How does a Fellow Get There?

Issue 10

I am occasionally asked by various people in various churches various questions generally circling the question of “How do we get our church to sing?”

There can be many ways in which the church has lost its strength of voices during Sunday morning worship. On the surface, lack of enthusiasm lies with the congregation or with the leadership or both. Even in churches which have recently employed the classical style of metrical psalms and hymns, there is sometimes a profound lack of ability or desire to sing with a robust joy.

Across the broad spectrum of reformed evangelical churches, there is one basic cause to the inability and discomfort in this area: We have neglected our duty to sing, sing well, and teach our children to do the same, and we are now reaping the consequences. The church doesn’t sing because we have traded in our offering of musical prayer for personal entertainment and amusement. After decades of this practice, we and our children have become musically illiterate.

That’s the bad news. Fortunately, we live under a gracious Lord, and if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Unfortunately, there are very few churches who actually want to act upon the doctor’s orders. They want to be able to sing on their own terms, using their own style, and they want to pin the entirety of the blame upon the congregation who just doesn’t seem to be getting into it. Maybe this is a good thing—after all, it’s not a good thing when men enjoy castrating themselves by singing emotive, feminine lyrics.

We have already covered why the modern style is inadequate for corporate worship, so I will focus here on what the leadership in a church must do in order to regain our musical heritage. If a particular congregant or family within a church is not impressed with the songs sung on Sunday morning, there are basically three options: A) move to a church that performs robust worship, B) reform the church you find yourself in until it does, or C) start your own church. Unless you have a lot of local clout behind you and unless you are qualified for eldership and unless you have a relationship built with a potential parent church you can submit to, option C is likely not possible or advisable.

Instead, most people would be better off, after careful prayer and consideration, to either move to a church which they consider to be following God more fully or help their own church get there.

Pastors and elders, on the other hand, have more options available to them, one of which is to lead their congregation in repentance of wrongdoing and start making changes. However, this often involves a shrinking of the church as the folks who are not enthusiastic about such repentance decide to leave and find a more comforting place in which to reside. Even with a relatively understanding congregation, much care must be taken to simply change the style of worship.

On the other hand, people are not stupid. Somehow we have figured out how to adjust to an industrial revolution, the digital era, wars, plagues, and moving from Omaha to Sioux City. We are not as inflexible as many people seem to think—it just takes some confidence and interpersonal intelligence to make change an acceptable route to follow.

Switching from a full-blown modern worship style singing praise choruses using a guitar and drums to a classical style of metered psalms and hymns is a large shift, but it is not by any means impossible. The key is to eat this elephant one bite at a time and from all sides at once. It should be a joint effort between the pastors, elders, and congregation, each with clear duties—while being understanding of the current rut everyone is likely in.

Starting with the pastors, much preaching is due to educate people on what the purpose and function of singing is—how it is an offering before God as we come into His very presence, how it must reflect this truth, and how it is an instrument and act of spiritual warfare. The Psalms are full of examples in what congregational duties of singing and proclamation should contain—edification to the congregation (Psalm 22:22), repentance (Psalm 25:7, 32:5, 38:18, 41:4, 51:2-4,), calling God to action (Psalm 3:7, 7:9, 10:15, 13:1, 17:13, 74:22, 82:2), blessings upon God’s people (Psalm 2:12, 16:7, 26:12, 28:9,) and curses upon His enemies (Psalm 7:9, 10:2, 31:17, 141:10), praise (Psalm 7:17, 9:5, 18:3, 22:22, 27:6, 34:1), and thanksgiving (Psalm 7:17, 9:1, 18:49, 28:7, 30:4, 35:18, 52:9). To prime a congregation so that it is ready to take on the endeavor of learning how to sing and thereby perform these tasks, pastors and elders should preach, educate, and personally assist the congregation in the following ways.

Teach against bad entertainment

The reason why so many people within the church are content and even happy with the garbage that is now commonplace in our worship is because we ourselves intake similar garbage every day of the week outside of church. Let’s not kid ourselves—the same people who enjoy soft, cuddly modern worship tunes are likely not listening to great works of classical music throughout the rest of the week. In fact, if one were to take a survey, he would find that most people are listening to the same or worse styles every day. It’s no wonder that most churches have slid into poor worship—it is because we have dwelt much in poor sources of inspiration. Thus when people come into the assembly of the Lord, which has been stripped of its former glory by our own churches, they wrongly assume that the music in church has the same purpose of entertainment as the music they listen to in the background at work.

