About this note
This was a breakout workshop, not a plenary session, taught in English with live consecutive interpretation into Spanish. This note keeps only the original English. The Spanish interpreter’s version (with a self-translated stretch marked, where the interpreter dropped out of the recording) is in Pastorear a través del canto.
Note on song lyrics: a few contemporary hymns are quoted by the speaker in this session (e.g. “In Christ Alone,” “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”). Rather than reproducing the copyrighted English lyrics verbatim, this note paraphrases what each line says and names the song, so the point Bob is making is still clear.
Introduction
All right — how many of you lead the singing in your church? Great. How many of you are musicians in your church? How many of you are vocalists? And how many pastors do we have here? Oh, great, great. Gloria a Dios.
Okay. So this breakout came about as a result of conversations I would have with my senior pastor, C. J. Mahaney, some 30 years ago. I had been leading music in the church for about 30 years — 25 years — but I really didn’t know what I was doing. I’m not sure I still know what I’m doing, but I’m doing it better than I used to. And one of the reasons is this topic.
When we think about the singing of the church, there are many reasons we can think of as to why we do it: it’s an expression of God’s creativity and beauty; as Jeff just explained, it’s a way we can edify one another; it’s a way we can give glory to God; it stirs our affections for God. But one word that we rarely mention may be one of the most important for us to consider: pastoring, or shepherding.
Whether you’re someone who plans or leads the singing in your church, or helps with the leading, or someone who just participates in it, understanding the pastoral aspect of singing has a significant impact on the way you view it.
I’ve experienced different approaches to leading the singing over the years. Sometimes you get the song leader — maybe some of you are song leaders — who faces the congregation and leads them; they’re focused on musical direction. Sometimes I’ve been led by a cheerleader: “whatever you’re doing, it isn’t enough, I want you more emotionally excited” — they’re focused on an emotional response. Sometimes the people who lead the music are teachers: they want you to understand every word you’re singing, “no heresy allowed, not in this church” — they’re focused on right doctrine, which is a good thing to be focused on. Sometimes the leader is an artist, and just the way they move says something else — they’re not just thinking about God, they want you to notice them — their focus is on performance. And then another leader is the mystic: “this is a very deep experience, we don’t always know what’s going on, but something’s going to happen.” I was just listening to a song the other day whose lyric was something like “something’s about to happen,” and I’m thinking, can’t you get clearer than that?
Anyway — we want to focus on leading singing as a way of shepherding people’s souls. So to do that, we’re going to look at what a pastor does, and then talk about how we can lead singing in a way that fulfills those roles.
The foundation: five ways pastors shepherd the flock
Scripture gives us at least five ways that pastors shepherd the flock: they’re responsible to feed the flock, lead the flock, care for the flock, protect the flock, and be an example to the flock.
So this is where we get that from. Let me see if I can do this — 1 Peter 5, verses 1 and 2:
1 Peter 5:1-2 (as read in this session)
Therefore I exhort the elders among you… shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight…
So there we get the shepherding and leading. And then we have 2 Timothy 4:2: “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.” So one of the roles of a pastor is to teach. And then in Acts 20:28-29, Paul is speaking to the Ephesian elders, reminding them of the responsibilities they have before God:
Acts 20:28-29 (as read in this session)
Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.
And there you see the leadership and caring for the church — protect the flock: don’t just let people teach anything, don’t let people sing just anything, protect them.
So those five roles can be carried out in different ways, and one of those ways is as we sing. In Colossians 3:16 we’re told that as we sing we’re to teach and admonish one another — there is a lot of counseling going on as we sing. So if we’re leading the singing, we want to be aware of that.
And I should say, you don’t have to be a pastor to do this. Every musician should be thinking of what they do in this way.
I. We feed the flock through singing
This is probably the easiest. Songs teach. Someone has said, we are what we sing. We actually remember more about what we sing than what we hear preached. And songs are always teaching us — they’re teaching us objectively, truths about God and ourselves and the world. Our songs just aren’t about the way we feel — now, we’ll get to that — but our feelings are based on what’s true.
