Perfect Pitch Is Not A Fruit Of The Spirit

As professional musicians, my wife and I love to visit churches when we’re on tour. It’s always interesting to see how different congregations do the work of ministry. Yet on one Sunday morning, we were handed earplugs as we entered the sanctuary because the speaker output exceeded the city’s noise regulations. I’m grateful the church wanted to protect our hearing. However, it’s difficult to sing to one another (Eph. 5:19) while wearing earplugs. By making the music so loud, the worship team sent the signal that congregational singing was optional.

That kind of experience helps explain why Ryanne Molinari’s Spirit-Filled Singing: Bearing Fruit as We Worship Together feels so necessary. Molinari, a classically trained musician and a worship director in her local church, challenges worship leaders and musicians to rethink their musical life together—not according to taste, trends, or production value but according to the fruit of the Spirit.

In her synthesis of Paul’s teaching on the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5) and his call to sing to one another (Eph. 5), she points out that “worshipful singing and godly living are inextricably linked as ministries of the Spirit” (3). She presents a well-argued case that those leading church music need to think beyond technical excellence and song selection to the spiritual formation of both the music team and congregation. Worship isn’t just something we do; it forms us for good or ill.

More than Song Selection

At the heart of Spirit-Filled Singing is a call to prioritize love as the “firstborn” of the fruit of the Spirit, as every other aspect springs from this one (13). For Molinari, love isn’t merely a feeling or sentiment. It’s practical, communal, and countercultural. Love is expressed not only in how we feel while singing but in how we care for one another as we sing together.

Yet love doesn’t simply shape the way we perform music; it affects the songs we choose and how we respond to people’s concerns.

It seems obvious that songs can come to mean different things to different people. However, when we read the story of a woman’s anger toward traditional worship music and heartache at overhearing Molinari practicing the hymn “How Great Thou Art” in what she thought was an empty room, it’s easy to see how important love and mutual care are in church music. That hymn brought the woman memories of pastoral maltreatment to the surface in ways that Molinari couldn’t have anticipated. Thankfully, a gracious, loving response brought unity in what could have been a divisive situation.

Love doesn’t simply shape the way we perform music; it affects the songs we choose and how we respond to people’s concerns.

Not every worship leader will encounter such emotional challenges to his or her song selection. Nevertheless, Molinari’s anecdote reminds us that churches need an approach to musical worship that combines scriptural faithfulness with a willingness to accommodate preferences when possible.

Church music ministries should focus on cultivating the character in musicians that enables them to offer a gracious response when critiques and complaints inevitably arise. The root of that character is a genuine, heartfelt love toward one another.

Cultivate People

The most spiritual worship isn’t necessarily the most polished. Yet there’s a critical balance between avoiding distraction and allowing for the development of budding musicians within the congregation. We need to resist the temptation to prioritize musical excellence over spiritual growth and broadened participation.

As a songwriter and worship leader in Nashville, I think Molinari’s concerns about the growing trend of churches regularly employing nonbelieving musicians are valid. This isn’t about gatekeeping. It’s about the congregation’s spiritual formation. Molinari asks, “Are we really willing to exchange the edification of musicians in our congregations for the entertainment value and ease of hiring non-Christians?” (63).

A key idea here is that leading a congregation in worship grows the musicians as much as the people in the pews. Moreover, having people who aren’t part of the congregation routinely leading worship prevents the congregation from developing meaningful relationships with its musicians.

Of course, there are huge differences between the way worship ministries function at large churches and small churches. Molinari addresses the heart of the matter by emphasizing the ordinary faithfulness of regular music ministry: the simple work of showing up and working together in small churches, at volunteer posts, and even in larger church settings.

“Giving our all on stage—where we receive applause and accumulate followings—is a human accomplishment,” she argues. “Worshiping week after week in anonymity, with broken instruments, in unglamorous settings, or before small congregations—well, that’s a spiritual feat” (110).

True faithfulness often requires demonstrating patience with unskilled volunteers, enduring awkward rehearsals, and finding creative ways to encourage involvement from the whole congregation.

Fruitful Guide

The tragedy of musical worship is that one of the means God has ordained to unite congregations has become one of the most dissonant aspects of church life. Sadly, Molinari is correct when she writes, “As we try to make music, we too often seem to break peace” (44).

True faithfulness often requires demonstrating patience with unskilled volunteers and finding creative ways to encourage involvement from the whole congregation.

Though musical worship is the topic of Spirit-Filled Singing, church health is the underlying theme. We can’t have a healthy church without the fruit of the Spirit, especially among those who lead worship.

Molinari notes, “To be patient with others’ skill levels is to practice love. To sing with self-control—with focus and intentionality—is to prioritize and protect love” (15). A ministry that cultivates character in its musicians can do a lot to help a church become healthy.

Unlike many books about musical worship that argue for or against particular styles, provide guidelines for navigating multiethnic worship, or promote mere tolerance of differences, Spirit-Filled Singing goes much deeper. It’s a guide for church leaders to pursue spiritual maturity within the whole congregation. At the same time, it’s also designed for use in a small group (like the worship ministry), with study questions and a hymn at the end of each chapter.

By emphasizing musical worship’s role in forming the congregation, Molinari offers church leaders and musicians a biblically and theologically rich resource for catalyzing church health. Spirit-Filled Singing reminds us that faithful worship is measured not by what we produce on a stage but by the kind of people we’re becoming together before God.