Podcast: The Value of Singing in Church Whether You Like the Music or Not (Matt Boswell)

December 08, 2025 by: Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

Singing Ministry Is More Than Just the People on the Stage

In this podcast Matt Boswell uses his years of experience as both a pastor and worship leader to talk about the benefits that come from congregational singing, the theology behind it, and how to respond when you don’t like your church’s music. Matt highlights what singing means and how it both emulates Christ and ministers to the congregation.

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What If I Don't Like My Church's Music?

What If I Don't Like My Church's Music?

Matthew Boswell

Pastor and hymn writer Matthew Boswell encourages readers to put aside individual preferences during church worship and offer unified praise that gives glory to God.

Topics Addressed in This Interview:

00:39 - Made to Serve the Lord and His People

Matt Tully
Matt Boswell serves as senior pastor at The Trails Church in North Texas. He’s also a professor of worship ministries at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, a hymn writer, and the author of What If I Don’t Like My Church’s Music?, which is part of the 9Marks Church Questions series from Crossway. Matt, thanks so much for joining me again on The Crossway Podcast.

Matt Boswell
I’m honored to be here.

Matt Tully
We all know you as a musician and as a hymn writer who’s written or co-written many modern classics. I’m thinking of songs like “His Mercy Is More,” or “Christ, Our Hope in Life and Death,” which probably has to be one of my favorites lately. If you look at my Apple Music, that one’s up there in terms of the number of times listened to. And so a lot of us know you in that context. But you’re also a pastor. You planted a church a number of years ago, where you currently serve as lead pastor, and you’ve also led music in your church for many years at times. So I wonder if you could just speak to that side of your life and of your ministry—when you’re not on a big stage and not writing music necessarily, but just ministry in a local church. What’s that been like for you?

Matt Boswell
I grew up in a pastor’s home, and I developed a love for the local church from a young age. I enjoyed being a part of the church, being reared in the church, loving the people, loving Christ. And that role was so formative in my own life that as soon as I could, I wanted to help contribute. And so even as a teenager, I was helping lead the church in music. And from the age of fifteen, I was both leading song and also writing songs. And so from that point, I never looked back. So for thirty-one years now, I’ve been involved in church music in one way or the other—either leading on Sunday mornings, or writing songs behind the scenes, and now serving as a pastor and preaching on Sundays, but still involved in the music in our church. It just means so much to me. I don’t want to keep it far from me.

Matt Tully
Take us back to your early childhood or teenage years when you first were getting into music. What did that look like? What was the instrument that first attracted you, and how did you get into getting more involved in your church’s music growing up?

Matt Boswell
At the age of fifteen, I started seeing the beauty of Christ in a very clear way. And the only thing I knew to do was to sing about it. And at the time, if you’ll remember (this is in the mid 90s), very simple music was being sung from church to church. And so I started just writing very simple songs on the guitar. As a matter of fact, I started playing bass guitar first in our youth band, which I’m very grateful for that opportunity. And then our student minister moved to a different church, leaving this vacuum there, and so I learned three chords, and the truth, and got to work.

Matt Tully
That’s all you need sometimes.

Matt Boswell
And then from there, I quickly moved into the chapel on Sunday mornings. I’m grateful for that opportunity and for even the lack of leadership that had to be filled by someone. I’m grateful to the Lord for the opportunity to step in and help in that way.

Matt Tully
What did your pastor, or the elders who were in charge there, were they just kind of seeing a young guy who had some gifts and they were just giving you that opportunity? Do you know anything about their mindset in letting you step into that kind of a leadership role?

Matt Boswell
At the start, my dad was my pastor, which was really wonderful. But then in high school, I started leading music at another church. I think the sentiment would’ve been, Here’s a young guy who is passionate about Jesus, who is maybe mildly gifted in music, but we could develop that. Let’s pour into him and encourage that along the way.

Matt Tully
I think of people listening right now—pastors and maybe worship leaders—who can think of young people in their churches who might be in that same category. They’re young, they’re inexperienced, but maybe there is a gifting there. Maybe there’s a desire and an interest there that, again, we never know what God could do as we fan the flame of passion in young people around us. That can lead places that are really amazing and encouraging.