So there are three things our songs should emphasize: God’s character, God’s word, and God’s works. And here’s a good way to think about your singing: if you had no preaching in your church — which I wouldn’t recommend, because then you wouldn’t be a church — but if you only had your songs, how much would people know about God? How clearly would they understand the gospel? How much would they know about God’s justice and holiness, or about the judgment to come, or that God wants us to live holy lives? Our songs should talk about those things; we want our people singing about those things.
But most of all, we want them singing about the word of Christ — which, as Jeff said, is the word about Christ: the gospel. To have us sing a song with the word “cross” in it doesn’t mean people understand what happened at that cross. What happened is something very objective, objectively true: the Lamb of God, perfect, received the judgment we deserved, in his body on the tree. He physically rose from the dead, and ascended to his Father’s right hand. All who put their faith in him can know that they are justified before God, declared righteous in his sight; they have been adopted into God’s family; they are holy and set apart for God’s glory — all because of what Jesus did. What I do has no bearing on what Jesus did; how I feel about it doesn’t change it.
So our songs should give us those details, or they should. It should be clear from our songs that God is triune. That’s an interesting exercise as well: to look through your songs and just note how many times the Father is mentioned, how many times the Son is mentioned, and how many times the Spirit is mentioned. Now, it won’t be equal in quantity — the Spirit is not fighting for air time, “I want more songs about me” — no, the Spirit, as Jeff mentioned, was sent to proclaim Christ, to draw attention to Christ. But our songs should make it clear that God is not just God and Lord: he is Father, Son, and Spirit. Our songs should make it clear that our identity is as God’s people — the work of Christ is what joins us, not our culture, not our ethnicity, or where we buy our clothes, or the kind of music we listen to. And we want to look at our songs both each week and over time.
So that’s the objective side of what songs teach us. But they also teach us subjectively how to live, how to relate to God. Shallow, repetitive songs communicate that God is easy to know and thinks just like us. Now, some churches take pride in how doctrinally rich their songs are — which can be good — but doctrinally thick songs that are hard to sing can communicate that God is only interested in relating to educated people: if you’re not smart, God isn’t too impressed with you. Emotionally driven songs can teach us that God is more interested in our feelings than in what we think; and emotionally dry songs that never encourage expressiveness and deep affection can teach us that God really isn’t interested in what we feel and desire.
So our songs should teach us that there’s a time for bowing down and a time for celebrating, a time for repentance and rejoicing, a time for reflection and proclamation. We had a Sunday recently in our church where we led four songs before the sermon, and all of them were anthemic — it was exciting and celebratory — and I was so tired by the end of them, and I thought, one of those songs should have been reflective. Songs are always teaching.
II. We lead the flock through singing
You don’t have to be musically gifted to lead the singing in your church. Every Wednesday morning at our pastor’s college, one of the students leads the singing, whether they have a musical bone in their body or not — and I can assure you that some of them did not have a single musical bone in their body. Singing is a way that we do other things: we pray, lament, we thank, we rejoice, we learn, we exhort — and all those things can be led.
Now, it means knowing what your songs say — being familiar not just with the feeling of a song, but with what it actually says. So here are some of the ways we lead through our singing. It begins before we even start the meeting, through planning: we want to plan carefully to ensure a theological balance in our songs. We want to plan with expectation, because we think God wants to bless his people — have you ever prepared a song and thought, this ain’t gonna work? Now, that might be true, but God wants to impart faith to us. We want to plan humbly as well, with a dependence on God’s Spirit. And we want to plan purposefully: we shouldn’t be asking, what song does everybody like? What song will get the congregation going? That is always a temptation, it’s a lot easier — just give them stuff they like to sing. Don’t do that. It’s like giving your child candy over and over again: really, if you let your three-year-old determine their diet, they would die.
We want to serve our congregations by thinking of what they need — now there’s a nice place where those two things meet together. You don’t want to sing songs people hate, or are bored with. And I thank God for the writers we have who are able to combine rich truths with beautiful melodies. (What was the song we sang? “Alfa y Omega” — one of my favorites. I don’t even speak Spanish, but I know enough when I sing that title to be affected by the reality of worshipping the Lamb around the throne.) So they work together.
