

But I'm a big believer in the work of translation. And so I would say, if you're a parent in the room with your kids, and there's a phrase up there, the blood of the lamb or whatever, you know, maybe have a little convo about it. Or if you're a worship leader or a song leader, and you're about to sing a song like that, gosh, that doesn't just help kids. That helps adults in the room who are like, I don't get it. I don't understand why we're saying this.

And if this is a reference, if there's a lyric, that's a reference to a scripture, read the scripture before we sing it. I mean, why not bridge a little bit of that world? And I just think, again, I don't think we ought to pit understanding and emotion, or mind and emotion, or understanding and experience. I don't think we should put them against one another. I think both things can mutually enrich each other.

The more we understand, the deeper our experience, the deeper our experience, the more we want to understand. and on and on it goes. And music, singing is so powerful because of the way it marries both. It marries the haunting nature of melodies with the beautiful sort of content of lyrics. And when it's done well, man, it's powerful.

Imagine that you are with, like. I was, this sweet kid who's like, what is going on with songs in church? What would your kind of kid answer to him be?

And there's something really fun. And if you ever have a moment where you sit up on your parents' lap and they sing you a song, or maybe when you were younger, they sang you a bedtime song. There's something really intimate and personal about that. And I think at its best, we sing in church to get close to God.

But also with all of material creation, including our good created bodies. We are not brains on a stick, as the philosopher James K. Smith says. We are full embodied people with bodies and feelings and experiences that shape how we think about God, worship God, live in community with other people. There doesn't need to be a divide between head knowledge and heart knowledge.

Throughout Christian history, the people of God have found ways to teach truth to our heads and our hearts. Using our bodies and emotional experiences to remind ourselves of truth that we can't quite wrap our heads around. Bind us together into a community and draw us closer to God. Songs are one good way we do that, and one way that Christians have always done that. As Dr.

Packiam said, there's a reason. the psalms are in scripture. God cares about our emotions and has graciously provided ways for us to steward them, learning from them, at times correcting them. And, by the grace of God, rightly directing them. Learning to respond with anger at injustice, joy at reconciliation, love for God and the good things he has made.

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