How do Christians worship? Singing is an important part of Church life for Christians. We see different types of Christians worship including a Cathedral choir and an Evangelical congregation.
NATHAN: Christians worship God in many ways.
EVERYONE: Amen.
We believe that God is involved in our worship and it's a way for us to communicate with him. In many churches everyone sings together to worship God. In others the music is sung by a choir. At Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral the choir spend a lot of time practising. It is a big commitment because you rehearse over five times a week. It's very important to practise because we need to give the best performance to the Cathedral and all the congregation.
NATHAN: It's important the choir sing well because God is listening.
CHOIR SINGS
You really do feel God's presence while you're singing and all the congregation are taken aback sometimes when you sing.
CHOIR SINGS
I think God really does like hear us because singing is a prayer and we do like want to praise God and we just love singing.
NATHAN: Worship can be traditional and rehearsed or upbeat and spontaneous. God hears and enjoys it all.
UPBEAT SINGING
Kirsty is 12.
Hi I'm Kirsty."
Three six nine The goose drank wine…
NATHAN: She loves singing and dancing. At Kirsty's church the music is very lively.
GOSPEL MUSIC
I enjoy listening and being able to sing along with the music and it's just really fun. You can feel free to like just dance and have a good time whilst you're praising God.
NATHAN: We use worship to talk to God.
KIRSTY: The reason we worship through music is because it's an easy way to interact with God and through worship it's like giving thanks for everything that he's done over the week. And then also it's a way of saying 'Please help me.'
NATHAN: Talking to God is like talking to a friend. Our conversations might be happy or sad.
KIRSTY: Sometimes you get the really slow songs that just like… that just make you think a bit more about why you're worshiping. SLOWER SINGING
But then you get the more upbeat and more like energetic and noisier kind of songs that make you just feel like dancing. I think God appreciates it when we sing because it's a way of thanking him and showing that we're grateful for everything that he does.
GOSPEL MUSIC
Video summary
Different types of Christians worship in different ways and singing is an important part of many Church services.
Christians believe that singing helps them communicate with God.
It enables them to express many emotions including thanks, joy and sorrow.
Many Churches have choirs who lead the congregation in song.
We meet young choristers from the Roman Catholic Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral who use traditional music and wear matching dress.
We also meet 12 year old Kirsty who attends Temple Praise, a Charismatic church.
She talks about how much fun she has singing and dancing to the music.
This clip is from the series My Life, My Religion: Christianity.
Teacher Notes
The visuals and soundtrack of this clip are worth close attention: ask pupils what music they like best in the clip, and why.
Play some examples of musical worship from different traditions and challenge the children: why is this music used by some people to worship God?
What does the music mean? What moods and emotions seem to go with the music?
Ask pupils if they had to choose some music that was spiritual (for them?) what would they choose for emotions like joy, thinking deeply, sad times, togetherness or wonder.
This topic will be relevant to teaching Religious Education at KS2 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and National 2 or 3 in Scotland.
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