Why has singing grown weak in so many churches—and what can be done to recover it? Host Adam Triplett dives into these questions and more with Scott Brown, author of the new book, The Family That Sings. Drawing from Scripture and pastoral experience, Scott explains why God’s people are called to be a singing people—from Genesis to Revelation—and how singing serves as a powerful tool for teaching, admonishing, and shaping the church. They address men who say, “I can’t sing,” calling all Christians to lift their voices in every season—even in suffering—and charge parents, led by fathers, to teach their children to praise the Lord through song. Our goal should be this—to restore strong, joyful singing in both church and home. 

Buy the book here: https://churchandfamilylife.com/products/69b30dbf6a8daf78584b4538

Thanks for checking out the podcast. Just a quick reminder, not to use this as a replacement for the good pastoral leadership and teaching in your local church, but really just an encouragement for quiet faithfulness through the sufficiency of Scripture. Scripture. All right, Scott. Well, today we're going to be talking about your new book on singing, and I'm really excited about this book, and I have some questions for you about it.

It's called The Family That Sings, Recovering the Joy of Christian Singing. Could you tell us a little bit about why you wrote this book, why you felt like it was necessary right now? Yeah, of course, there were several things flying around over the years at the same time. One is, you know, I'm preaching through books of the Bible and I'm bumping into what the Bible says about singing. So there's this accumulation going on over many, many years, and I'm just charting it in my mind.

Look, there's a lot, the Bible says, about singing. That was one thing. The other thing is that I thought, you know, our local church could use a little bit of an upgrade in the culture of singing. We have a church that sings. I don't want to say that it was terrible, it wasn't not terrible, but because there seems to be emphasis on it.

And it's actually part of our confessional commitments, it's part of the regulator principle of worship. It's, this is what, why do we sing? Well, we don't sing because everybody else is singing. We're singing because the church sings. In fact, actually everybody else isn't singing.

The singers are entertaining. But the church isn't doing that. It's a completely different animal in the church. So I just had a sense that it would be really good to cover that with our local church. Also too, they're really...

I think over the last 10 years probably, there's been a sort of a revival of singing in the church and there are several sort of motivators on this. You've got guys like Bob Coughlin, who's done a great job writing about singing and actually demonstrating how to lead singing in a church, and he's shepherding his own congregation about how to sing. And you've got guys like Keith Getty, and you got guys like Scott Anial, you have this really an uprising of psalm singing just in the last few years. I mean, 15, 20 years ago, you know, the only people who are singing Psalms were Presbyterians. That's not true anymore.

No, it's not. So I think there were lots of things that were going on, you know, all at the same time. And so I thought I would just, you know, catalog what the Bible said about singing. And so after a few years, out pops this book. Yeah.

So at the beginning there, you were talking about the biblical precedent, and a lot of this flew out of your preaching ministry. Right. Maybe give us some highlights from Scripture, because you do this in the book, and you do it so well and so succinctly, is give us a biblical theology of singing in the Bible. Maybe just from your own mind, what are some of the biblical highlights of singing? Why do we have a biblical precedent for being a singing people?

Well, in eternity past, you got creation singing, and then, you know, when you get to the end of the Bible, you know, you have the song of Moses, you have singing in the book of Revelation. I was preaching through Revelation, and of course, I was just logging the different occasions where there's singing going on in heaven. So from Genesis to Revelation, you have this picture, and there are lots of stopping points along the way. Yeah. I think a lot of the time when Christians think about singing in the Bible, they simply think about the Psalms, which they should.

And you brought that up about psalm singing and how it's seen a revival. But I think we miss how often God's people in the narrative portions of Scripture are singing. It's helpful to see that because it shows how singing happens in all of the believer's life and in every season there's a place for singing. Yeah, I mean, like you've got a lot of songwriters in the Bible. You've got Isaiah, lots of songs in Isaiah that he wrote.

God commands Moses to write a song on the last day of his life and teach it to Israel so that they would remember, because singing helps you to remember things for generations. So yeah, you have, of course, David and the other psalmists, But there are others. There are lots of songs in the Bible. Yeah. Maybe talk to us then about how singing impacts our life in different seasons.