We can lead during the meetings — yesterday I did a whole breakout on that topic — but let me just say here: if you introduce a song, give people a reason for singing it. I’ve appreciated the way Jonathan and Arturo have led us in this way — it’s not just “this is a new song,” or “I know you know this song but try to make it sound good,” or “we’re going to sing hymn number 46.” Lead people: tell them why they should sing this song, tell them why the scripture we’re about to read matters, tell them what they should be thinking about when they sing. Have you ever been singing a song and found out your mind is a hundred miles away? “Oh, I hope we’re going there for lunch,” “oh, that game’s on this afternoon,” “oh, that paper’s due” — your mouth is moving, but your mind is not engaged. Those who lead can help you: “say, think about this.” Sometimes songs say a lot of things, and we can pick one line and impress it upon the people: “do you realize what this means?” And when they get to that line, it’s like a light bulb goes on — because we’ve led them.
We can lead through teaching on the role of music in the church. We all come into the meeting with ideas about what the singing is: “it should be very reverent,” “it should be very exciting,” “it should be from the hymnal,” “it should be what’s on my Spotify playlist.” We need to tell them why we sing. Music is a vehicle for our worship, but it’s not meant to produce worship. We don’t always sing what’s most popular, but we will sing what we think is best for you, for your local church. And we’ll never expect music to do what the word of God and the gospel are meant to do. So that’s all part of leading the church through singing.
III. We care for the flock through singing
Everyone who walks into our meeting is fighting a battle, against three things: sin, suffering, and self-sufficiency. (And in English they all start with the same letter, so I’m sorry about Spanish — but it means the same thing.) We’re in a battle, and sometimes we’re fighting all three things at once: “I just can’t get over this sin, I feel so guilty, I feel so condemned”; “I’m going through a time of intense suffering, I just found out I have cancer, my child just died, my husband left home angry”; and then there’s self-sufficiency — people come in thinking, “I don’t really need this,” “people should be happy I’m here.” Everybody’s fighting a battle.
Our songs help people understand how the gospel addresses each of those battles. So we sing songs that speak to those battles. Take the hymn “Before the Throne of God Above”: in verse 2, the English begins “when Satan tempts me to despair” (the Spanish version says something closer to “when I have fallen into temptation”) — but that verse, either way, unpacks how God looks on Jesus and not on us. I don’t need to be condemned, because Jesus took my judgment. We’ve been reconciled to God. We’ve been adopted into God’s family. We’re secure in God’s love.
If I had more time I would list lines from songs that speak to each of these truths — that’s your job. I would take a list like this and ask: which songs we use speak to these things? Which songs tell us we are free from sin’s power? We sing “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” — one of its verses pictures “the prince of darkness” as fearsome, but says we need not tremble before him, because his doom is certain; he is defeated. We are free from sin’s power, we have triumphed over death. Or think of the ending of “In Christ Alone”: it says that because of the power of Christ at work in us, from birth to death, we have no guilt and no fear — Christ governs our whole existence.
So we give people hope in the struggles they’re facing. We just don’t want to move them emotionally — we want to fill their minds with the truth so that their hearts are affected. So we sing lines that say something like “Lord, I will be yours, and I will live for you, I will follow your commandments by your power in me.” When someone’s thinking “how can I live for Christ?” — well, it’s his power at work in you. That’s how we’re not just singing a song: we’re caring for people’s souls. It’s why we repeat verses — not because it’s cool, but because it’s helping people. We’re caring for people’s souls.
We can care for people by providing comfort and strength during suffering. We need to be singing songs in our churches that remind us that God is God and we are not. We put a song on one of our albums with that specific line: “help us see more clearly that you are God and we are not.” Because we come into our meetings with all kinds of questions: “God, why isn’t this trial over yet? Why didn’t I get that raise? Why aren’t my children obeying me? Why aren’t my parents doing what I’m telling them to do?” All kinds of questions. We’re not God. He is all wise, he is all powerful, he is always good, and we can trust him.