Matt Boswell
In that regard, I would just say I do want to encourage young people to use their gifts to build up the body of Christ. I want to make sure, as was my case, that gifting doesn’t outpace character. And I’d want to make sure, as we’re cultivating young musicians for the church, we care as much about their spiritual formation as their musical gift. Because in my case, I was using my musical gift, but my character was lacking severely. It took a few years for me to develop the foundation that I actually needed to minister from. And so, yes, I do think we should encourage young musicians to steward their gifts in the church, but let’s make sure that the discipleship of the person and the formation of the soul is equally in view.

Matt Tully
I would imagine that can be a dangerous and tempting path to take for a young musician. Again, by virtue of the actual work itself, you’re kind of literally on a stage or a platform, performing for other people. That can be a dangerous spiritual place to be in.

Matt Boswell
It certainly can, because we weren’t made for the stage. We were made to serve the Lord and to serve his people. And sometimes stages are necessary just for practical leadership means, but what can happen quickly is people fall in love with spotlights and production crews and so forth instead of prioritizing love for Jesus and the service of his church.

Matt Tully
Do you remember the point where you came to the realization, I think I could make music as a career, or at least a big part of my full vocation could be making music, writing music, performing music?

Matt Boswell
Go back with me to 1995. This is the temporary timeframe where the overhead transparency was in vogue.

Matt Tully
Oh man. Some of our listeners have no idea what you’re talking about.

Matt Boswell
The overhead transparency is a projector that was set in the room, and you put a clear piece of paper on it, and you could see the lyrics of a song.

Matt Tully
It was like a piece of plastic with printed lyrics on it.

Matt Boswell
That’s right. So if you wanted to sing songs that weren’t in your hymnal, you’d have to be able to project it, and bulletins started falling out of vogue, and so the overhead projector became this way you could sing new songs. Well, in that time, you would see at the top of the page the name of the song. Then you would clearly see the lyrics. And then at the very bottom of the page, in very small print, was who wrote the song and what the publishing company was and what year it was written. From that point, I wanted to be that little bitty name at the bottom of the transparency of who wrote the song. It’s the same way in a hymnal, but that’s what grabbed my attention. I thought, I want to do this. I want to write songs to help the church sing praise to God. And so, yes, I didn’t think I could make a career of it, I would say. I wanted to work in the church. Yes, I’ve always wanted to serve the Lord vocationally in the context of church ministry. In a family full of pastors, I wanted to be the music director.

Matt Tully
So it is very clear that, from an early age, this was what God had made you to do.

Matt Boswell
Yes.

08:59 - Why Is Singing in Church So Important?

Matt Tully
The title of your new book with Crossway is a good title: What If I Don’t Like My Church’s Music? Before we jump into when we’re feeling dissatisfied with our church’s music, I wonder if you can set the stage for us by just answering a pretty simple but maybe very profound question, Why is singing together in church so important for us as Christians and so important for our Christian lives together?

Matt Boswell
It’s vital, and it traces all the way back to the very beginning. If you look all the way back in the story of Exodus, in Exodus 15, the first thing that God’s people do on the other side of deliverance is stop and sing. They remember and rehearse together what God had done for them and on their behalf. Singing, in our context, has a very similar function, doesn’t it? We are remembering and retelling the greatness and the glory and the salvation of what God has done for us in Christ. And so not everyone is called to lead publicly in prayer, and not everyone preaches, but all of us can have a ministry of singing within the body of Christ just by raising our voice and professing the faith once and for all delivered to the saints.

Matt Tully
I love that emphasis. We often can think of music ministry in the church as the people on stage are serving the church in leading worship and in singing. And that’s certainly true, but I love the way that that broadens it, where all of us, as we sing together, are, in a very real sense, serving and ministering to each other. Even if I don’t have a microphone, even if I don’t have a great voice, this is actually true ministry that we do for one another as Christians.

Matt Boswell
That’s right. I try to show that in the book. That’s not the telos, or the highest aim, of singing. To me, I would save that for it being an expression of worship unto God. But a part of this vertical sense in which we sing to the Lord, there is also a real horizontal nature to our singing, where we are singing to one another as a means of encouragement, as a means of disciple making, where the word of God can dwell in us richly. Singing together as a church body is one of the most precious things to me as the pastor. People will often ask me on a Friday or Saturday, Are you ready for Sunday? Are you ready to preach? And my first response is I’ll be ready once we sing. And that’s not just a throwaway comment for me. I mean it. There’s something about standing side by side with people that I know and love, knowing what they are walking through, knowing what they have walked through, and singing the praise of God together through great joys, through real trial. And to lift our voices together is a great gift.

