Has Your Congregation Stopped Singing?

By Robin G. Jordan

One of yesterday’s posts, “Worshiping a Limitless God with Limited Resources,” prompted me to give thought to the state of congregational singing in North America. It has fallen to a low point in a growing number of churches. At the same time a growing number of churches are experiencing a resurgence of congregational singing. Overall, congregational singing is not what it could be or should be.

In many churches the guitar has become the instrument of choice for worship gatherings due to the influence of various forms of popular music. However, the guitar is not a good instrument for accompanying congregational singing unless the musician playing the guitar can sing, can carry a tune, and has a strong voice. It is not enough that he or she is a competent musician. The guitarist must also be a competent vocalist, or singer. This is most evident when the guitarist is the sole accompanist for the congregational singing.

The congregation does not pick up the melody of the hymn or worship song from the chords the guitarist is playing on the guitar. The congregation picks it up from the guitarist’s singing of the hymn or worship song. The guitarist’s playing of the guitar actually provides accompaniment to the guitarist’s singing of the hymn or worship song, not to the congregation’s.

When a church has a band or music group, the congregation picks up the melody from the group’s vocalists’ singing of the hymn or worship song. For this reason, it is critical that whoever selects the songs for worship gatherings chooses songs with a strong melody and the vocalists, when singing the songs, stick to the melody. The songs should be also repeated with sufficient frequency that they become familiar to the congregation.

The group’s vocalists, like choirs of the past, may complain of boredom when they are asked to sing this type of song over and over again. They want to demonstrate their virtuosity. However, a core repertoire of songs of this type is essential to encouraging a congregation to sing. One of the ways that we discourage congregations from singing is by using songs that they cannot sing.

The best instruments for accompanying congregational singing is a well-tuned, upright piano or a good quality electronic keyboard played on the piano setting. The sound from an upright piano goes outward while the sound from a baby grand goes upward. The notes of the melody of a hymn or worship song are sharper and consequently easier for the congregation to hear and follow when played on the piano or the piano setting of an electronic keyboard than they are an organ or the organ setting of the keyboard.

While few people gather around a piano and sing like they once did in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, many people still sing. They sing along with the songs of their favorite artists while listening to them on a smart phone or other portable electronic device or watching them on a video. They also sing along with the songs played on various electronic karaoke devices.

Churches have been slow to use modern technology to encourage congregational singing. While churches record sermons and post them on their websites, they do not do the same with the hymns and worship songs they are using. Jamie Brown has posted on his blog Worthily Magnify a video teaching the congregation of his church a new communion setting.

Cradle of Prayer offers tutorials for a selection of the Daily Office canticles. These tutorials include recordings of various chant settings of these canticles sung by a cantor without musical accompaniment. Click “Canticle Tutor” at the top of the page and a menu will drop down listing the canticles for which the website has tutorials.

Electronic recordings of most of the tunes of the hymns in The Lutheran Book of Worship can be downloaded from the website Lutheran Hymnal.Com. Small Church Music.Com has electronic recordings of a long list of hymn tunes. These recordings may be downloaded free of charge. They include the music group accompaniments to these tunes as well as organ and piano. Small Church Music.Com also has links to recordings of hymn tunes on a number of other websites. These recordings may be downloaded for a small fee. The hymn tunes are not in the public domain.

YouTube has videos of a number of hymns and worship songs. These videos feature the melody of the tune accompanied by the words of the song. They vary in quality. Some are quite good; others are abysmal.

I have not so far come across a church website that regularly posts electronic recordings or videos of the songs that it is using in its worship gatherings—recordings and videos that attendees of these worship gatherings can access from their smart phone or other portable electronic device. We have all kinds of technology at our fingertips but we seem unable to use it to help the local church and the larger community to discover the beauty of congregational singing.

Yes, congregational singing is beautiful. It may not sound beautiful to some ears but it is beautiful. It is the sound of God’s people lifting up their voices in praise and adoration of the One who called them out of darkness into his marvelous light. It is the sound of a congregation of the faithful, in the words of the apostle Paul, “speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music from your heart to the Lord…” Ephesians 5:19, HCSB.

Encouraging congregational singing, however, does not require technology any more than worshiping God in song requires musical instruments and sound systems. How many churches have tried a good old-fashioned congregational hymn sing? How many churches have congregational rehearsals in which the congregation learns and practices the new songs that they will be asked to sing?

