Skip to main content

Singing

One of the things many have missed over the last 16 months or so in church life has been congregational, corporate singing. Initially it was because we were not able to gather, but now many churches are gathering "in person", but singing is still off the agenda, due to the way the coronavirus spreads.

As a musician and someone who has led sung worship for more years than I would like to confess, I too miss the sound and feeling of a congregation passionately praising God in song. I think Eugene Peterson put it well:
"Because God, and therefore the worship of God cannot be reduced to the rational, song has always been the basic act of worship. Music is not added to words to make them more pleasing; it is integral to the way words are being used as openings to the transcendent, as windows to the mystery, as joining in the dance of the Trinity"

Some congregations are singing outside, others I'm sure are swerving the guidelines in different ways. But it does concern me that the guidance on singing has become a reason for another iteration of the "persecution" narrative, or at least a source of lament that churches are not privileged or prioritised in the way some may have hoped.

2 recent articles: https://www.premierchristianity.com/regular-columnists/enough-is-enough-its-time-to-let-christians-sing-again/4408.article?

https://www.eauk.org/news-and-views/churches-muted-by-government-inconsistency-and-intransigence?

But as one twitter user remarked, on the 2nd article here:

"Churches have not been muted, they have just been asked to protect their members through not singing indoors, this does not mean that churches have been muted!" (@Urbanmonk73)

Maybe it is another opportunity to show that we really do believe that worship is more than singing. Or for churches to continue to be creative and express worship in other ways.

Yes, coroporate singing is important, wonderful, and inspiring (or at least it can be!).

But is it really the most pressing issue right now, especially until we know just how safe it is?


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hypermarket or corner store?

 Many years ago it seemed to me that churches were heading the way of supermarkets! Either large "hypermarkets": stock everything, well staffed, bright but impersonal, or corner shops: local, convenient, potentially connecting personally but limited offering. The struggle is the middle size, not quite one thing but not quite the other. Maybe it feels uncomfortable to speak of churches in such consumer, market driven terms. But for the UK church that is in many ways the reality. These 2 articles, from quite different "tribes", articulate some of the issues this raises: https://www.londonseminary.org/goodbye-local-church/ https://www.baptist.org.uk/Articles/663265/What_would_it.aspx  
Post a Comment
Read more

Opportunity or Threat?

 It's amazing to still be hearing some church and ministry leaders talk as if online is a threat to church as we used to know it! The reality is that church as we used to know it, pre-Covid has gone. Online was not just something we did for the pandemic, but is here to stay. Yes there is a danger that it creates consumers and spectators, but then many of our models of church were doing that anyway. Part of the issue, I think, is the rush to equate online with streaming what happens in the building. The rhetoric then becomes around those who can't or won't  return (and I have heard it said with an slight air of superiority, are too "fearful"). But digital engagement can be so much more, an opportunity to connect in new ways, to communicate beyond our boundaries. As Brady Shearer and others have said, Social Media is not about advertising ministry, it is  ministry. So what if we stopped talking in terms of threat and started thinking in terms of opportunity. What if...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Memory of Faith

 It is common to think of the UK as "post-Christendom", or even post-Christian. Census and surveys paint a picture of church decline. Faithfully following Jesus, yet alone seeing those from outside the church come to faith can be tough. Daniel Strange describes it this way: "The good news of Jesus is deeply implausible  in our culture at the moment...the cultural air they have breathed all their lives has shaped them to assume Christianity is irrelevant, untrue and intolerant" ("Plugged In", p32). Yet the memory of faith lingers, in music, in culture, and beyond in ways that keep popping up. I was recently at a secular event where the crowd participation moment was to get those gathered to join in singing "Come and go with me to my Father's house". It was quite something to hear the room belting out the words of there being joy in the Father's house forever! Did anyone even notice the good news they were singing? This weekend was Glastonb...
Post a Comment
Read more