Our plans are to do a song service this Sunday night without instruments. Are we going Church of Christ? No. However, I think it would be a good thing to do for the following reasons:
It shakes things up a bit. Congregations need to have some changes every now and again. We can easily get into ruts. Routine is fine as long as you don’t become too dependent upon them. The Lord many times will disrupt our routines to get our dependency off of them and onto Him.
It’s more like a fast. I like to think of doing this as if we are fasting from instruments on the service more than anything else. We are exhorted in scripture to lay aside things like food and marital relations to enhance our sanctification. This is no different.
It’s about hearing the congregation. Nothing helps congregants hear each other sing than singing a song service a capella. It is very edifying to me to sing that way, too. I hear some of you saying “Well, why don’t you do it all the time, then?” Because we don’t have to and we have the encouragement of scripture and our elders to use instruments…which leads me to my next point:
It’s about freedom. We are free to sing with instruments or without. Unlike my Christ of Christ friends, I don’t believe that we are scripturally forbidden from using instruments. They are slaves to a capella singing unbiblically. For us, however, singing an a capella song service will remind us that we don’t serve instruments—they serve us. One of these days, I hope to do a “said” service, where we speak the song texts and not sing them!
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