Both congregational hymn sings and congregational rehearsals convey the message that congregational singing is important. With a little careful planning congregational hymn sings can be a lot of fun. Combined with a meal and a nursery for infants and toddlers, they provide a congregation with an opportunity to learn one or two new songs, to practice a couple of unfamiliar ones, and to reacquaint themselves with some old favorites. Among the benefits of congregational hymn sings is that they provide opportunities for community-building. They also reinforce a sense of continuity with the past. For this reason children should be encouraged to participate with their parents or other caretakers. They will be exposed to the rich tradition of congregational singing that has been a characteristic of Anglican and other Protestant churches since the Reformation.

Congregational rehearsals can be conducted before or after a service. A few minutes before the service on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, or a weeknight can be devoted to learning and practicing a new hymn or worship song or new service music. It can form a part of the gathering process which begins as people prepare to go to church and culminates in the first act of worship of the service. This process turns a loose aggregate of people into a worshipping assembly, the body of Christ at prayer.

If a congregation rehearsal is held after to the service, it is a good idea to combine it with a meal. Adequate notice of the rehearsal should be given ahead of time. A nursery should be provided for infants and toddlers. A week or two before a new liturgical season is a good time to have a congregational rehearsal. The rehearsal can be used to introduce new service music as well as new hymns and worship songs that will be used in the new season and to go over songs that the congregation has not sung for a while.

Congregational hymn sings and congregational rehearsals emphasize the importance not only of congregational singing but also of the congregation’s contribution to the service. They convey the message that those who attend the church’s services are participants and not consumers.

It is noteworthy that whenever the church has experienced a spiritual renewal of some kind whether in the form of a reformation or a revival or some other movement of the Holy Spirit, it has also experienced a resurgence of congregational singing. During the earlier part of the reign of Elizabeth I when the English Reformation which had been suppressed during the reign of Elizabeth’s older sister Mary was once more able to flower, huge crowds numbering into the thousands gathered at King’s Cross to sing metrical psalms for the better part of the day. Housewives as they performed their daily chores and ploughmen as they tilled the soil sung them. Elizabeth derisively referred to their tunes as “Geneva jigs” but authorized their use before and after services and before and after sermons.

Just as encouraging congregational singing does not require technology, worshiping God in song does not require musical instruments or sound systems. Both Scotland and the United States have churches that have a tradition of singing without accompaniment. Among these churches are the Churches of Christ, which are well-represented here in Kentucky and in neighboring Tennessee. The Churches of Christ congregations typically have one or more song leaders or choruses that begin each hymn or worship song and lead the congregational singing.

A number of the Churches of Christ congregations preserve the tradition of the shaped-note singing schools which were popular in the nineteenth century. They use shaped-note hymnals. Benton, Kentucky, which is about 18 miles north of Murray, is the site of the Big Sing, an annual gathering of Southern Harmony enthusiasts. Southern Harmony is one of the oldest shaped-note hymn collections. The Big Sing is held on the third Sunday in May of each year. The participants devote the morning to practicing and the afternoon to singing. The Big Sing is open to the public.

Unaccompanied congregational singing is not confined to churches in Scotland and the United States. Eastern Orthodox churches generally do not use musical instruments in their services. Their liturgical singing is vocal music. They also sing a large part of their services.

A number of African congregations also sing without any form of accompaniment except for rhythmical foot stamping. These congregations sing in four part harmony! Those who lead the congregational singing lead it from the midst of the congregation and are undistinguishable from the other members of the congregation.

Inviting the congregation to occasionally sing a familiar hymn or worship song without any accompaniment allows the members of the congregation to hear themselves singing as a congregation. It can be an effective way of reinforcing their singing.

Congregations that do not sing but listen to others sing may be an aberration—a Western aberration. In the Western Church the cathedral choir and the monastic choir would take over the role of the congregation as the chief musical instrument of the church in the Middle Ages. Since that time the pendulum has swung back and forth between the congregation singing and the choir or some other group singing, between the untrained voices of the congregation and the trained voices of the professional or semi-professional chorister or vocalist. In the Middle Ages more devote attendees at Mass said their own private devotions while the choir sang polyphonic songs and the priest inaudibly recited the service. The less devote attendees chatted quietly to each other or nodded off to sleep.

