Spirit-Filled Singing: Love
Content taken from Spirit-Filled Singing by Ryanne Molinari, ©2025. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
At one church I served, the leader regularly programmed a song I found (frankly) annoying. There was nothing unbiblical about it; it just didn’t appeal to me. My fleshly instinct was to refuse to sing, and maybe even grimace a bit to show my distaste. There are two problems with this: (1) It’s petty and selfish; we don’t have to love a song to love its singers. (2) By not singing, I was cutting myself off from the very thing that might increase my love!
Once I realized this, I forced myself to sing along. The moment I opened my mouth, I began to feel less critical. I began to soften—if not toward the song, at least toward those singing it. As I joined in, I prayed for those around me, asking the Lord to use this song to help them abide in his love. And guess what? As I sang out of love for God and others, I began to feel that same love more deeply. I even began to move a little to the song, almost enjoying it. As I devoted my breath to the same choruses as the rest of that dear church, I felt my heart tune to the love of Christ even—and perhaps especially—as I sang my least favorite song.
Jesus laid down his life for us and calls us to love like him, even dying for others (John 15:12–13). If we are unwilling to lay aside our preferences for three minutes once a week to serve others by singing a song we aren’t keen on, we are kidding ourselves if we think we would die for them. If you have the option of attending and serving a biblical church that uses your favorite music, you have the freedom to do so. But if you are unwilling to engage another style of worship, I encourage you to examine yourself: Are you singing (or not singing) out of self-love or sacrificial love? Are you loving your favorite genre or are you loving God, who desires the unity of his people?
…Musical worship, though, is not merely about doing what we love but about loving the Lord and our neighbors—those singing beside us. Agapē calls us to look beyond ourselves, to deepen and strengthen our relationships as we sing together.
Remember the Root
What do plants and chords have in common? Roots. Puns aside, both plant and musical roots provide an analogy for how love operates in the Christian life. We’ve already established that love is the firstborn and “root” of the fruit of the Spirit. We have also considered how group music-making can image and increase our love. Now, music theory has a few remarkable things to teach us about love as our root.[1]
The Root Provides Identity
In music theory, the “root” is the note by which a chord is named (C is the root of a C chord, G the root of a G chord, and so on). It is the foundational pitch that gives the chord its identity. This sounds familiar. In John 13:34–35, Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Like a chord named for its root, we are to be identifiable as Christians because we live out the love of Christ. This is at once a calling and a comfort. It means that we must examine our lives and worship to see whether they are conveying Christlike love. But it also offers this profound consolation: Our deepest identity has already been bestowed on us. We are beloved by and in Christ. It is out of this most precious identity that we sing.
Even as believers, it is easy to get caught up in titles, obligations, and ambitions. We must combat this by returning to our root—by remembering that our identity in Christ precedes and supersedes our roles as worship directors and musicians. We are beloved members of Christ’s body and bride first and worship leaders second. The love of God in Christ is our foremost identity.
The Root Provides Structure and Clarity
There’s a reason many songs use a similar chord progression:I (tonic)–V–vi–IV–I (tonic). As a very poor guitarist, I appreciate this norm! If we assume our starting chord is the tonic (the chord built on the root of the scale) and want to end our song solidly in
the same key, the middle parts often work themselves out. The root is not just the primary note in a chord; it’s the anchor. The root of a tonic chord provides a point of reference for all other chords and notes. If you play the chord progression above without starting or ending on the tonic chord, it will sound odd. A sense of order will be missing, and the three middle chords will feel random. So it is, too, when we try to worship without the love of Christ constantly behind and before us. The trick to hearing different chords as a harmonious progression is to keep the root or tonic in your mind—mentally tuning to it even when it is not being played.
Worship leaders often work more than one job. Even full-time worship leaders have to balance multiple roles and responsibilities: audiovisual coordinator, instrument technician, band leader, choir director, songwriter, arranger—the list goes on and on. As with chord progressions, however, the key to navigating the various aspects of our ministry and worship is the same: Keep the love of Christ always at the forefront of your mind and remember that no aspect of your worship and ministry is beyond the scope of this love. In seasons of seeming chaos, listen intently for the root. The love of Christ prevails and will see you through. He is holding all things together.
The Root Provides the End
To our Western ears, a piece of music is not really finished until it returns to the tonic chord in root position. If you play the chord progression in the previous section, you will hear how the harmonies lean toward the tonic. There is tension until you reach the final chord, which is also the first chord. In the same way, love is the beginning and end of our lives as Christians. Every part of us should yearn toward the love of God like dissonance seeking resolution. Accordingly, godly love—the fruit of the Spirit—must direct every decision we make.
While memorizing a Bach prelude, one of my students got lost in the music. Some students would have started over or given up, but she had a firm grasp of an essential principle of music performance: When in doubt, find the root. After some dissonant meandering, her harmonic decisions began to make sense. Remembering that she was in the key of C, she began to emphasize notes that would guide her to the dominant chord (G) and, finally, the tonic chord with a C octave as its root. It was not the path Bach wrote, but she ended in the right place.
If you feel directionless or overwhelmed in your life, ministry, or worship, go back to the basics. Remember the root. Our loving Savior does not demand genius or virtuosity, although these can certainly be to his glory. Instead, he simply asks us to use our gifts to love him and his people. This is the goal of our worship. When all else grows complicated, love is the end we must pursue (1 Cor. 14:1).
The Root Provides Unity
A musical note is actually a collection of frequencies that our ears interpret as a single pitch. I can think of no better image for the fruit of the Spirit as love than this: striking a key on the piano or plucking a guitar string and knowing that within the vibrations we hear are multiple pitches, all singing yet sounding together as one perfectly tuned note.
The fruit of the Spirit is not fragmented, as if some of us are peace plants or kindness cacti or faithfulness flowers. Instead, the fruit of the Spirit in our worship should sound forth as a harmonious, unified whole—a cornucopia of inseparable fruits or a pristine nine-voice chord. When we sing with joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, it should sound—simply and beautifully—like love.
[1] Portions of this section first appeared on my website, Ryanne Molinari, “Three Ways
Musical Roots Teach Us About Love,” Ryanne Molinari (blog), July 14, 2023, https:// ryannemolinari .com/.