When we're going through different trials, different... Or joys, how is singing an expression... Why has God given us singing as an expression of these things? Well, I mean, the Bible explicitly states the purposes of singing. In fact, you have, you know, the Apostle Paul is a singing teacher for the local churches.

You know, he speaks of it, you know, in Colossians and Ephesians. He's training local churches to sing. And what he says in those passages is that there are sort of two functions of singing and Paul's teaching, and one is to teach. It's a teaching tool. Putting words to tunes is a powerful teaching tool.

It sticks when you do that. And so it's teaching doctrine. So you just think about the songs that we sing. They're just full of sound doctrine. The old hymns, the new hymns that are being written, really great new hymns being written, and what are they based on?

The Bible. And so it's teaching sound doctrine. It's teaching people what it means to be saved, what it means to walk with God, what does comfort look like, you know? So you have teaching on the one hand, and you also have admonition. Singing is used for admonition.

When we sing... Some of the songs that we sing, we sing to one another, we're admonishing one another. Yeah, that's helpful. Draw that out more, because I think a lot of times we rightly think about singing to God, but what role does singing to one another serve in the life of the church? Yeah, well, and the Apostle Paul explicitly makes that clear, you know, in Ephesians and Colossians.

But I think we often wrongly think of singing as singing to an audience of one. Here we are in our own little personal inner sanctum. Our hearts lifted up before God and there's no one else. There's nothing further from the doctrine of singing than that, it includes that. Sure.

It does include that, but singing is very diverse. And the songwriters write their songs this way. Some of the songs are written to one another. Yeah. You know, stand up, stand up for Jesus, you soldiers of the cross.

That's admonishing the church, and so many songs are like that. And I think it's really important that you sing in the voice that the song is sung in, because some songs are written as admonitions or comforts toward one another, some are to God. And David sings to his own soul. You know, why are you cast down on my soul? That's in a song.

He's singing a song to his own soul. So singing is really, it's more complex than you might think, Because it does include singing personally to God, and then some are singing admonitions and instruction to your brethren, some are singing to your own soul, and then some are just about God. They're just sort of a conscious declaration of who God is. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. That's written to Him, and then it becomes very personal.

Early in the morning, my song shall rise to thee. So even, and even some of the hymns, they are even diverse within the verses. You'll have a verse sung to God, you'll have another verse sung to one another. So the songwriters mix the different voices in their songwriting. It reminds me of one of the things that I've always thought about in choosing hymns or in thinking about the church singing is ensuring that the variety of songs we have cover the whole breadth of Christian emotion and Christian experience, that we don't wanna have songs that are only happy, clappy songs.

We do want joyful, rejoicing songs, but there's also, you know, time for singing songs like Dear Refuge of My Weary Song. So this gets to the question that I think was really a big question maybe 25 or 30 years ago, but it's still important for us to answer is, why is it important for a local church, we're thinking about a local church right now, for a local church to ensure that they cover the whole breadth of Christian experience instead of just saying, oh, we only wanna sing joyful, rejoicing songs, we don't want any of that sad stuff in here. Right. Yeah, so maybe talk to us about the importance of having variety in your song choice, maybe for a pastor who's thinking, what should we be singing? Why should we have variety?

The Bible tells me so, and that includes lamentation. It does, yeah. You know, in the kind of culture we live in, people don't want to sing songs of lamentation, but those kinds of songs actually dial into the realities of our lives. There are troubled times, there are sad, there are reasons to lament. And what David and some of the other songwriters in the Psalms have done is that they have given us songs of lamentation.

In other words, they teach us how to lament appropriately. There's an inappropriate way to lament. There's a hopeless way to lament. But the Bible doesn't give us those kinds of lamentations. But the Bible does give us songs that just allow us to express what's going on in our hearts.

The songs of lamentation facilitate the people in the church who need it to be real about the troubles in their lives. You would think that God would want to connect with us in all the different dispositions that we have, and he does. And so you have songs of lamentation. They're not really very popular. It's hard to find songs of lamentation.

Go open up any modern hymn book. It's really hard to find anything that actually facilitates a church to lament in a time of sorrow. But we need to bring those back. And I just wanna recognize it is hard. We don't sing very many of them in our church, But when we do, we usually talk about it and say, this is a song of lamentation.

