Bakery Run #9 – Brumby’s, Northgate Village

Pie Buddy: Jack Page

Topic: Music ministry

Music in church can be a bit like the umpire in a football game. Everyone takes it for granted, and it’s often only noticed when it’s bad. For me personally, the impact of music in worship is something I’ve long underestimated, so I thought I’d chat with Jack, who has just finished a music internship in his church, about what music ministry means to him.

Today’s eatery of choice was the Brumby’s Bakery at Northgate. I naturally never expect too much from a bakery chain, so my hopes weren’t exactly sky-high. My pepper steak pie and donut came to just over $6, which was pretty cheap. The pie was on the money – lots of meat, good firm pastry, and just enough spiciness. The donut was slightly below par - not heaps fresh, icing a bit too runny, but still reasonably tasty. Jack gave the nod of approval for his bacon and cheese pie and apricot scroll. All in all a solid effort from Brumby’s, but no threat to the front-runners.

“How long have you been involved in music ministry for?” I asked to begin things.

“My whole life,” Jack replied. “I started playing the drums when I was a young kid, as soon as my feet could reach the pedals. And the guitar. And eventually I got asked to play in church.”

“Has it made a difference to your faith at all?”

“Yeah. Especially in the last few years when I’ve started thinking more and more about music and its place in church. So much of our music comes from God’s word, the lyrics are God’s words, the truth of the Bible that you want to be telling people and having them respond to. It’s had a big impact on my faith, definitely. Especially song-writing – sitting down, reading the bible and writing my response to what I’m reading.”

As part of Jack’s internship, one of his jobs was to choose the songs to play throughout a church service, making sure that the song lyrics connected with the theme of the sermon. We chatted about how that had helped him to think through the meaning of Bible passages a bit more. He spent a lot of one-on-one time with his music mentor, which involved a lot of questioning over Jack’s song choices, and his understanding of what the lyrics meant. He found this questioning quite intimidating, but also invaluable in getting a better understanding of things.

“Does it change the way you read the bible?”

“Yeah definitely,” said Jack. “Whenever I read through a passage now, my brain just automatically thinks of a response song. Reflecting on the song lyrics has definitely helped me grow in my thinking.”

“How much song-writing have you been doing?”

“A lot. I love picking up a guitar and putting some lyrics together. I do it pretty often, just when I’m in the mood. Catching up with Men in Boats (Jack’s band) is really good, we always come away learning more about God because we’ll read a bible passage and think through God’s word together. Whether we come away with a song or not after that really doesn’t matter, we always gain something. But if a song comes out that can be helpful for people and glorify God, then that’s great.”

Having seen Men In Boats perform several times and having heard a few of the songs they’ve written, I can definitely attest that what they’ve done so far as a band has been a huge encouragement and benefit to the Christians around them. But that’s enough shameless plugging from me, back to the discussion.

“As far as a church gathering goes, what impact do you think the music has?” I asked. “For me personally, I think it really changes the atmosphere, gets an emotional response.”

“Yeah, music is an emotional thing. And I think God’s given us this emotional thing to use, to be able to respond to his word. I think music plays a big part in teaching people God’s word. For me, if I’m reading through a bible passage or thinking through something theological, song lyrics often come into my head and help me to remember parts of scripture. It’s also edifying. It builds people up, it builds up the whole congregation, we can use music to encourage and teach one another. Scripture is always useful for teaching. And having over a hundred people around you belting out In Christ Alone definitely gets you excited and emotional. Being able to look around and see people singing about what Christ has done for them, that’s really encouraging. It just makes you want to sing louder!”

I agreed. “I find especially at a wedding or a funeral where emotions already are quite high, music and singing can be quite stirring, it definitely does have that emotional impact on people. It gets God’s word and praise for God inside their head. It’s God’s truth expressed in a sort of poetic, artistic format, that resonates with our artistic nature as humans. It makes a massive difference for me personally having music on a Sunday.”

“Good,” said Jack, “that’s exactly what I want to hear! I think music is something we all respond to, it stirs us all.”

“It’s underrated I reckon,” I said. “If I went along to church and there was no music, it wouldn’t feel right. Not that you couldn’t have church without singing, but it really does get such a response out of people. God tells us to sing songs, sing praises to the Lord, and he’s wired us to respond to the music we hear.” I then switched to the next question. “What are some of the blessings and highlights you’ve had in music ministry?”

Jack thought about it for a bit. “Seeing how much God does play a part in his church, in his people. A lot of times I’ve been anxious and stressed out, thinking things aren’t going to work out well with music on a particular Sunday because I haven’t done a good job preparing or whatever, rather than just asking to God to help out, and then everything’s just come together and worked. The musos rock up, they’re there because they want to serve God – a lot of the time people will offer to serve in exactly the way that you need people at that moment. It happens so many times, it can’t be coincidence, it’s just God’s helping hand, raising up people to serve him and giving us opportunities to serve him. That’s been a big blessing. Same as any ministry, the second you start thinking the weights on your shoulders rather than God’s, you’ve got it wrong.”

“No one’s dispensable.”

“It’s all God,” Jack agreed. “And that really makes things easy! Another blessing has been reading the bible week after week with a mentor who just knows so much about God, it’s made me so much more disciplined with my bible reading, I was pretty slack before the internship. Getting that discipline to read the bible has been awesome. Just seeing how the people that serve in a church are just one big body, they all work together in the same team.”

“What have been some challenges in music ministry?” I asked.

“I’m not always heaps comfortable being up on stage in front of people, that can be a bit awkward. I was freaked out about that, the prospect of leading people. That pushed me a lot, talking in front of the whole congregation. Also, life gets in the way. When things are stacking up, if you’ve had a bad week, it affects things. I think it affects any ministry. Which is why it’s important to pray, to talk to God as much as you can. The more you do that the more encouraged and content you’ll be, the more strength you’ll have.”

“Are there things that you see done badly in music ministry?”

“I think, as good as music is, people sometimes glorify musicians. It’s hard, because they’re up on stage and they play such a big role, but I think it can be unhealthy both for the individual and the church. It feels good to be told week after week that they’ve done a great job, but it can be damaging in the long run to how people serve. It’s God who’s given the gift, so we can serve and glorify him in a church setting. That’s something I think can be done badly. Also, you hear people talking about using music to get the Spirit’s attention, get the Holy Spirit to be around us, which is rubbish. God’s not someone who you call down. He is here. If you think music is a good way to get his attention, well, you’ve already got his attention, so why not put it to good use?”

I found that to be quite an enlightening chat. As someone with zero music ability and minimal musical knowledge, it’s not often enough that I recognise the huge blessing that music is to Christian worship. Throughout the Bible, God calls us to sing joyful praises to him, not only personally but in fellowship with other Christians:

Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. (Psalm 95:1)

Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. (Psalm 105:2)

I will sing to the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. (Psalm 104:33)

Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord. (Ephesians 6:19)

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:16)

Music provides us with a means of worshipping God, while also moving us emotionally. Whenever I hear a really stirring rendition of a hymn being sung by hundreds of people together, I can’t help but feel drawn even closer to the God who has wired us to get such a high from singing his praises. I might never be much good at music myself, but it’s a gift God has given to us that I am hugely appreciative of. And I’m thankful that there are people like Jack who have the talent and the generosity of time to honour God and serve the rest of us by taking up the role of music worship.