We appear to have returned to that time except the band or music group has replaced the choir. The attendees sing along with the band’s vocalists, listen to the group, gaze intently at the tiny glowing screens of their smart phones, or as I have on at least one occasion observed kiss and fondle each other with abandon. The young couple in question was trying to provoke a reaction from those around them.

What we are increasingly seeing in a growing number of churches is what may be described as parallel worship. Parallel worship is like the parallel play in which small children engage before they learn to play with each other. They play in each other’s presence but they do not play together. Parallel worship, however, is not corporate worship. The band on the platform and the people in the congregation may be worshiping in the same room but they are not worshiping together. Corporate worship by its very nature requires the active participation of the entire assembly in each act of worship.

This participation may differ with each act of worship. For example, the congregation may listen attentively while a lector reads a passage of Scripture and then reflect upon what has been read during the silence that follows the Scripture reading. They may join with the cantor, choir, or music group in singing an acclamation of praise before the next Scripture reading. The way they are taking part may change but they are taking part.

One of the first things that a friend of mine noticed when she visited our local Episcopal church one Sunday was the high level of congregational participation in the service. She had never experienced corporate worship. She was impressed.

At her church parallel worship is the rule of the day. Attendees at its worship gathering have the option of singing along with the band, listening to the band, or entertain themselves in some fashion during the band’s worship set. The worship set precedes the sermon. Its purpose is not so much to worship God in song but to prepare the congregation for the main event of the service—the sermon. A video buffer sometimes ties the worship set and the sermon together. The only other elements in the service are the collection of an offering, a short prayer, and the dismissal. The latter is brief, usually along the lines of “See you all next Sunday.

Before we pat ourselves on the back and say to ourselves, “We are not doing anything like that at our church,” we need to ask ourselves, “What are we doing to engage our congregation in singing the hymns, worship songs, and service music? What we doing to encourage their active participation in the other acts of worship in the service?” “Are we intentional in the way that we introduce new songs to the congregation?” “Do we give the congregation sufficient time to master a new song before we introduce another new song?”

“Are we keeping to a minimum the long unrelieved portions of the service that provide little opportunity for congregational participation?” Are we judiciously applying the important liturgical principle that less is more, eliminating redundant elements of the service?”

For example, do we really need to begin every Holy Communion service with a hymn, the Collect for Purity, an introit psalm, the Decalogue, the Summary of the Law, the Kyries, the Collect for grace to keep the Commandments, and the Collect of the Day? Do we really need to drag out what is an unnecessarily long part of the service in the first place? Would not a hymn, the Collect for Purity, the Decalogue or the Summary of the Law and the Kyries, and the Collect of the Day suffice?

What about inviting the congregation to join in the Collect for Purity as they do the Prayer of Humble Access and the Post-Communion Prayer?” What about making the lengthy Prayer for Whole State of Christ’s Church more participatory by making a minor adjustment to the prayer and adding a versicle and response after each section of the prayer such Lord in thy mercy: Hear our prayer? These are the sort of questions that we should be asking ourselves.

It is also worth mentioning that the Anglican tradition of church music holds two divergent traditions in tension. One is the tradition of congregational singing. The other tradition may be described as the cathedral choral tradition. In the first tradition the people in the pews or on the chairs or benches and in some Japanese Anglican churches on the mats on the floor are the congregation and their voices are the congregation’s principal musical instrument. In the second tradition the choristers in their stalls in the choir of the cathedral are the congregation and its principal musical instrument. While the people in the nave of the cathedral may be invited to join in the hymns, they are not the congregation. They are spectators. Choral Evensong is the most widely-known expression of that tradition. While hymns may be sung in cathedrals, college chapels, and parish churches, cathedral choral music is best performed in cathedrals and college chapels. We do not want to repeat the mistake of the Oxford Movement and suppress congregational singing and try to introduce the cathedral choral tradition in the parish church. Most churches do not have the trained voices and the acoustics to pull it off. When we give too larger place to the choir, we also deny the people their place in the music of the church.

The Anglican tradition of congregational singing may have had a lowly beginning. It started with the humble metrical psalm but was enriched with metrical settings of the Prayer Book canticles and other Prayer Book texts. It has been further enriched with hymns and spiritual songs. It is a tradition that we should cherish, a tradition that we should pass on to our children and grandchildren. It is a tradition that is a part of our Anglican heritage.