What am I doing wrong?

It is great that you want to reach people with your singing. It is great that you want to be well prepared and I know God is pleased with your effort to be prepared.

Are you really wanting to please God, or get accolades from men for your singing?

I don't quite understand the part about what women can do.

God answers prayer in one of four ways:
Direct
Delayed
Denied
Different

Are you not good, strong, faithful or knowledgeable enough?

Are you trying to take more on yourself than you need to?

 

What reaches into people's souls is not your voice. I fear you may be attaching too much emphasis to that. The Word of God is what is needed. Music can help that in some ways, but it is limited, and cannot take its place.

I would get yourself under the teaching ministry of a solid church where the pastor preaches expositionally. I would develop relationships with godly older women who can disciple you and help you find your gifts and use them in the local church.

 

Sopranette,

yes, working for God is certainly a work in progress, you're right! And remember, if any song is going to touch people's hearts it will be because the HOly Spirit is working in the hearts of the people......He can do this through the most fumbling, weak, off-key voice in the congregation. Your skill is not necessary for God to work in their heart. And I hope you understand what I mean by that......not that you should not try to do your best, but do not rely on your talent in place of your walk with God.

When you understand God's message and really understand what the song means than you can express it with your voice with true feeling. Dont work harder at perfecting your vocal cords than you work on your own personal devotions. (Don't know that you do, just a caution).

The reason I specify this is because of your earlier example about the lady that knew all about religions? Im a singer too, I would not have sung her a song. I would have given her some Bible verses and talked with her about Jesus.
Plus you need to be careful not to compare yourselves to others and assume that they were wrong. It could be that the ladies visiting her had no answers that pleased the lady.......that does not mean that they had no answers at all. Know what I mean? Some people just refuse to accept any answer we give them.

 

This is true, and it is also why one must be very careful with music. It does communicate with words, and the words are often secondary to the music. With people that don't understand the English, the music can falsely communicate. I would recommend with people who not speak the language of the words of hte music, that music be used very carefullly.

 

Sopranette,

I admire your vim and vigor. Remain open minded, and keep in mind that God's timing is different from ours. Most of all, be willing to meet God where He is. Sometimes we expect him to meet us where we are, but it doesn't work that way.

Kudos for using your talents for the Lord! Keep up the good work.

 

As I am so-called PB ( we don't call ourselves like that) which practice NT teachings very strictly, we allow no woman to preach inside the church or stand up for the public prayers. But on the other hand I often encountered a question asking myself whether we are prohibiting the women believers from working for God.

My thoughts reached that most of the activities are still possible for the women believers while they still stick to the NT teachings. I am not talking about Joyce Meyer style preachings.

1 Pet 2:5-9 which tells us the Priesthood of the believers still applies to the women believers as well.
Biblically women are allowed to preach the Gospel to the unbelievers, to the neighbors. They can teach children, they can pray for the church, family, and for the missionary, Elderly women believers should teach young woman believers.

The famous story about Gladys Aylward remind us that the Holy Spirit worked with such woman missionary, and the history tells us that the great woman believers witnessed the Truth when the persecution was terrible as we see in Hubmeier's wife case. Many hymnal songs are written by women believers and many man believers are trusting and following them.

What a blessing would it be if one can sing songs or play musical instruments for the Lord!
Sometimes, simple Bible messages can be well prepared and condensed into short verses to form Gospel songs which can preach the Gospel very effectively.

I believe 1 Tim 3:16 states the Gospel Song of the Early Church in 1st century, which Paul quoted in his letter to Timothy.

The key point is that Women believers can work for the Lord greatly while they are still keeping faithful to NT teachings.

I believe that Ann Ross Cousin witnessed about the Lord very well.

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/o/c/ocwbubth.htm

Do you think she is behind any man?

Read about Gladys Aylward

http://www.trentyoungs.dorset.sch.uk/children/JOURNEYS/Gladys_Aylwarx.html

http://www.tlogical.net/bioaylward.htm


You need good preparations, because God trains the believers strongly and severely in the wilderness of this world, to make great servants.

 

Of course, it applies to the church meetings , and any activities inside the church. What about preaching to your neighbors and to any friends in your jobsites?
In our case, sometimes a sister preaches the Gospels to the acquaintances, then when a brother comes in, she hands over to him. But in general there is no restriction in preaching the Gospel. Otherwise, men are preventing the women believers from contributing for the Lord.

