What is Prayer Part III: Why We Sing.

I want to open with an observation from Why We Sing: Music, Word, and Liturgy in Early Christianity:

In modern times, a liturgy intended to work as an instrument of evangelisation is often made simple and more accessible to the unchurched, with musicplaying a central role. In many evangelical, including Pentecostal, movements, modern popular genres of worship music predominate; the sanctuary becomes indistinguishable from a stage; and liturgical action seems, in the view of some,to be sidelined in favour of the musical performance. The rationale behind those developments can be traced to numerous Protestant traditions,whose churches are regularly labelled as “nonliturgical.” But the label merely reflects an inability to recognize unfamiliar (i.e., new and “non-Catholic”) liturgical forms. After all, the very notion of a worshipping community entails some measure of predictability, which presupposes a common agreement about the liturgical forms. Even at a Billy Graham crusade, an “altar call” to come forward and be “saved” has a standard liturgical form reproduced in countless other evangelical services and revival meetings. Thus, for the study of both modern and pre-modern (including ancient) ecclesial models and sources, the binary paradigm of liturgical vs. non-liturgical needs to be abandoned.¹

Even the most non-denominational Church follows at least a skeletal liturgy of:

• Welcome/Open
• Music
• Offering
• Homily/Sermon
• Dismissal

A Eucharist/Communion may get thrown in there. What would probably surprise those very non-denominational sorts that like to think that they are free of traditions and such, is that this is a tradition that goes back quite early. Its first attestation is from a non-Christian, Pliny the Younger, who was a regional governor in Nicomedia in Asia Minor(modern day Turkey).²

While the earliest Christians met house to house, they did not remain there. Even before dedicated buildings became common, their gatherings had already taken on fixed times of prayer and shared patterns of worship. From these, semi-fixed prayers emerged and developed into a regular, sung liturgy, as reflected in early texts like the Odes of Solomon.

I was once part of an assembly that attempted to read the entire Psalter together in plain speech, rather than chant it as is more typically found in Jewish and Christian circles. The experience was slightly more painful than a root canal without novacaine. One quickly understands why Ignatius of Antioch³ urged churches to form choirs to help carry and instruct the congregation⁴.

Ignatius pulls no punches on who should be allowed to be part of the Chorus and how they should behave.⁵ More importantly though is the reason for the need of a chorus.

Ignatius sees the gathered people of God as an earthly chorus participating in the worship of God with unanimity and concordance to offer unblemished prayer through a framework of modal music, coordinated voice, and harmony. This practice is in fact so well established that he uses it as a metaphor to teach the Church regarding Church life and spiritual formation.

That he can do so, while on the way to his own martyrdom, demonstrates that such corporate, ordered participation in worship was sufficiently widespread at this point, so as to serve as a model for the broader spiritual and communal life of the Church.

They way the earliest prayer worked, and the way it remained for the majority of the first four Christian centuries was consistent. The Church would gather, sing their prayers. At the morning and evening service there would be liturgy of the word, where a reader would chant portions of the Scripture, which would be the only exposure to the Scripture that most Christians would have.

Then on Sundays the liturgy of the word would also have a homily/sermon. The when they did the Eucharist they would dismiss(read kick out) the unbaptized, and once they had departed, carry on with the Eucharist which was predominantly a communal meal.⁶,⁷

In one way or another, in some cases more elaborate as it developed, or post-Reformation stripped back or even non-denominational bare bones that is how liturgy came down. So to answer the question I started this with. The reason that we sing, is this, it is a vestigial remnant of corporate prayer.

Through the ages it has swung between the poles of prayer and proclamation(to God or about God) and participatory or performance. However, even when it drifts to its greatest extreme away from the Apostolic found to proclamatory performance, its root is still communal participatory prayer.

In the Part II we talked about three forms of prayer. Do the others have a place in communal prayer/worship? The answer is yes. They do indeed have a place, and that place was established in the Apostolic times.

Alongside fixed forms of prayer, the early Church also made room for extemporaneous, Spirit-led expression. The Diddache holds both together. Believers are given shared prayers to anchor their life, and yet those who “prophesy”⁸ are permitted to give thanks freely. This is freedom is not a departure from the common prayer, but an extension of it. Arising from the same source, shaped by the same pattern, and directed toward the same end.

In the musical sense extemporaneous prayer functions like musical improvisation within a mode. The liturgy(the set song) establishes the key, the tonal center, the boundaries of what is true and fitting. Within that given structure, the individual voice may move, elaborate, invent and respond. But it does not leave the mode. It does not invent a new center. It deepens and unfolds what has already been given, so that the prayer of the Church is not merely repeated but lived and sounded anew. It takes the communal experience and makes it momentous.

Even later voices like Symeon the New Theologian⁹ insist that prayer must be alive, even ecstatic, without discarding form. The danger is not structure, but lifeless structure; and the answer is not unbounded spontaneity, though even he with a very formed liturgy allowed for spontaneity, but Spirit-filled participation. When extemporaneous prayer remains rooted in the shared life of the Church, it becomes the living breath of the chorus- an intensification of its unity.¹⁰ When it detaches, it ceases to be harmony and becomes noise.

