The One Who Makes Us Sing

An 'open letter' to worship leaders for this Trinity Sunday

Dear Worship leaders,

We are in such unusual times as worship leaders in the American church. We have more music to choose from than at any other time in church history, with more released on an almost daily basis.

We have better production quality than I remember ever having. Churches, large and small, are bright with reverb and lighting that create such inviting atmospheres in which to worship.

We have more conferences to instruct us in the finer points of using this equipment, to help with our livestreams and photography, and to ensure that those far from God come back again to worship God.

But these very circumstances have, in some ways, contributed to some of the challenges we now face leading worship.

For example, as you all know, many in our churches make statements such as “God bless America”, but have you ever considered who the god is that they are asking to bless the country we live in?

Many others come and enjoy the sound, the lights, the music, the transcendent worship experiences of which you, my talented friends, are the architects.

They arrive with an expectation to have a personal euphoric experience, summarized well by one young “twenty-something” in the phrase, “I’m here to get rocked.”¹

But again, have you considered who the god is that they are expecting to encounter?

I do not mean to imply by either of these questions that Christians do not want the God of scripture to bless the land they live in as God blesses all peoples, or that God does not meet us in powerful spiritual encounters that defy our logic and explanation.

But rather, I mean to ask, have we truly thought theologically about who the “god” is that many believe they are coming to worship?

Or are we allowing the people of our churches to slowly form a vision of a god in their own making with their own preferences?

I know, I hear your response already, “Andrew, you’re overcomplicating this again.”

Or “Sure, that is important, we can revisit this later, but right now we have to focus on practical ministry considerations.”

I contend this is highly practical.

If we do not carefully consider who our God is and help our churches understand the same, many will run off “into empty speculation,” as John Calvin put it, and, “imagine [God] as they have fashioned him in their own presumption.“²

When we allow people to assume who the god is that they worship without instruction or thought on our part as worship leaders, we can inadvertently create space for our congregants to worship some other deity or image other than the One true God.³

One may even begin to worship America or a worship experience itself! As many are prone to do these days.

This, as you all know too well, is a form of idolatry.

As my theology professor has put it,

“When caught in idolatry, we are without knowledge of God, our lives a mess, pitifully bowing before “gods” powerless to offer salvation.”⁴

This is not good news. Therefore, we must understand and describe God well.

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Andrei Rublev’s icon, Trinity

How to Describe God

But how should we describe God?

Throughout church history, the doctrine of the Trinity has helped describe and name the one true God. It is how we stay most faithful to describing the God of Israel revealed to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.⁵

Very simply, the doctrine of the Trinity is that “The one true God – the only God – exists eternally in three persons.”⁶

There is only one God we worship, as Deuteronomy 6:4 states,

“Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone” (NLT)

In this statement, we are reminded that there is never another god to whom it is acceptable to offer our worship. It is the LORD alone we worship.

Yet this God we worship has more uniqueness than simply the title “GOD”.

Indeed, what makes God unique is the existence in three persons who are all co-equal and co-eternal.

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

You are already familiar with this truth in the many songs you lead for worship.

Chris Tomlin’s “How Great is our God” names this God as “Three in One”.⁷

You are familiar with singing to God the Father through songs based on the Lord’s Prayer,⁸ and of course, as is frequent in our evangelical tradition, we often sing praise to Jesus Christ our Lord, who is God the Son.⁹

You will also recall it is not foreign to us, especially in recent years, to sing songs of worship to welcome God the Holy Spirit to be among us.¹⁰

Singing songs to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all perfectly valid because all three persons are God.

But there are not three Gods, there is only one.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three distinct persons but all one God. It is the specificity of God being all three and all three being one that describes this specific “god” as the one we worship as Christians.

John 14 demonstrates the relationship that Father, Son, and Spirit have with each other as One God. Jesus claims that “anyone who has seen [him] has seen the Father” (John 14:9). And that after Jesus returns to the Father, “he will give you another Advocate” (John 14:16), the Holy Spirit.

Here, the fullness of God’s triune nature is displayed. There is One God, but existing in three persons.

This can be confusing, so to offer some clarity on this passage in John, let me further explain by describing what is not meant about the uniqueness of the Triune God we worship.

Who God Is Not

First, what Jesus is not saying is that when he leaves them, he will simply return in another form.¹¹

God does not put on masks as if acting in a play, changing roles depending on the needs of each act. It is not as if once Jesus left the scene, God was able to reenter the play whilst wearing the “Holy Spirit mask”.

If this was how God’s Triune nature worked, it would be sad.

We would not ever truly meet with God, but rather God would always reveal Godself with a mask on, hiding God’s true nature from us.¹² There is no good news in that.

It is exceedingly good news that God is always Father, Son, and Spirit and that when we encounter Father, Son, or Spirit, we have encountered the fullness of who God is, not just a part of who God is.

We do not find ourselves experiencing a part of, or a lesser entity within God. It is all one and the same, yet three persons.

That leads me to the second explanation of who the Triune God is not.

God is not three persons with one or two of the persons being less than the others.

At moments throughout church history, this belief gained popularity specifically in an early church heresy known as Arianism, but it has also taken other forms.¹³

Arius, the founder of this teaching, began to explain that “Jesus was fully human, but not fully God.”¹⁴ He argued that Jesus was created before the rest of creation.

But if Jesus, the Son of God, was created, then he was subordinate to God.

While trying to be faithful in worship to the One God of Israel, Arius actually created a problem. Jesus couldn’t be worshipped if he were not fully God!

