Music and Church

I've always felt that music can be very powerful.  There's simply something about it that expresses emotion more effectively than words alone. As with all forms of expression, music can be used for good or evil. How it's used depends on the person using it. In the church, music is present in virtually every meeting of some sort of congregation. This is because the proper song can set the mood and make it easier for each person to feel the Spirit of the Lord. Here's some of my favorite songs from the Hymnbook of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Lead, Kindly Light
A Mighty Fortress Is Our God
I Believe In Christ
Now Let Us Rejoice
A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief
The Morning Breaks
The Spirit of God
Nearer, My God, To Thee
Come, Come, Ye Saints
High On The Mountain Top
How Firm A Foundation

All of these links lead to the church music section of lds.org, the church's official website. The songs are presented in the arrangements given in the hymnbook. What you hear on the website would be the same tune that you would hear in a normal church meeting, except it would most likely be played on just an organ or just a piano. I would personally recommend clicking on the "words and music" button and then playing the song.

Whenever I sing a religious song, especially one of the hymns in the hymnbook, I feel that I'm expressing myself better than I could with words alone. Singing those songs is like prayer to me. Thankfully, God doesn't require us to sing well, or even on key.  If He did, I'd have a major problem. I can't sing on key to save my life. God knows the desires of our hearts, and appreciates our actions of faith and devotion, even if we aren't that skilled in performing them.

Now when I finish my mission and return to Glendale, Arizona at the beginning of August, I will be listening to regular music much more than I do now.  But, I will maintain the appreciation for church music that I've developed over the past 18 months. I will also use the discerning taste that I've developed to find good music and ignore the bad. There is plenty of good music available for us to enjoy, we just need to be picky about what we listen to. If we aren't picky, we can find ourselves in darker modes of thought than we would have imagined.