Worship, Prayer & Music
(16 pages, large print, approximately a 20-minute read)
Introduction
Before writing this article, I had conducted a small online survey on “The Manifested Presence of God”. Some of the questions were specifically about the role of music in worship, prayer and our relationship with God. The survey confirmed my personal impression that most Christians would agree that the “special experience” of the presence of God – be it a legitimate emotional response to the presence of God or merely nothing but a manipulated emotional experience generated through music by musicians – is primarily associated with singing songs.
Biblically speaking, singing songs is not essentially (in and of itself) “worship”. Therefore, I thought it good to attempt to briefly comment on the role of music in worship, prayer and our relationship with God, for I have come to understand the place of Christian music (not at all limited to pop-praise songs) as accompaniment to prayer.