Somebody here needs this. Yeah. In the book, you talk about how singing is one element of God's unbroken care for us and His ongoing care. And there's all of these means by which He shows His care for us, but singing is one of those chief ways. And I think that's what you're hitting on, is that when we're able to sing songs of lament, even though we may not be lamenting in that season, the person standing in the pew next to us may be.

And so we're able to not only join with them, but we're able to sing and minister to them or be God's means of ministering to them. And I think that that gets at... One of the other things you draw out in the book is the need for harmonizing together. That singing does more than harmonize our voice, it harmonizes our souls as a church. And that's not always been the case.

We experienced the worship wars of yesteryears, we're singing actually divided churches. Maybe talk to us a little bit about how singing does bring unity in the church, and maybe some ways that we can avoid pitfalls. Sure. Well, I mean, the very songs themselves, they unify the church in doctrine. Okay?

Because everybody's saying the same thing. Everybody's on the same page. This is the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, right? Because the whole church is saying the same thing together, affirming this truth. Here's who we are, here's what we believe, here's how we feel, here's what we want.

We, all of us together, a mighty fortress is our God, right? So songs just explicitly unite the church in doctrine and even in emotional disposition as well, because you have happy songs and you have laments and all kinds of things like that. And the church is kind of unified. It's interesting. You know, there's some research out there that indicates that when a church is singing and everyone is singing in the same beat, their hearts begin to beat in the same rhythm.

You know, whether that's true or not, there's research out there that says that that happens. Yeah. Then it begs the question, and I'm going to throw you a softball then, should everybody in the church be singing? Of course. So what about a brother comes to you this upcoming Lord's Day after the service and he says, Pastor Scott, I hear you saying that we should be singing, you're encouraging everybody to be singing, but I'm just not a singer.

I'm not musically talented. What do you tell him? How do you encourage him? Do you have any vocal cords? Okay, yeah, yeah.

You got vocal cords, you know? So yeah, now you can actually... People can actually learn how to sing better. A person who says, I can't sing, should go take singing lessons and also not be embarrassed of their singing, because actually we're commanded to sing loud. I mean, this is a direct command of Scripture.

If you're not singing loud, you're not obeying God. I think that's true. So I have a whole chapter in there about singing with gusto, because the Bible in many places commands us to sing with gusto. So, you know, everybody has a responsibility to sing. And So the person who says they can't sing, it just isn't true.

Well, they're not opera stars. Okay, fine. But when you're three years old, you can't sing that well either. But children should sing as well. Yeah, I always tell my children when they feel like they're failing at something, I say, well, everybody's bad when they start.

That's right. But you have to start. Yeah. Well, it gets to... And you talk about this in the book too, the importance of men singing, that there is a real weakness in modern Christianity for men in particular.

And I think in one of the chapters at the end, what I love about... Every chapter ends with a couple of questions, reflection questions, and then it ends with a hymn, a song to sing, to take up. And one of them is, Rise Up, O Men of God. That's one of the songs that is recommended in the book, which is what we need during this time. So Maybe just talk about that.

Tell us more about the vision that you see in Scripture of men leading in singing. Yeah, men are leaders, right? Men are warriors. Men should lead into battle. That's what men do.

They lead the charge. So one of the problems though is so many of modern hymnology and modern songs are really feminized. They're super breathy. They're just breathy, feminized songs. Now, I'm not here to say that we should never sing a breathy song.

Yeah. Well, tell us what you mean by breathy. Some people might not... You don't have to model it for us, but what do you mean by breathy? That it doesn't have a lot of power behind it, that it's not full-chested, triumphant.

Going back to what you were saying earlier about loud singing. I've been to a lot of church... You talk about this in the book too, that there are some churches you go to and you have to put earplugs in because it's so loud. I've been to a lot of churches, the opposite is true, where it feels like nobody's... So that's what you're getting at is the need for raised voices.

Yeah. Well, some of the songs are more contemplative. I really don't think that's a problem. But the real blasting songs need to be sung as well. But I think One of the reasons men don't sing, for one thing, their pastors aren't challenging them to sing, and they're not creating a culture of singing and mighty men of God raising their voices in unity.