Greek icon of Arius getting slapped by Nicholas of Myra at the Council of Nicaea…as in Saint Nicholas…yes, that one…

This mistaken view of who the Triune God is was well received in the popular culture of the day through Arius’ slogans like, “there was when he was not,”¹⁵ as well as other catchy phrases and tunes.

It is this last fact that I hope drives home the immense practicality of understanding the Trinity for us as worship leaders.

The songs we sing truly matter for how we think about God. They either instruct us to direct our worship to the one true God or guide us to worship a god who is not Triune.

Popular songs have at times created problematic beliefs that either split the Trinity into unequal parts or envision God fighting against Godself: one person of the Trinity being full of wrath, another full of love in our defense.¹⁶

If we envision God against God in moments like Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, we begin to teach bad theology that:

Perhaps only one of God’s persons loves us.

Perhaps only part of God was on the cross while the other part was trying to destroy us.

It could have been an actor, wearing a mask and playing a part, not the fullness of God.

Any of these would create a considerable crisis in the gospel because it would no longer be true that God, all of God, loves the world.

Additionally, if we split God up and assume God appears differently for different functions, then we begin to learn not to seek Godself, but to seek the function that each person of the Trinity accomplishes for our benefit.

When we do this, we deny their co-equality and are simply worshipping a function or a role and not God, which again, brings us back to idolatry.¹⁷

Compelled to Sing

So, who is this God that we are called to worship?

This God is not a random god who blesses and sanitizes whatever America decides to do, and this is not a god who is here for our euphoric experiences.

These would be idols made in our image.

Instead, this is a God and creator of all people who “opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).

This God, this one Triune God, is the one who created the universe and time itself.

This same Triune God is the one who has redeemed the whole creation.

This Triune God is revealed to us in scripture and is not a God we can make into our own image or simplify down to experience, function, or role.

This complex relational union between Father, Son, and Spirit is so “other” than anything created. We cannot boil down the Creator and Redeemer to the form of a created idol.

We must consider how this God, revealed in scripture, has called us to worship God in this particularity, just as God has called people to worship in very specific ways throughout history.¹⁸

In short, this is a call to live in awe and wonder towards the One we cannot fully explain.

When we begin to realize the depth of awe and wonder in who this specific God is, an invitation to worship is opened to us.

What I mean by this is that the Triune God, within God’s self, gives and receives perfect love. It is perfect and unbroken, and God within the Triune oneness does not need anything, especially from us!

Love is complete in Godself.

God did not need to create the world, but God wants the world.

God extends love from Godself to include the whole world and especially humanity. God’s unified work of redemption on the cross has made a way for us to draw near to Godself and live in Triune love.

God wants you and me in communion with the Trinity. Not because God has some unmet need or because there is an ego that needs stroking. Rather, it is because God is love.

The triune God’s generous love wants to envelope and extend open arms to all creation. How incredible is that?

As a worship leader, can you re-imagine your task of inviting the congregation to receive this kind of love? Could you rethink your role to be one who does not need to conjure up God’s love for the people, but to simply receive and enjoy this generous gift of the Triune Love?

While I realize there are still many questions you may have, it is probably best to leave you in a space of mystery and wonder.

You and I must consider this God who is one in three and three in one, and how we are moving our churches to worship God in specificity to keep us from idolatry.

Ask yourself:

Do your songs reflect appropriate truth about the Triune God?

Do they make God out to have split personalities?

Are we considering how the Triune Love of God is available for us, so that we do not need to force him to love us as we worship?

I remind you, worship leaders, that close consideration of the Trinity should never lead you to frustration, confusion, or boredom. Instead, when you and I really consider how the Triune God impacts our worship, the fullness of who God is should compel us all to sing.

1. This is in reference to a question at the beginning of a worship night when I asked, “why do you think you are here tonight?” Many answers from the young worshippers gathered were along the lines of a personal euphoric experience that begs the question of who is being centered in the worship gathering.

2. John Calvin, Ford Lewis Battles, and John T. McNeill, Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, Paperback edition. (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 47.

3. Calvin, Battles, and McNeill, Calvin, 120. Calvin writes, “Whenever any observances of piety are transferred to someone other than the sole God, sacrilege occurs.”

4. Beth Felker Jones, Practicing Christian Doctrine: An Introduction to Thinking and Living Theologically, Second edition. (Ada: Baker Academic, 2023), 56.

5. Ben Quash and Michael Ward, Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2012), 128.

6. Jones, Practicing Christian Doctrine, 56.

7. Chris Tomlin, How Great Is Our God, Arriving (Six Steps Records, 2004). This and the next four songs noted are typical popular worship songs sung in many churches I am associated with.

8. Jenn Johnson, Our Father, For the Sake of the World (Bethel Music, 2012).

9. Jeremy Riddle, All Hail King Jesus, More (Bethel Music, 2017).

10. Brian Torwalt and Katie Torwalt, Holy Spirit, vol. Here on Earth (Jesus Culture Music, 2011).

11. I am here referencing the Heresy of Modalism.

12. Jones, Practicing Christian Doctrine, 59. I found this illustration of what Modalism is so helpful for avoiding this heresy, and why there is such good news in the real nature of the Trinity.

13. For the sake of brevity, I am focusing on Arianism as it is the most complex of the subordinationist heresies.

14. Quash and Ward, Heresies and How to Avoid Them, 18.

15. Jones, Practicing Christian Doctrine, 61.

16. Thomas H. McCall, Forsaken: The Trinity and the Cross, and Why It Matters (Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Academic, 2012), 91. The song "In Christ Alone" with the line "the wrath of God was satisfied", implies the need for the Father to expend and wear out his anger as the Son defends us. McCall rejects this specific theological claim.

17. Jones, Practicing Christian Doctrine, 60.

18. McCall, Forsaken, 106.