God gave us the command to read, study, and memorize His Word, and we are blessed with the privilege to obey that command. Not only is meditating on God’s Word a command, it is a joy and a delight to the born-again Christian. But imagine if you did not know how to read. You could still listen to someone else read the Bible aloud, but you would have an easier and more rewarding experience if you could read it for yourself.

Now what about singing? Just like reading God’s Word, we are commanded to sing. The same God who requires us to seek and love Him also requires us to praise Him with our voices and with our music. Yet unlike reading God’s Word, many Christians do not know how to read music. This is because the world, which does not have anything meaningful to sing about, has deemed musical literacy as an “unnecessary skill.” This should not be so of the church, whom God has given a new song.

Yes, you can obey God by singing without knowing how to read music. But it could be a much more enjoyable and rewarding experience with a basic knowledge of written musical notation. The man or woman with a little musical knowledge will be better equipped to lead their children in family worship and more capable to mine the wealth of musical riches that the church has amassed throughout her history.

This summer at Westover Baptist Church we will be holding a Singing School on Wednesday evenings at 6:30pm (starting May 28) with one goal in mind: give Christians a basic understanding of how to read and sing music. The course is heavily inspired by the educational methods proposed by Zoltán Kodály but tailored to provide a sufficient knowledge base to navigate most basic hymns. While most of our time will be spent learning how to sight sing, we will also be learning music theory, studying church history, analyzing timeless hymns, finding musical riches in God’s Word, and much more. We believe the skill of reading music can help strengthen our walk with the Lord as He continues to form us into complete Christians, equipped in every way to fight the good fight as we imitate Christ.