A WEEKLY COLUMN ON MUSIC MINISTRY
This Week — At Ludden Chapel Baptist Church · Sunday, June 7, 2026
Make It Live
A sermon charges the congregation to do something. The closing song has to answer the charge — and you choose it in real time.
By Robert Wright · Music Minister, Ludden Chapel Baptist Church
Sunday morning at Ludden Chapel, Rev. Marcus Davis took us to James 2:14 and handed us a charge before he ever gave us a definition. “If you say faith without works is dead,” he preached, “then make it live.” Then he admitted something a younger preacher will rarely confess: for years he assumed we all understood faith. He had learned better. So he walked us back to the fundamentals.
I was listening the way a musician has to listen — not for the topic, but for where the message was going to land. The song that closes a service is not decoration. It is the last word. It either answers the sermon or it wastes the moment.
He defined faith as believing in the unseen and the unimaginable. He exposed the half-surrender in us — “we want God to use us, but only at our discretion.” He pressed past mere recitation: “Folks don’t need a scripture, they need help.” And he brought it home with a line I intend to keep: “Faith is life, because there is no life without faith.”
Now — what do you sing behind that? Not a song about faith. A song about faith at work. I landed on “I’m Going to Work Until My Day Is Done.” The whole message had been a charge to do something, to stop waiting, to roll up our sleeves. The close had to put a tool in the congregation’s hand, not another definition in their head.
That is the discipline. The program is a guide, not a cage. You listen, you read the room, and when the preacher hands you a charge, you answer it in the key the Spirit is already playing. Make the faith live. Then make the song work.
“A closing song is the last word. It either answers the sermon, or it wastes the moment.”
SONGS THAT PUT FAITH TO WORK
| I’m Going to Work Until My Day Is Done Traditional gospel | The closing selection. It answers the charge directly — faith with its sleeves rolled up, working until the day is done. |
| Faith That Conquers Vanessa Bell Armstrong | Sings the sermon’s own definition back: faith that sees the invisible, expects the incredible, receives the impossible. |
| Lord, Let Me Be an Instrument | For the surrender turn — the answer to “use me, but only at my discretion.” An instrument keeps no discretion of its own. |
The Choir Stand Pulpit · A weekly column for musicians, song leaders, and worshipers · By Robert Wright
