Holy Wednesday: Fellowship
“Directions for Singing”
(John Wesley, from Select Hymns: with Tunes Annext (1761))
1. Learn these tunes before you learn any others, afterwards learn as many as you please.
2. Sing them exactly as they are printed here, without altering or mending them at all; and if you have learned to sing them otherwise, unlearn it as soon as you can.
3. Sing All – see that you join the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up and you will find a blessing.
4. Sing Lustily – and with good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half-dead or half-asleep; but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, than when you sang the songs of Satan.
5. Sing Modestly – do not bawl so as to be heard above or distinct from the rest of the congregation that you may not destroy the harmony, but strive to unite your voices together so as to make one melodious sound.
6. Sing in time – whatever time is sung, be sure to keep with it. Do not run before and do not stay behind it; but attend closely to the leading voices and move therewith as exactly as you can and take care not to sing too slow. This drawling way naturally steals on all who are lazy; and it is high time to drive it out from among us and sing all our tunes just as quick as we did at first.
7. Sing spiritually – have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing Him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward when he cometh in the clouds of heaven.
A document of its time, designed to instruct the thousands who were being converted by the Methodists in the eighteenth century, (particularly those who had no knowledge of Church traditions), how they might begin to think about worship. This document is a prime example of practical theology, and Methodist hymnbooks were hugely influential both as an evangelistic tools and as ways of encouraging the faithful.
Be no more afraid of your voice
This is the appeal of Christian worship through communal singing. Whether I think of myself as ‘being musical’ or not, however much I think I have lost my voice through illness and misuse, however often it causes me physical pain to sing, God still asks me to lift whatever sounds I can make in continual praise and thanksgiving.
Be no more afraid of your voice
God invites me into a relationship where fear has no place.
Be no more afraid of your voice
God longs for me to own all that I am, all that I have been given, and let my individuality commingle with others who love God, to ‘join the congregation as frequently as you can’. The isolating lies of depression can be banished by faith in such an action.
Be no more afraid of your voice
How often do I hang back from speaking my faith, from demonstrating it in word as well as action, through shame or embarrassment or dishonesty? How often do I take refuge in silence when I might reach out in compassion? How often do I downright refuse to worship, reluctant to make myself vulnerable before others and before my God?
Be no more afraid of your voice
In an act of worship through faith, transformation will occur:
If it is a cross to you, take it up and you will find a blessing.
have an eye to God. Canon 7d. f5.6. 1/1000. ISO 2000.
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