Stoic singing

7 It is reported that you now have two services, one more suited to the older and one for the youth. The older enjoy more stoic worship, singing without emotion, in strict order and having had much practice. Heaven forbid any musician who gets a note wrong! Anybody would think you were performing for a paying audience! Yet those who consider themselves godly and yet do not sing to God deceive themselves, and their worship is worthless.

Pure worship

Worship that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to sing to God directly, out of the depth of our hearts, and to sing with all of our being - our mind, our passion, and our spirit. You should be aware that it is modernist culture that seeks to castrate our emotions–God does not look down on those who sway and dance and raise their hands and voices. This is not to say that unemotional worship for the purpose of teaching is necessarily wrong. That can bring to life great truths. However, the point is not to perform it right, the point would then be to learn those truths, and embody them.

Ecstatic worship

However, the youth appear to have forgotten the purpose of worship too. They appear to be in it for a good time, rather than to give their all to God. They are not aware of the influence of postmodern culture and its emphasis on the self, and its deconstruction of all that is truthful. Yet the truth is good to sing and shout. God's sovereignty and grace and power is fitting to praise. Deep thinkers should be sought out from among you to help youth musicians write. Consider also coming back into a combined service, or two services that have a full range of ages–your youth need mature wisdom and mentoring.

Again, there are those who worship for the purpose of getting something--healing, breakthrough, a word from God. God inhabits our praises, but when they become rituals to get a certain outcome, Scripture warns "I desire mercy, not sacrifice". Let us sing with joy for what God is doing in our midst, and seek Him, not what we can get from Him.