We are not a people who can listen to excrement all week and expect to offer something other than excrement as a living and holy sacrifice before the Lord when we come before Him on Sunday morning. We reap what we sow. Unfortunately, most people assume that if they adeptly and starkly compartmentalize their musical intake, anything goes outside of church. Pastors and elders are in a wonderful position to change the mindset people have towards what they allow themselves to intake on a daily basis.

Encourage the learning of instruments befitting congregational worship.

One of the common objections I hear—right alongside the statement that we have a contemporary style in corporate worship simply because it’s what the congregation knows—is the objection that we cannot return to a classical style of worship because no one knows how to play the instruments. This is a monstrously poor excuse to remain stagnant. Every contemporary worship leader today was once trucking around in a diaper with little to no knowledge in the intricacies of a guitar fretboard. Somewhere in there, he learned how to play that specific instrument. It is not at all impossible to learn another one.

Pastors and elders within a congregation who wish to improve their singing should be actively seeking someone who can play the piano (or someone who is willing to learn). Why piano? I believe it is the most efficient way to get a congregation hearing the four-part harmonies they will be singing on a weekly basis. It is vastly more difficult to start from scratch without instruments, and it is also more difficult to get four separate people learning parts with their violin, viola, and cellos. With a piano or organ, only one person absolutely has to put in the effort to learn a song well enough to be a help to the congregation.

This is not at all an easy task. Playing the piano well for a learning congregation is not simply being background noise. One of its primary roles is to teach the congregation what it should sing—therefore, it must play the exact notes so that congregants can pick out their proper harmonies. Playing the piano as one might play a guitar (with simplified chord progressions) is not helpful in the least—the congregation would be better off without a piano in the first place. But learning how to play a hymn or psalm exactly as it is written takes a tremendous amount of effort. In my case, it would take at least a month if I were to practice for 15 minutes a day. But that is simply what it takes—hard work and diligence. My sister possessed the tenacity required for this job, and three years later she knows almost 50 songs—all of which are played exactly as written. If a congregation has two or three similarly minded people, the load can be split up and rather quickly it will have more songs available to its regular rotation than the average professional church band does.

Introduce Psalms into worship.

It is rather inexcusable that the church has lost its repertoire of psalms. While it would be unbiblical to say that a church should only sing psalms, it would indeed be incredibly foolhardy for it to not sing psalms at all or simply sing them as a minor sideshow act. No, psalms should be front and center, prominent items of the worship we bring before God. And they should make up the majority of what we sing. I am continually astounded at the churches who have the opportunity, ability, and desire to sing psalms and yet still sing primarily hymns. It is similar to your mother saying “Go ahead—use as much maple syrup as you want on your pancakes. No, really.” And then you disappoint all of us by adding the most minuscule of three drops.

Introduce the classical style into the normal rotation

There are people who think that one does not simply switch styles of worship—that would be unthinkable. They are of the opinion that a slow transition needs to occur, one song at a time and certainly nothing drastic such as taking out all the contemporary instruments at once. Mutiny from the congregation would be as sure as death and taxes!

But this is just another example of pastors and elders and worship leaders being afraid of their own congregants. It truly does not take that much effort on the part of most congregations to switch back to something we’re all aware of at least on a minor level. Elderly people within the church still remember the classical style, and young people have most likely heard of it before. Even if this is not the case and the congregation is completely lost, worse things have happened before.

I am not advocating a complete switch of all the songs at once—we are, after all, bringing an offering before God in the heavenly places, and we should therefore seek to bring a good offering—not one where we don’t have a clue what we’re doing with ourselves. Therefore, I would say that much practice should be done individually and collectively outside of corporate worship, with less tenacious implementation of new songs oppressing the worship service. That said, it is not the end of the world to introduce a completely new style for one or two songs, especially if done in a wise fashion. People are not stupid and tend to catch on quickly if given the right leadership and instrumental support.