But I think one of the problems is the song list. It can be the song list. Yeah. So your recommendation would be for pastors and song leaders to consider that as they're choosing songs. Not to the neglect of the females, but considering the church, not just men and women, but young and old as well.

Yeah. And not singing songs that are too difficult for maybe those who aren't trained musicians. Isn't it weird though? You don't have to encourage women to sing. But you might have to with men.

Yeah. Yeah, I've often thought if there's a place for having... We regularly have hymnsings in our church, but having a men's hymnsing to help encourage them along and spur them on to this good work. Well, we've talked a lot about the local church. Maybe let's talk for a few minutes about the family and the importance of singing.

You also just came out with, what is the family, a catechism for the family. And I think this singing book pairs well with that, because it also casts a vision for the importance of singing in the home, or how the singing in the home facilitates singing in the local church. What are some practical ways a family could take up singing in the home, especially for parents who may not be musically inclined? Yeah, I would just say sing the songs that you sing at church. Your kids have heard the songs.

So just sing them at home as well. How do you feel that singing could be a way that parents disciple their children? How can parents use singing in the discipling of their children? Well, there are two ways. Of course, the doctrine, the words, because the words that you sing, you remember for the rest of your life, Those songs carry you.

They walk with you for many, many years. So songs learned in childhood are really powerful in adulthood. I think everybody who sang when they were little knows that, well, anybody who listened, even listened to songs in their youth, those songs come back to you. You know, songs that I listened to when I was young, they come back to me all the time. Some of them are terrible songs, and they keep coming back to me, and I'm not happy about it.

You have to be really careful what you sing. But I think you're instructing your children in doctrine, but the other thing too is you're instructing your children really about the beauty of the church. And what that means is that they too ought to obey the commands of God to sing with gusto. And parents should pay attention to how their children are singing. You shouldn't be letting your children just mumble their way through.

Most children are gonna naturally mumble their way through and blah, blah, blah, blah, or do nothing. No, you should not let your children do that. You should teach them to open their mouths wide and sing. And even when they don't know the words, the littlest child can hum a tune. They can follow a tune just by humming, even though they don't really articulate the words very well.

So I think it's a way you disciple them by teaching them the regular principle of worship in the Church of Jesus Christ. What do we do? Why do we do this? We do this because God is good and He commanded wonderful things for us, singing as part of that wonderful thing, and it'll carry you through the rest of your life. Yeah.

Yeah, I was thinking about that today as we're getting ready for this is, you know, there are a lot of facets of who we are as humans. And the Lord could have easily said that part of his requirements or expectation for us in worship is that we would run around the church building five times. He could have said anything. But he chose singing to be an essential part of our lives and the life of our families and the life of our church. And it's because of exactly what you're saying, that singing tunes our minds and it tunes our hearts into the truths of His Word in a way that nothing else does.

So I guess I would ask, maybe if you could give us some practical steps, and what's so helpful about the book is there are so many practical questions and practical insights. Maybe some practical steps for a father, a mother who are trying to start singing at home. Where can they go? Where should they get resources? What should they do today?

What song should they... Maybe get some few songs to start with. And then... Well, let's start there. I'll let you answer that and then I'll hit you with some passionate questions.

Yeah, go get the hymn book that your church uses, or you don't even need a hymn book. These lyrics are online, you can get them all over the place. And just start singing. Sing a song when you sit down and eat. We do.

Even now. And I don't even have little kids in the house anymore, we still do that. But sing a short song, sing the songs that you sing in your local church. I think it's really simple. I don't think people need a big program.

Yeah, that's good. That's good. Well, then let me ask you just a pastoral question then. If there's a pastor out there who's hearing this And they're realizing, and maybe they've read this book now, and they're realizing, maybe I've thought about singing wrongly, or maybe I need to shift the way that we approach singing as a church. Maybe it needs to be less entertainment driven and more congregational, more simple, less instrumentation, more vocals.

