When I was in grade school I remember thinking that I could never be a pastor because I couldn’t sing. My parents were missionaries, so I’d seen a lot of pastors in a lot of local churches across the US. There’s a stereotyped image seared in my memory of a brown-suited pastor with glasses from the late 70s that he was still making work a couple decades later leading a hymn at random as the Spirit led, sometimes mid-sermon. My father himself wasn’t much of a singer, but even he could belt out “This is my story! This is my song! Praising my Savior all the day long!”
In West Africa where I grew up every pastor could sing because they had to sing. New church plants on the edge of the Sahara weren’t guaranteed to have resident musicians. And not singing was simply not an option, so the pastor was the lead singer one way or another.
I’ve now sung a lot in my pastorate and in my Christian walk, which confirms that I am now a stereotype. One Sunday every other singer who could lead songs in the service was either traveling or was ill. It fell to me to lead some songs a cappella. My voice was shaky and off pitch, but I just kept imagining I was on the edge of the Sahara desert in the presence of God.
I’ve sung the doxology with the bodies of recently deceased congregants. I've sung with kids at church more times than I can count. I’ve sung under my breath as I’ve prayed in my home office before dawn in the cold winters of Iowa. And I’ve sung “Jesus loves me” in hospital psych wards with people who really needed to hear it. Like with Paul and Silas in the Philippi, the other “prisoners”—so to speak—listened in.
Pastor Abby Anderson at Resurrection Assembly recently preached on Paul and Silas singing in the darkness of prison in Acts 16. She not only has a word I want you to listen to, but has lived that word. She shares how singing in the Spirit was what got her through her kidnapping as a little girl.
You might cry listening to it. You should sing at the end of it.
And next time the darkness gets you, sing! If you can’t, I’m praying God will send someone to sing for you.