Matt Tully
I definitely can resonate with that. One of the realities, though, is that for some people they might say, But that’s not what it feels like. I don’t feel the way you just described your experience of singing. I don’t feel that when I go to church on Sunday. Do you ever hear that from other people in your congregation or in your circles?

Matt Boswell
I do believe we’re commanded to sing. And I believe singing should play a part of every Christian’s life, because we have a song to sing because of what Christ has done. And yet there are Sundays where I know I have walked in, and I know people who’ve walked in, and I don’t expect them to always want to sing. I think there are times where it’s just fine to sit and listen to God’s people sing over you and to sing around you. When you can’t sing yourself, to have the church sing in your place. I don’t mean to belittle that. There are times of real suffering where I think that is a very appropriate response. Even in a normal gathering for me, there’s usually a moment or two I will stop singing myself and listen to those around me, because I do need that mutual encouragement as well. So I would want to ask that person why they don’t sing. Is it because they don’t feel like they’re gifted to sing? Because some people think their voice is too low or too high, or it doesn’t sound as good as someone they grew up around, or maybe wer’e told at a young age, You don’t have a good voice. There are so many Scriptures we can look to to see it’s not the beauty of the person’s voice, ultimately, that the Lord cares about. It’s the heart that brings the song that he wants. It’s the song of salvation that he’s placed within the heart that he wants to be sung. You hear this admonition to sing throughout Scripture. Singing’s mentioned over 500 times in the Bible—both the Old and New Testaments commend the practice of singing. In the 2004 cinematic masterpiece, Elf, Buddy the elf commends you—“Singing is just like speaking. You just move your voice up and down and louder.” And really, it is that simple, so everyone can be a part of this. You don’t have to be musical to sing. You just want to stand with the people of God and raise your voice in this great redeemed choir.

14:59 - 3 hypothetical Scenarios

Matt Tully
I want to run through three different scenarios. The first one would be: What about someone who just is really struggling with the style of music that their church tends to sing? They wouldn’t say it’s wrong, but it’s just different and it’s hard for them to connect. What would you say to a person in that situation?

Matt Boswell
Well, I would begin by acknowledging that style of music does matter. It’s not a tertiary issue. It does matter. And we each have strong opinions on what music should be. We all have strong passions about music, but I think when it comes to church music and gathering with God’s people, there is this call to lay down our own agenda. We don’t want to come in with our scorecard. We want to come in with an open hand and a ready voice to join in with God’s people, regardless of the style of music. Style does matter, but it just doesn’t matter ultimately. It’s not the greatest decision in why or what we sing. It is to be considered, but there are greater reasons I would want to help focus that person’s attention to. I think that that would be the answer.

Matt Tully
Another possible challenge that someone might feel when it comes to singing in their church would be when they feel like the quality of the music, the quality of the performances, is just maybe suboptimal, subpar, and it’s just a distraction on a regular basis. What would you say to somebody who’s struggling with that in their church?

Matt Boswell
That is a really good questions, and it’s also a fair one. I remember being in a church not too long ago where everything just felt a little below where it should have been. Things weren’t quite as organized as they should have been, and yet there are moments in that service that were deeply moving to me. And so I would be looking for the ways that you can be edified. Chip Stam said a mark of a mature Christian is that they are easily edified. And so I would be looking in the song lyrics that are being sung, looking for truths that I could rehearse and just praise the Lord for. I look around the room, and I’m looking for evidences of God’s grace in the people I’m singing around. I’m seeing that this person is really being ministered to by this song, and so praise God for that. And so I’m trying to look for all the ways that I can rejoice. And yet I recognize that still there may be things that do need to be addressed. Maybe the music director of the church needs to be encouraged to prepare more. Maybe the musicians need the encouragement to spend more time on practicing before church. I recognize that in certain churches, especially smaller churches, you want to allow the gifts that God’s given the church to be used within it. And sometimes there’s a scale to this. Excellence in one church will look different than the next. And so you want there to be this continued drive for us for what we bring to the Lord to be something that’s fitting. And yet each of us are limited in our capacities. Each of us is limited in our giftedness. And so there’s this encouragement to keep pursuing it, keep growing in it, and also with awareness that it does have a lid. And so I would encourage this person to look for all the good things. And then maybe have some conversations with the pastor and with the music director on some of the things that you’re seeing.