What are some nuggets of wisdom that you would give them in bringing reform to their church in the singing realm? I think the first thing that I would say is that they need to realize that what God has given us are voices, and to prioritize the voices. What you should hear, what if there was a sound that characterized the church what would it be it would be singing so prioritize the voices the instrumentation is beautiful you know the pianos and the violin these are these are so helpful But when they dominate the sounds of the voices, you've defeated one of the functionalities of the singing. Where the whole body is gathered in unity, lifting up their voices, they're doctrinally united, they're emotionally united, and they're all going in the same direction. They all believe the same things.

They are singing the doctrine that they desire to carry out, and they're really telling one another what kind of people they want to be. So I would just say start with really encouraging the voices to rise up in your church. That's good. That's good. And I like what you're saying there, that it doesn't have to be a complicated thing.

And it can be a simple thing. And it's a pastoral duty. It is. And I know many pastors who don't feel like they can even lead because maybe they don't feel musically inclined or talented, But it's still a charge. I had an older man once tell me that a pastor always has to be ready to preach, pray, and sing whenever he's called on.

You never know when it might be. And I think that that's true. Yeah, well, maybe we'll kind of bring things to a conclusion, and bring things to a conclusion. And let me kind of ask you a big, more of a big doctrinal kind of question. What do you think about the idea of singing being spiritual warfare?

Because something you said earlier that really resounded with was having songs in your heart and in your head that are not helpful songs versus songs that are doctrinally rich or biblical and arouse right feelings and passions and desires for the Lord and not for the things of this earth. How do you believe or do you believe that the Lord has given us singing as a tool for spiritual warfare and for pressing into the kingdom of God? I do. In fact, I have a chapter on that. That singing is war.

It's war against the kingdom of darkness. There are songs in the Bible that were sung before the time of war in preparation for war, and even songs after war and victory has been achieved. So there's a biblical precedent for that. And I think those are metaphors for spiritual warfare. Yeah, that's good.

That's helpful. I also really appreciate the chapter on singing as a mark of revival in church history. Maybe talk to us a little bit about that. Oh yeah. Because I think those two things go hand in hand.

Yeah, I mean, in the Great Awakening, in the Welsh Revivals, singing really ratcheted up and people were very passionate. I said, you know, I grew up as a Christian during the Jesus movement, and there was a lot of singing that was going on. It's beautiful. I still sing those songs. I sang those songs to my kids their whole life long.

And they're beautiful songs. But when you have a true revival, there will be a revival in singing. And we saw that in the Reformation. We saw it in the Reformation as well, exactly. And you draw out a number of quotes from Martin Luther who not only led in a reclaiming of the gospel, but led in a reclaiming of congregational singing.

Absolutely. In the common language. Right. Yeah. Why do you think that singing accompanied the time of the Reformation and the revival?

Why is that a natural side effect of a movement of the Lord? Yeah, the things that were bubbling up in people's hearts had to come out, and they came out in the singing. Yeah, I really appreciate you making that connection because one of the things I think the world really understands is the connection between singing and emotions and in the heart. And sometimes in our churches, we wanna separate doctrine from emotion or doctrine from our desires, but the two go hand in hand. And singing is one of those ways that those bridges are crossed.

Yeah. Well, I think maybe a good way to close would be maybe tell us one, two, three of your favorite hymns for you personally. I think it would be encouraging. Maybe the ones we know, maybe ones we don't know. What are some of your favorite songs to sing at church and in your home?

Oh, I love so many of the songs. I've been singing them for over 50 years. Okay. Some of them are old and new. I love to sing Jesus Shall Rain, especially when you get to the words, and infant voices shall proclaim their early blessings in His name.

Amen. Amen. Because there you got kids singing in church during the great awakening, as Isaac Watts wrote that song. You know, I love this newer hymn, Oh Lord, My Rock and My Redeemer. I love that one.

I could list so many. I really, I love the songs. Yeah. Well, I think we're gonna probably have to leave here and go do some singing. Okay, let's go.

Yeah. Scott, thank you so much for sitting down today and chatting with me about your new book, The Family That Sings. I think it's gonna be really helpful for families to take this up. I think it'd be really helpful for pastors to read this as well, to think about how shepherd the families in their church. So thank you so much.

I really appreciate it. Well, friends, thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. Go grab a copy of The Family that sings, it can be found at Church and Family Life on our website and read it and then go and sing. Thank you. Helping build strong families and strong churches.

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