By Mike O’Brien

Many churches and parachurches create discipleship pathways for members of their organization.Plans typically start with babies and end with senior citizens. There are steps along that pathway to equip that person to become like Christ in a variety of ways. It is rare that you will find singing, reciting creeds, sacrament, or other activities related to gathered worship as a part of these discipleship systems. Worship or music are rarely thought of as a means to an end in discipleship.

A church service rooted in a Christocentric, Trinitarian and unified retelling of God’s grand story can do much of the “work” of discipleship. Since singing takes up a majority of what we literally all do together, I believe the lyric of our songs is the most crucial component of what we are saying about who our God is and what he does.

You might have seen the popular sign “now entering the mission field” as you exit a church parking lot. I have never truly grasped that notion because I was literally saved and discipled on a church campus in my early teens. The music minister of my PCA (Presbyterian Church of America) church plant made space for me to play the saxophone with the hymns, then taught me the bass guitar, then gave me a job for $25/wk stacking the chairs. I was literally mentored and saved on Sunday.