Matt Tully
I love that quote about seeking to be a Christian who is easily edified. Across the board and in so many areas, what a mindset for us to cultivate as believers. I also wonder, Matt, what kind of impact do you think the prevalence of constant, at-your-fingertips, professional music has? We’re inundated with the best of the best, and then sometimes I feel like it can maybe set us up for unrealistic expectations when it comes to the normal people (non-professionals) in our church.

Matt Boswell
This is probably where the performance culture in our modern day really disserves what we’re after. Some of my favorite Sundays of the year are twice a year when we bring in the kids of our church to help lead us in song. It’s always wonderful, it’s always encouraging, and it’s part crazy. Something is always going to happen that you can’t foresee.

Matt Tully
Something goes wrong.

Matt Boswell
Yeah. And yet it’s good for us because it reminds us that this isn’t about a performance anyway. This is about the family of God coming together to sing praise to him as one voice. And so sometimes things that don’t go well are some of the best things that can happen to reshape the culture of your church. Meaning, in a sense, we’ve trained Christians in America that in order to have church, you need a drummer, you need a bass player, you need all of these things. And really all we need for corporate worship is the word of God open in the midst of his people, and them responding together. I’m on a group text thread with a bunch of of worship leaders, and a couple of years ago, one of them texted all of us on a Saturday and said, “Hey, I need a bass player for tomorrow. Does someone know someone they could send over?” To which I replied, “You don’t need a bass player for church.” And of course this gets all the smirks from all the young guys. But I really do mean it. There are Sundays where we intentionally and regularly just have our music director and his guitar and that’s it. That’s the only accompaniment. And the next week we’ll have a full six-piece band. But I like the diversity of it. I like the variance of it, because it trains us not to rely on what’s happening on the platform for us to participate in singing. Or to say it differently, it unattaches us from performance culture.

Matt Tully
One last scenario. What if somebody is hearing this and is saying, My issue with our music, though, is I have theological problems with the lyrics. Some of the songs that we’re singing either seem really shallow or I actually think the lyrics are straight up wrong. They’re off. They’re misrepresenting something about our faith that’s really important. What should someone do if they feel like that’s what they’re dealing with?

Matt Boswell
Well, if they felt like the steady diet of the church’s songs was just shallow all the time, I would certainly say it’s worth a conversation. I’m mindful of what Paul writes both in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5, that we’re to sing together psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. And the best New Testament scholar really can’t parse out the variant between those three exactly. But there are patterns that we see. We are meant to be singing the Psalms—the hymn book of God’s people. We’re also meant to sing hymns, and we even find in the witness of the New Testament these Pauline fragments of hymns of the finished work of Christ, who is to be praised. And then this category of spiritual songs, which we might say is just the heart responding to the truth of God, maybe even spontaneously in its original context. And so if the songs of the whole church are just one or the other, maybe we haven’t filled out the picture of what it’s meant to be. But if all of them are feeling flimsy—for example, you know the song that says, “I love you Lord, and I lift my voice to worship you. Oh my soul, rejoice. Take joy, my King, in what you hear. Let it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ear.” There’s not a lot of theology in that song, but there’s a time, coming out of a rich doctrinal hymn, where you almost need to just exhale and sing something like that. And I think the Lord is well pleased when we see seeing very simple things like that. But if the songs of the church are not doctrinally faithful or are going against the warp and woof of Scripture, I would have a conversation with the pastor and with the music director and ask why. What are some of the theological convictions that inform what we sing and how we sing? And maybe even underneath that, I don’t think many churches have an articulated theological vision of singing. they don’t know why we’re singing at all. And so even just regular reminders from church leaders of what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how we’re doing it I think are important. But I think there is a right reason and the right time where it would be worth praying about if this is the right church for you. If you’re constantly frustrated by the lack of doctrinal truth being sung in your local church.

24:16 - How to Approach Your Pastor and Music Director

Matt Tully
What advice would you give to somebody who, whether it’s for these theological reasons or maybe even it’s some of the quality issues, their desire is to love their church, to love their music director and their pastor, and they just feel like they want to talk to them about this. They want to share, in a humble way, what they’re feeling about this music. As someone who’s maybe been on the receiving end of that at some point, what would be some helpful ways that they could go about doing that in a way that, again, serves the pastor and serves the music leader?