So we need songs that talk about the trials and challenges, and remind us of who’s in charge, and how happy we should be about that. We don’t just resign ourselves to God’s sovereignty — God’s in charge, he’s going to do whatever he wants, and it’s good that he does whatever he wants. Psalm 115:3:
Psalm 115:3 (as read in this session)
Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.
And that’s a very good thing, because if he didn’t, you wouldn’t be sitting here — you would not know the forgiveness of sins. Isn’t he good? We aren’t just planning songs — we’re preparing people to live and to die. It’s a responsibility we want to take seriously.
IV. We protect the flock through singing
The world is singing all kinds of lies all the time: “you can do whatever you want and be happy,” “trust your feelings, it won’t make any difference,” “the purpose of your life is to have more things.” They’re lies. We teach through our songs, and protect our people from those lies.
There are three things we protect them from. We protect them from the vices of the world by singing songs about God’s holiness, his righteousness, his purity, his wrath against sin — vices have consequences, you can’t sin and get away with it, only for a short time. We protect the church from the pleasures of the world by doing all we can to present Christ as dazzling, and infinitely superior to worldly joys.
There’s a trend in the States — I don’t know if it’s happening in Latin America — a call to sing “songs that men can sing”: don’t sing those “effeminate, ladylike” songs that talk about loving Jesus, being his love, the bride of Christ, delighting in him — sing songs that men can sing. I just say that’s ridiculous. (Is that happening in Latin America? Sometimes, yeah, a little bit, maybe.) David was a man — King David — and he said, “Lord, I faint for you, your love is better than life, my one desire is to gaze upon your face.” David killed people, he was a man’s man — but he used that kind of language to say that he delighted in Christ. And a true man will understand that his deepest affections are meant for Jesus Christ — that’s what makes a true man.
And then we protect the church from the errors of the world by singing songs with rich theological truth.
V. We are examples for the flock in our singing
I’m going to be speaking about this in my message later, so I don’t want to preach that now. But if you are leading people in singing — whether you’re a musician, a pastor, or a worship leader — and your face is like this (expressionless), you are misrepresenting the Lord. We are sheep, just like everyone else; we’re not just shepherds, we’re sheep. We need to know and to feel these things. And if the only time you’re affected is when you’re on stage, that’s a bad sign.
If I can look out at the congregation and you’re just like this — or maybe you won’t even use your hands, or you’re looking at your watch, or you’re sipping your coffee (I’ve never quite gotten that one — when people come into the meeting with their coffee in hand, you just think, how are you going to raise your hands?) — anyway, we want to be examples to the church. The quality of our private devotion to God will be evident in public.
Now, if over weeks and months and years we seek to shepherd our congregations through the singing, it will have an effect: they should experience true and lasting change. Because that’s what 2 Corinthians 3:18 says:
2 Corinthians 3:18 (as read in this session)
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
We are being transformed as we behold the Lord. And that transformation looks like humility: our singing shouldn’t produce pride in what we’re doing, it should produce a security — “God loves me more than I thought he did,” because it’s not based on what I do, it’s based on what Jesus has done. It should produce gratefulness, as our singing makes us more and more aware of who Christ is and what he’s done — we will be grateful. It should produce holiness — a desire to live for Christ, not just to sing songs about him, but to live for his glory — because we’ve come to know him so much better as we’re singing. We walk out of here thinking, I want others to know about this — just like Aníbal was telling us from Psalm 67.
And there are more effects of shepherding people through our songs. Now, songs can’t provide everything our people need, but let’s not give them less than they can provide, by God’s grace.
Father, we thank you for this time. Would you help us see singing differently? Would you help us see it as a way to care for people’s souls? Help us to see it as a way you care for our souls. May Christ be glorified in everything we do, and may your church be built up. We ask all this for your glory, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Questions and answers
Question 1: As a pastor, how deeply involved should I be in the songs and the words, and in how the band rehearses?
Bob: Excellent question. The pastor does not have to pick the songs; the pastor does not even have to plan the meeting. But the pastor has to know that the songs being sung, and the things being done in the meeting, are the best way to care for the souls of his congregation. Some pastors plan with their lead musician — I plan with other guys, and then I submit that to the rest of the pastors, we have eight pastors. But if it’s just one pastor, you might say to someone, “get me the songs you’re thinking and the scriptures by Wednesday” — not Sunday. I need to look at them to know that this will really serve the church.
