Our Ministry of Music
When the psalmist exhorts all the earth to “Make His praise glorious” he connects it with music, especially singing: “Shout joyfully to God, Sing the glory of His name” Ps. 66:1-2. By enhancing the words and by arousing and expressing strong feelings, music not only has the capacity to “make His praise glorious” but also to enhance the ability of God’s Word to dwell in us richly (Col. 3:16). Small wonder, then, that from the very beginning of creation when the angels sang for joy (Job 38:7), biblical religion has been a religion of music, especially singing. At CRPC, we love music and want to use it to the fullest to glorify God and to edify each other.
On the current church-music spectrum we are definitely on the traditional end, because we believe that there is great value in singing words and music which have stood the test of time. The great songs and music of the faith underscore our connection with our fathers and mothers in the faith and enshrine a rich legacy of biblical truth and Christian experience which we want to treasure.
Although we gladly and gratefully use of the gifts of trained and skilled musicians, the mainstay of our music program is the congregation’s singing. For that reason we promote musical skill and literacy among our members through a [voluntary] time of music instruction every Lord’s Day before our evening worship service.
In our worship we use two songbooks, the Trinity Hymnal and a Hymnal Supplement. We do not sing psalms only, but believe that the Church ought to sing the psalms, so we typically include several of them in each of our worship services. We also want to encourage good contemporary composers and have had several in our midst through the years whose compositions we also sing.