Matt Boswell
I think how you approach a conversation like that is everything. Your tone coming in will help set the direction for the conversation. And so you mentioned the word humble. I think that is vital in these conversations. Going in, recognizing we don’t see everything from our perspective. Maybe there are things that are well chosen. Maybe there is good ideology or good convictions behind something that drive this decision or that that we can’t see from first glance. So I think going into that conversation actually wanting to hear what your pastor has to say rather than them listening to what you have to say first would be very important for that conversation.

Matt Tully
I’m sure there’s listeners who would be thinking, If Matt Boswell was leading worship at my church, I would love it. It’d be easy. I’d be happy with this. But have there been times when you have had to field complaints, we’ll say, from people? Speak a little bit to even the mindset that pastors and church leaders should have when they maybe are on the receiving end of this kind of a thing.

Matt Boswell
Well, let me say first that there are certainly people who do not like the music of The Trails Church. They’ve come one time, and they never come again because of the music. I recognize this is an important expression in the spiritual life of people. In fact, when I was asked to write this book, What If I Don’t Like My Church’s Music?, I thought maybe multiple people from our church had emailed 9Marks and said, “We want Matt Boswell to write this because we want to know what he’s thinking.” I think as pastors, one, let me say we are responsible for everything that happens within the gathering of God’s people. Meaning, whether you’re a musician or not, you’re responsible for the music and for what is sung in your church. Even if you’re relying heavily on a music director that you know and trust, which can be wonderful—I have that, and I praise God for that. David Ames leads the music of our church. He does a remarkable job. But still the pastor must be involved. And second, I think even as an expression of pastoral ministry, he needs to help set the vision for what congregational singing means and looks like within each church. And so he’s thought through it some. It’s not something that he’s just unadvisedly or haphazardly walking into, but something that through training and through time with Scripture and even being in his own training within local churches that he’s seen, to then carefully think through what singing will look like in our church.

Matt Tully
How should pastors respond in the moment if someone approaches them either with a valid critique or invalid critique? What’s the other side of this coin of how pastors should respond?

Matt Boswell
When a church member brings a pastor a critique of the music, I would just want to encourage that pastor to make the most of those opportunities as teaching moments. Don’t become defensive. Instead, react appropriately, and make the most of it, teaching and training and showing why it is what we do and how we do it. Hopefully the church member who came with good intention and who came really wanting to know can leave that conversation with deeper understanding, so that the next Sunday when they’re gathered with their church again, singing means more to them than it did the first time.

Matt Tully
Maybe as a final question, as you just think about songs that you might be singing at church these days, is there a song that has stood out to you and that’s been especially meaningful as you’ve heard other people in your church singing it alongside you? Are there a couple that come to your mind that are just encouraging to you right now?

Matt Boswell
We sing “The Doxology” most Sundays, and that never loses its luster for me. I love the way that song just becomes so resonant within a church that sings it regularly.

Matt Tully
Speak to that a little bit. You’re a hymn historian, so you know a lot about the history of many of these classic hymns. What is the backstory of “The Doxology”?

Matt Boswell
“The Doxology” itself is just a little floating, four-line stanza that was then attached to “The Old 100th” from Calvin’s Geneva Psalter. And so that’s the melody we sing it to is from Calvin’s Psalter called “The Old 100th.” And so it’s an interesting pairing of text and tune that we love so much, but that wasn’t how it was originally intended. But it has latched on and is, gratefully, sung by Christians around the world.

Matt Tully
Where did the lyrics come from? I think “The Doxology” lyric is by either Thomas Ken or Keth. But one is Ken, one is Keth, and the truth is somewhere there in the middle. Probably a hymn that has been so rich and meaningful to our church over the last few years is “Yet Not I, but Christ in Me” from our friends down in Australia, CityAlight. And I think just the dependence on the Lord Jesus that it articulates, and yet this hope that is alive within us—this dependent hope, this unwavering hope. Singing that has been such a rich time for our church. Every time I see it on the list, I’m grateful it’s coming up.

Matt Tully
Matt, thank you so much for this encouragement to all of us. I know I feel invigorated and excited to be singing with my church this Sunday. Given all the realities of what that can look like sometimes, it is such a privilege to gather together as God’s people and do that. Thank you for helping us to remember that today.

Matt Boswell
And I just pray for all of our listeners that this Sunday morning, when they walk in and gather with God’s people, they will delight in the privilege it is to sing God’s praises with his people.

Matt Tully
Thanks, Matt.

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