I am very grateful that my pastor, C. J., is always asking for the lyrics of the songs. I just got an email from him this morning asking about songs for Sunday — I’d already sent him the songs, but he never looks at what I send him. “What’s the last song?” he asked, and then, “send me the lyrics to this other song.” So he is very involved. You should be very involved.
Question 2: I’ve just been ordained as pastor of the church — another pastor was there for seven years, and now that the transition has happened, in my heart I also want to make a musical transition, toward songs that are more biblical. How could I make that transition without changing the worship leader?
Bob: This is a very common question, and a very good one, because churches should not remain static. You have the blessing of being a new pastor, so at least there’s a reason for why you might change things — but even if someone has been a pastor for ten years, we should always be asking how we can make our meetings better.
So always begin by praying, that you would have the heart of God for your church — because it’s easy, when you want to make changes, to get irritated or to become proud: “you don’t know what you’re doing, I’ve got the truth.” Pray for humility and love. Teach why you want to make changes, and make changes slowly. Seek to change things theologically before you change things methodologically.
Say you want to take the announcements out of the middle of the meeting — or something more difficult: you want to retire the entire catalog of songs and start singing all new ones. Don’t do that. One at a time. Start to focus people’s attention on what you’re singing, because a lot of times people like songs just because they like them, not necessarily because of what they say. So I would spend a lot more time drawing attention to what the songs say — even a song you might be thinking you’re not going to be singing next year. Point people to what that song is saying, so that when you introduce a song that’s saying more, or saying it better, they’ll make the connection: “oh, that song says something, but this song says it so much better.” And so you’re training their desires, their preferences.
And some people will resist that till they die — it doesn’t matter what you say, what you teach, they’re not changing. Don’t worry about them. If the Spirit of God is in your people, don’t we want them to behold the glory of God in the face of Christ? That’s what you want to do. So God’s on your side, as long as you’re humble — but if you’re proud, he won’t be. Don’t be proud.
Question 3: How important is the testimony of a song’s author? For example, Hillsong.
Bob: I’ve never received this question before. The category I think is most important is edification — it’s what Paul emphasizes in 1 Corinthians 14: can we sing this song and have it be edifying for my church?
Let me use a personal example. I know some of the people at Hillsong, I’ve had coffee with them, I’ve had conversations with them — they love Jesus, they know Jesus. The sermons at Hillsong are not so great, and can teach bad theology. In my church, we can sing a song like “Man of Sorrows,” and no one in my church is thinking, “ugh, Hillsong.” No one. If people are thinking that, then you have two choices: one is to say “our congregation can’t do any song by Hillsong.” The other is to tell them, “this song contains truths that benefit our souls — not everyone at Hillsong is heretical, there are sincere followers of Jesus Christ there. God uses crooked sticks to draw straight lines” (that’s not my line, that’s a quote from someone else).
So I think the more important question is: what do your people want? What do they desire? We don’t have a rule in our church that we won’t sing certain songs from certain people. But in almost every instance I can find a song that says it better than they did, or less emotionally hyped-up than they did. And over time, songs lose their connection to their source, their author — we sing some hymns by people who didn’t live very good lives, but it’s edifying because no one’s thinking about that.
What we don’t want is to take pride in the fact that we don’t sing songs by certain groups.
Note on this transcript
Transcribed from the Fieles 26 conference audio (whisper). This was a breakout workshop, not a plenary session, with an audience Q&A at the end. The room audio contains the English talk interleaved with live Spanish interpretation; this note keeps only Bob Kauflin’s English. Scripture quotes are transcribed as read by the speaker, not checked against a specific published English Bible edition, since there is no English Bible text in this vault to verify them against. Contemporary song lyrics quoted by the speaker (e.g. “In Christ Alone,” “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”) are paraphrased here rather than reproduced verbatim, to avoid reproducing copyrighted lyrics in full. No runaway Whisper loops, but many short stretches were duplicated two to six times in a row (overlapping transcription segments); those were collapsed to a single instance.