On Music: Singing a New Song to the Lord

Patrick Evans

There are few things that permeate most people’s lives in nearly every cultural group across the globe as thoroughly as music, and this has likely never been truer than in current days, when the majority of us carry pocket computers holding thousands of songs, with Internet access to seek out thousands more. Listening to music on a regular basis is such a near-universal human experience, and yet, commodified consumer culture around music sends a powerful message: unless you have a recording contract, are an American Idol finalist, or have a conservatory degree, you should leave the music making to those who do. Unfortunately, many of our congregational cultures have years of tradition to emphasize this external cultural message—we entrust, rightly, the planning and making of music to the organist, choir director, cantor, worship leader, praise band, or soloist, but we also may tend toward leaving all the singing to these leaders, with hopes that some in the pews or chairs will join in by the third verse, but without necessarily proclaiming an active theological statement or strategy that counteracts the broader cultural message and proclaims what John Bell of the Iona Community calls the eleventh  commandment, which appears multiple times throughout the Psalms: Sing a new song to the Lord, all the earth.¹

What then, when we think of liturgy as the work of the people, shall we say about these things regarding congregational song? I know I am literally preaching to the choir here; readers may have fully participatory congregational singing as a high priority, but does the average worshiper in the pews? How can we engage reluctant worshipers in the life-changing act of joining their voices with the saints of every time and place?

First, many of the people in our pews have been disincentivized from raising their voices in public not only by the aforementioned performance culture (and perhaps within the walls of the church by a similar “leave it to the pros” ethos), but also by personal experience—the sixth grade general music teacher who told them to just mouth the words, the humorous but perhaps not helpful testimony from a pastor that all they were able to contribute was a joyful noise, or other life events which lead to silence. Pastoral musicians must do this excavation work and remove barriers that stand in the way of full participation. We can be proactive in proclaiming the liturgical and theological imperative that every voice is valued and needed in the people’s song. 

What we sing, how we sing, and how we invite people to sing matters greatly. Singing has an indelible power to connect text to tune and both to memory in a way that transcends time and age. This is why we have songs in elementary school to teach the alphabet and multiplication tables (I can to this day recall the tune to “Four times seven is twenty-eight,” and I am nearing sexagenarianism.) How many of us have stories like mine with my grandmother, who towards the end of her life would get to about the fourth word of what she wanted to say and repeat that word multiple times, unable to continue, but when I sang “It’s very clear” to her, she could respond by singing “our love is here to stay” and never get the Rockies crumbling and Gibraltar tumbling mixed up in that beloved Gershwin song, which was popular when she and my grandfather were young?² The lived theology we call on in time of trouble or in time of decline is not necessarily what we have read or heard from the pulpit, or what we have seen from a television evangelist. It is the theology we have sung. We live in a culture in which it’s easy to opt out, and we are not doing all we can to fully equip the saints for the living of their days.

Recognizing that we all have limited time (a daylong workshop would be a luxury!), I address two methods for cultivating full participation here: creating a learning culture and the use of the choir or leader(s) in the worship space. Many of our congregations have active Sunday schools, book groups, and small discussion cultures—learning and discussing and growing in our understanding is an important underpinning of our lives together. However, in many cases, once we enter the worship space, we must do what we’ve always done because preparing to do something differently would require words or actions that would interrupt the flow of worship. For those who have been disempowered from their own voices, an organ introduction or a four-chord turnaround from the band is not enough to actively engage them. I often actively proclaim this to my folks: “If singing a new song to the Lord is a faithful act of worship, then preparing to sing a new song is also a faithful act of worship.” Taking a few minutes at the beginning of the service to, in a concise manner, teach a new melody using call-and-response, using theological language to actively invite all to sing can create a pattern of teaching and learning that is perfectly appropriate to corporate worship. If your congregational worship is more formal so that it’s not possible, having the choir sing a verse as an introit, or having a cantor or choir sing the first verse of a new hymn or song, with a note in the bulletin inviting full singing, is also a useful technique for cultivating full participation.

In one of my congregations, we were staging Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors in Advent (with the requisite weekly prayer that our Amahl’s voice wouldn’t change before Advent IV), and one of my choir shepherds, after rehearsing their entrance, boldly proclaimed, “Well, this isn’t really much more running around than you have us doing every Sunday!” I had realized from some more experienced church musicians that disengaged singers are more likely to risk joining their voices in the people’s song when they hear a stronger leading voice within four feet or so of them. This meant that what had originally been a procession through the pews on the first verse of the opening hymn eventually became a procession in which they stayed through all four verses, the Prayer of Confession, and Assurance of Pardon, so singing a new Gloria before the Passing of the Peace was fully supported. Also, after the offertory, they’d go into the congregation during the doxology, sitting strategically among them for the Affirmation response and most of the closing hymn, before encircling the congregation for the Choral Benediction. To be clear, mobility of choir members is certainly a consideration, as are stairs and balconies, but most of us could engage at least part of the choir or band or soloists in some physical relocation as we develop a teaching and learning culture for the sake of ensuring that all are welcome and given the musical tools needed to do the work of the people in singing a new (or ancient) song to the Lord.

Notes

1. John L. Bell, The Singing Thing: A Case for Congregational Song (Chicago: GIA Publications, 2000). 

2. George and Ira Gershwin, “Love Is Here to Stay” (New York: Chappel & Co., 1938).