My wife and I were chatting about singing in church the other day. We had recently been somewhere where the singing was particularly good. Everything was sung with gusto and the room was full of people really belting out the hymns. She absolutely loved it. Whilst I was glad to hear people singing up, and it was nice enough, I wasn’t nearly so moved by it.
The truth is, I’m just not that fussed by hymns. There I said it. Of course, it is absolutely right for us to sing in church. It is right because scripture tells us to do exactly that. It is also absolutely true that some people love hymns and singing in church, they find it a really key way they engage with the Word. And that is absolutely great. But we aren’t all built that way, and that’s okay I think.
The reason I share this isn’t to say how great it is that I don’t tend to love singing in church. I don’t think it is something to aspire to. I wish I liked it more if I’m honest. But it is a prime example of something I do in church, essentially, because scripture tells me to do it not because I love it.
Now, you can – if you are so minded – consider that a defect in me. I don’t absolutely love something the Bible tells me to do. The issue is surely mine. But the point is, I do it nevertheless because the Bible tells me to do it and I know it serves others. And that, I think, is absolutely okay. It may not be something I love, it may not be something I am naturally built to enjoy (unlike others), but it is something I think is important because the Lord Jesus asks us to do it; and so I do it. I care less about the singing in church than my wife does; I am generally wired to be broadly happy so long as whatever is on offer isn’t totally cringeworthy (whatever that may be and however you imagine that may manifest itself).
No doubt there are things about church that I absolutely love that others find much harder. Things that Jesus also calls us to do. Perhaps it is a defect in them that they don’t love the thing Jesus tells us to do. But, though they might not love it, there they are engaging with whatever it is anyway because Jesus tells them to do it. And that’s pretty good isn’t it? They are more concerned with obeying Jesus than not doing the stuff that they aren’t too keen on. Which, it seems to me, is a more important matter than whether they actually enjoy the thing or not.
Of course, it’d be great if we could and did sing lots of things in lots of ways that I really loved. We sometimes sing stuff I like. I don’t hate singing in church by any means. I sometimes enjoy it, here and there. But by and large, I’m not a big one for the singing. It is an element of church I do, and I engage with, because I love Jesus, I want to obey him and I want to serve others and prefer their needs. And I think that is far more important than whether I enjoy them on a personal level myself.
The same, I think, is true for those things you might not love so much either. The question is not how much you enjoy them. The issue is, do you do them regardless because Jesus asks you to do it and because it serve others. If you can say yes to that, let our enjoyment be what it may and – who knows – maybe the Lord will bring us to a point where we do come to love it in the end.