Sometimes, women believers notice the men preachers are preaching absolutely wrong messages, do they have to be quiet because they are just women? I don't encourage them to do anything like a protest but, if it is not inside the church and they are given the chance, they can tell the Truth according to the Bible. If it happened inside the church, the church must take the action properly. Otherwise, the women believers should find out other church which practice correctly according to the Bible.

When another group of women talks about the wrong belief and pagan religion, should the women believers be quiet? But Paul commended Tim to preach the Word in season or out of season. Othewise, women may resort to the consolation of the idle life.

But, as I said, everything should be pursued within the Biblical teachings. One day I was greatly impressed when I met a sister in 50's and she explained the difference between Textus Receptus and other Greek Texts. She was very much ready and prepared to preach the Gospel at any circumstances.

 

I agree mostly. So, we have to limit any preaching only with the guidance of Holy Spirit. On the other hands, Gifts are developed with the efforts when it is stirred up. So, Paul told Tim " thou stir up the Gift of God" ( 2 Tim 1:6).
When we were born again in the Lord Jesus by Holy Spirit, we have entered the new world of enormous possibility as long as we are obedient to the guidance by the Holy Spirit. The actual experience and the testimony are the main subjects to exchange each other rather than the theory.

 

Today I was asked by a very old sister at the chapel, about 1 Corinthians 11:5. Can women pray and prophesy? There in verse 5 of 1 Cor 11, apparently Woman need a head covering when she prays and/or prophesy.

As she asked about the Greek background, I mentioned it is not the translation but the transliteration from propheteusa. Now the question is " can woman publicly prophesy in the church?" I don't think so.

I would interpret it as the participation in the prophesy,and the witnessing about the Old Testament was the prophesy of the first coming of Jesus Christ, and NT sermons are the prophesy of the second coming of JC. So, in general the preaching of Gospel is the prophesying.

However, I believe that God created man and woman equally and I expect there will be great women believers in the presence of God on the Day of Judgment, who died without names known to the public, while many famous Christians may be ashamed.

When Bible said all the believers are the Priests ( 1 Peter 2:5-9), all men and women believers are included there.

Today many women scholars teach students at the Universities, and many of them teach wrong information to the students. Of course men can refute about it.

My daughter took the course on the Dead Sea Scrolls, but the woman professor was a Catholic, and she hated any remark that Apocrypha should not be trusted if it contradict Bible, or that the Hebrew Masoretic Text is more accurate than Septuagint etc.( which is connected with Catholic Apocrypha)

If Catholic women can tell and teach their belief to the University Students, or if even Muslim woman professor teaches some cultural things ( as University of Toronto is very much multi-cultural), then should we still say that the ladies of our church should remain silent about the belief?

I don't think so. On the contrary, I believe the True Christian believers should be more inteligent and knowledgeable to refute any heresies very effectively and wisely, and the women unbelievers can often be persuaded by the women true believers more effectively than by men believers.

Many muslim women discover many problems with the Islam culture and women's right among their society after they came into Canada. In that case, should only men pastors preach the Gospel to Muslim women? You know Muslim culture there! We have a prison ministry and there are women prisoners as well.

Even in that case, I don't think it is the Bible teaching that women should be titled as "Pastors". ( Actually our Plymouth Brethren don't have even men Pastors). Just simply working as a sister is enough. In other words, there are still many ways for the ladies to serve the Lord while still they keep the Bible teachings.

As this thread is about the Music. I would like to share my experience. I personally know several Gospel singers who are surely born again in the Lord. But even among them there is a great difference in the level of Spiritual depth. Only one lady singer gives enormous spiritual strength to the listeners, IMO, though the others are not bad. I passed one of her tape and CD to my relative in Sanfrancisco who is a Catholic, then she told me that she likes it very much and enjoy the peace while she is driving, and that she agrees with the Gospel.

I think Christian music depends on the Spiritual depth very much, and if the singing doesn't have the spiritual depth and strength, I would treat them the same as the secular music, which may be too harsh comment.
As I don't envy Emperor Nero, I would not envy such talent without Faith.
In this era of Lukewarm faith, we need some strong faith inserted into the music, which may be achieved by prayer and by reading Bible and good Christian books, and by living the life of Jesus Christ.