A note from our Managing Editor: This article is part of a series on the role the elements of the Sunday worship service play in everyday discipleship. While our individual churches may not formally include each of these liturgical pieces, we hope you will be blessed to understand the heart of Jesus behind these historic practices and allow them to shape your daily life as disciples.

Unbeknownst to many, the church has a gift waiting for an isolated, lonely, headphone-wearing world. At first glance, this gift will seem far less than extraordinary, but when one understands the inner workings occurring, its true potency is revealed. I am speaking of the power of song, and in particular, songs that are sung at church.

To understand the power of church songs and why it is so important that we go to church and sing, we need to compare what happens at a church service with how modern people consume music. 

Imagine a young man walking down the street with headphones in his ears. He has his playlist set and is about to listen to thirty minutes of his favorite music. In this context, like most modern people, he will listen to prerecorded music and experience it alone. Reflect on that for a moment. This is a fundamentally different interaction with music than most humans would have had throughout history. 

Until very recently, music was always listened to live and in person. There was no Spotify, no Apple Music, no algorithms feeding you something new based on preference. Every time a song was played, it took on a unique, once-in-a-lifetime performance. You would never hear the exact same song twice, as every live performance had subtle differences due to the nature of live music. Every piece of music had a human element. 

In addition to music being performed live, unless you were a king or someone of wealth, you always listened to music in a group setting. Only those who had an abundance of resources had the privilege of having music played just for them. What an odd place we now find ourselves in. Everywhere you look, there are headphones in ears as people drown out the external world and experience a private, prerecorded performance. Consider this, though: Although the device in your pocket may give you access to pretty much the sum total of all recorded music, it is unable to give you a non-digital copy of something previously recorded. It cannot provide the musical experience that humans have always had. 

For the first time, music is primarily a prerecorded experience that we listen to alone, through headphones, in the car, or from a Bluetooth speaker in our room. But how is that different than the music we experience at church? 

Well, this might seem like a weird question, but we first need to ask what exactly a musical note is. 

When a string on a guitar is plucked, the string vibrates at an exceptionally fast rate. A low E string (the top string on a guitar) vibrates at a rate of eighty-two times a second. A high E string (the bottom string) vibrates at a rate of 330 times a second. Once the string is plucked, air particles immediately pick up the vibrational pattern and carry the frequency, which is then amplified through the guitar's resonant chamber, specifically its wooden body. As the air particles are sent further and further from the guitar out into the world, they smash into other air particles and, in turn, vibrate at the same rate. Eventually, they make it to your ear and a tiny fluid-filled sac called the cochlea, where hair-like fibers receive the vibration pattern and convert the pattern into an electrical signal that is subsequently sent to your brain. All of this happens so you can hear a single note played on a guitar. Pretty amazing, right?

When you sing, something very similar is occurring. Your vocal cords vibrate at a specific frequency, and your body functions as the resonant chamber (like the wooden body of a guitar), amplifying the frequency your vocal cords produce. Your body is the instrument amplifying and projecting these frequencies out into the world. Incredible, right?  

When you sing, research shows that oxytocin is released. Oxytocin is a hormone that is also released in a number of activities, including childbirth and a romantic kiss. Oxytocin aids social bonding and stress regulation. It helps develop positive emotions and builds trust with others. When you sing, you have a God-given biological mechanism to boost your spirit. Why do you think so many people sing in the morning shower or in the car on the way to work? Unknowingly, they are tapping into the power of song. 

Now, what happens when you sing with others? This same oxytocin is released, building social bonds and trust with others in the room (Keeler et al. 2015). Singing, at the biological level, is building community. In an isolated and lonely world, this is powerful. 

When we go to church, we listen to music together, but we do not just listen; we participate and sing along. In doing so, we are lifting our spirits and building bonds with those around us. But there is one final component to church music that ties everything together and completely sets it apart.

Church songs are not normal songs. They are songs with lyrical content that reaches for the heavens. They are songs that are meant to lift our gaze upward. They speak of transcendent things, holy things; they speak of God Almighty. When you gather at church, whether with a worship team singing contemporary songs or an organ with a hymnal, you are gathered with the saints and centering yourself on sacred truth. Worship through song lifts your spirits and binds you together with fellow believers under a sacred banner that says, “Jesus is King.” What a gift God has given his church. 

Let's put all of this together. When we sing at church, our bodies become instruments of praise, amplifying sacred truth and centering our entire being on the highest of all truths. We do this with others, and by doing so, we create the social bond that builds the body of the church. 

In a lonely, isolated, headphone-wearing world, the church has the power of song. The church is one of the very few places where people regularly gather to sing songs that are both performed live and sung corporately. Church music on Sunday mornings is not performance but participation. God, in his mercy, designed worship so that every praise directed toward him would lift our spirits in the process. 

So, the next time you are at church, and you get hit with the feeling that you do not really want to sing in that moment, remember the power of song. Remember what your voice contributes to the life of the church. And never forget, you were made to be an instrument of praise.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!

Serve the Lord with gladness!

Come into his presence with singing!

Know that the Lord, he is God!

It is he who made us, and we are his;

we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

and his courts with praise!

Give thanks to him; bless his name!

For the Lord is good;

his steadfast love endures forever,

and his faithfulness to all generations (Ps. 100:1–5).