Theology Matters

If you're not already reading Bob Kauflin's blog, Worship Matters, get your butt over there. It is, hands down, the best online resource out there for worship leaders, church musicians, and pew-sitters. I absolutely cannot recommend it highly enough. Not only does he provide incredibly pertinent, godly counsel to his brothers and sisters in worship ministry but he also, as part of Sovereign Grace Ministries, makes videos, notes, chord charts, mp3s, and all manner of other resources available for free, following the (totally awesome) trend among Reformed-types to give everything away.

In a recent post, Bob discusses why theology matters to Christian musicians. I only wish every worship leader in every Christian church in America could read it! Check out an excerpt:

[W]hy theology should matter to Christian musicians.

1. You’re already a theologian.
Every Christian, musical or otherwise, is already a theologian. The question is, are you a good theologian or a bad one? We’re good theologians if what we say and think about God lines up with what Scripture says and affirms. We’re bad theologians if our view of God is vague, or if we think God doesn’t really mind sin, or is we see Jesus as a good example and not a Savior, or if we our god is too small to overcome evil or too big to care about us.

2. God reveals himself primarily through words, not music.
Because we’ve encountered God profoundly during times of musical worship, we can wrongly start assuming that words restrict the Spirit, while music enables us to experience God in fresh and powerful ways. If God had wanted us to know him primarily through music, the Bible would be a soundtrack, not a book. Music affects and helps us in many ways, but it doesn’t replace truth about God. By itself, music can never help us understand the meaning of God’s self-existence, the nature of the Incarnation, or Christ’s substitutionary atonement. Simply put, truth outlasts tunes.

3. Being good theologians makes us better musicians.

• Theology teaches us what music is meant to do.
• Theology teaches us that worship is more than music.
• Theology teaches us that Jesus is better than music.
  

Dude. Good stuff. Check it out.