The great Johann Sebastian Bach¹¹ would famously improv preludes and even fugues within liturgical performances. A more contemporary voice, the Jazz Artist Martin Taylor notes that great improvisational artists from Bach to great Jazz improvisationalists like Louis Armstrong, to great Jam Bands like Phish all had one thing in common, that the improvs they “…create are tightly linked to the melody and therefore naturally musical. I’ll say it again, your audience with thank you!”¹²

Martin goes on to say how this leaves the audience less trying to analyze what you are doing and more able to enjoy and respond. I would say the same with improv/spontaneous/prophetic worship. The ideal, as seen in the historical Church is for it still be rooted in the prayer, and accessible to the people.

Finally there is abiding prayer. Abiding prayer finds a natural counterpart in music through repetition and return. Just as the heart is trained to turn again and again toward God through a short phrase, so music creates space for that turning through repeated choruses, refrains, or instrumental interludes. What may seem, from the outside, like repetition is in fact an invitation: not to say something new, but to remain—to let what has already been said sink more deeply into the heart. The music carries the words past the point of initial understanding into participation.

This is not a modern innovation, but echoes older patterns of prayer. In monastic traditions, simple invocations such as “Lord, have mercy” have been repeated dozens—even hundreds—of times. The aim is not to accumulate words, but to steady attention and anchor the heart in the presence of God. In the same way, a repeated chorus or extended musical passage allows the singer—and the listener—to move from expression into abiding. The song ceases to progress and instead becomes a place to dwell, where prayer is no longer something being said, but something being lived.

Some critics argue that repeated choruses are hypnotic or manipulative. But repetition, in itself, is neither. It is a fundamental feature of human learning, memory, and prayer.¹³ The Psalms repeat¹⁴. Jewish liturgy repeats. The Jesus Prayer repeats¹⁵. The question is not whether repetition shapes the mind—it does—but whether it does so in truth and freedom, or in a way that bypasses them.¹⁶ Used rightly, repetition does not manipulate the will; it steadies attention, gathers the heart, and creates space for genuine prayer.^{17 18}

What is often called ‘hypnotic’ is more accurately described as attentional focus. Repetition reduces distraction and quiets the constant churn of discursive thought. This is not foreign to the Christian tradition; it is precisely why repeated prayer has been used for centuries—to bring the mind into the heart and fix it on God.^{19 20}

That said, any tool can be misused. Repetition becomes manipulative when it is paired with pressure, emotional coercion, or an attempt to manufacture an experience rather than invite prayer. But the abuse of a practice does not negate its proper use. The Church has long used repetition not to override the person, but to form them.^{21 22}

1. Brill, 2023 p. 3 ↩︎
2. Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan around 112 AD (Letter 10.96) ↩︎
3. One of the Apostolic Fathers, a disciple of the Apostle John. ↩︎
4. Why We Sing:Music, Word, and Liturgy in Early Christianity Brill 2023 p 175 ↩︎
5. Topics that will be covered in a future post. ↩︎
6. Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan around 112 AD (Letter 10.96) ↩︎
7. Cyril of Jerusalem Mystagogical Catechesis 1.2; Procathechesis 9 ↩︎
8. The term “prophetic” prayer here does not refer to the delivery of divinely authoritative revelation (i.e., “thus says the Lord”), but to prayer that is Spirit-led, responsive, and situationally attuned—emerging from within the life of the community as a heightened form of extemporaneous petition rather than a claim to canonical or oracular speech. When encountered here that is how it should be understood. ↩︎
9. c 1000 ↩︎
10. See Catechistic Discourses and Hymns of Divine Love. ↩︎
11. See Forkel, Johann Nikolaus Johann Sebastian Back: His Life, Art, and Work ↩︎
12. Taylor, Martin Martin Taylor’s Complete Jazz Guitar Method p. 174 ↩︎
13. Ebbinghaus, Hermann. Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1913 (orig. 1885). ↩︎
14. Westermann, Claus. The Psalms: Structure, Content, and Message. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1980. ↩︎
15. Ware, Kallistos. The Power of the Name: The Jesus Prayer in Orthodox Spirituality. Oxford: SLG Press, 1974. ↩︎
16. Baddeley, Alan D., Michael W. Eysenck, and Michael C. Anderson. Memory. 2nd ed. New York: Psychology Press, 2015. ↩︎
17. Kahneman, Daniel. Attention and Effort. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973. ↩︎
18. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper & Row, 1990. ↩︎
19. Bradshaw, Paul F. Early Christian Worship: A Basic Introduction to Ideas and Practice. 2nd ed. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2010. ↩︎
20. Taft, Robert F. The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1986. ↩︎
21. Begbie, Jeremy S. Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007. ↩︎
22. Albrecht, Joshua S. Rethinking Contemporary Worship Music: Towards a Theology of Congregational Song. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020. ↩︎