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Sing a new song to the Lord ...
-Psalm 96:1a, NIV
So many of the psalms begin with the words above. Recently, I have shared that I am rereading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's classic Life Together. I am using it as a part of my morning devotions, but this time I am reading it very slowly -- a few pages at a time.
Bonhoeffer encourages us to begin each day praying the psalms, reading the scriptures, and then singing together a hymn of praise and thanksgiving. He envisions us gathering with other Christians or family members to do this. This may prove difficult for many of us -- not only because others may not be up and around that time of day, but singing together a hymn of praise with others may also prove challenging. What do we do if there are no others around with whom to sing? And what if we are not great singers or do not play an instrument?
Monday morning, when I read these words from Bonhoeffer's book about singing, it occurred to me that one of the good things that come out of this pandemic is the wealth of online worship resources that we have created at Johns Creek Presbyterian Church. Heidi and Christian offer us wonderful worship music each week. Many of you have told me how much you appreciate their music as a part of our online worship services. Most of those services are still posted on the Internet. You just have to go to our home page and click "online services" where you will see not only the most recent service, but many others from previous weeks. Early Monday morning, I found myself listening to the beautiful prelude, then singing along the first hymn of praise with Heidi and Christian on my screen porch. It was nice to be singing along led by two professional musicians!
I want to encourage you to use the resources of our worship services posted online to enrich your time of daily devotions. You can do this alone or with others -- fulfilling what the psalm says: "Sing a new song to the Lord!"
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