In any case, instead of trying the route of imperceptible change, I would advocate for selecting one or two songs during the contemporary style service and switching them entirely to the classical style. Eventually, as the congregation becomes comfortable with the new style, more contemporary songs can be replaced with metered psalms and hymns in the classical style until the contemporary style of worship has died a slow but sure death. While phasing out the style one instrument and one musician at a time until a classical style is achieved might work, it would take decades of careful scheming—and it’s making a simple matter entirely too complex.

Choose a Psalter/hymnal for congregational use.

The hymnbook a church decides to use is not a light matter of discussion. Of course, a church can always buy a different hymnal if it decides the previous one was a bad choice. But good hymnals are not cheap, and to use the church’s finances in a frivolous way might lead to getting stuck with a bad weapon. One does not choose physical weapons willy-nilly, and neither should they choose spiritual weapons in such a fashion.

I have said before how the death of the hymnal is imminent amongst reformed circles, and I couldn’t be happier—it’s getting replaced by the psalter/hymnal, which is of course a hybrid between a psalter and a hymnal. Some churches also simply keep two books—one a psalter and the other a hymnal. It’s not a bad solution at all.

However it decides to go about it, a church should get a book or books with songs containing psalms and good hymns. The Trinity or the Cantus Christi are good options, having both hymns and psalms in one book. A good set of hymns should encompass a wide range of time periods—there are several good ones which have survived from only a couple hundred years after Christ’s ascension, and there are even good hymns composed a mere couple of years ago (though not in the modern contemporary style by any stretch of the imagination).

Metered Psalms set to common tunes are excellent ways to get a church singing Psalms. Depending on a church’s skillset, there are also good options (such as contained in the Cantus Christi) for psalms which are not set to meter but rather have music set to the exact words of Scripture. It is a far more difficult style to sing (and personally I don’t think it sounds as nice), but this way the inspired text is not modified.

Whatever book is selected, enough of them need to be purchased so that in addition to having enough for corporate worship, they can also be given away to members within the church. Members should not be allowed to take them home—they should be required to take them home. The reason for this leads me to my next point.

Teach the necessity of family worship in the home.

This should be a given, but if a family does not read the Bible together, it is operating upon a shaky foundation. Similarly, if a family does not also sing together, it will not possess the spiritual weapons required to live as faithful Christians in hard times—and it is actively losing its Christian heritage of sacred music. If we are to become saturated in God’s word, we must read it. And if we are to become skillful in singing, we must sing. Not just at church—every day.

This can be daunting to the Christian patriarch and head of house. For some, this will be similar to being told that he must read the Bible and explain what it means even though he can’t read. Some people are just not gifted in music, especially those who did not grow up singing. But these unfortunate realities do not negate the requirement to lead in these areas. The point is to practice, be consistent, and stay at it. For decades. Until you die. My father has been leading our family in singing for about 14 years now. To begin with, he was not extraordinarily good at it, but he stuck with the melody with tenacity. And now our family sings all sorts of parts—not because he taught everyone how to harmonize, but because they slid into it after being given a consistent environment in which they could explore the art. My dad still sings melody, but he also sings tenor and bass when operational need dictates. Our family has been massively helped by an app called Sing Your Part. It currently runs at $5 a month, but it is entirely worth this small investment.

Most patriarchs have not been prodded adequately by their pastors and elders to engage in this aspect of consistent family worship—after all, it’s rather difficult for a pastor to tell his congregants to sing when he can’t sing himself. While we thus find all of ourselves in an unfortunate situation, it is also all of our responsibilities to reclaim the musical heritage we have discarded. To that end, pastors and elders should preach on the necessity of family worship, and they should also help and encourage heads of households as they implement this practice—all the while not neglecting their own households by any means.

Up until now, I have mostly covered the responsibilities of pastors and elders in how they implement proper congregational worship. I will end this article focusing on the heads of households within the church.

As Foster and Tennant like to put it, as a man goes, so goes his house. As a house goes, so goes the church. And as a church goes, so goes society. Getting real change done in the church has to start at the household level, but where the ultimate responsibility lands is with each head of household, whose task it is to look after the physical and spiritual wellbeing of his own flock. Part of this, in addition to educating them on the ways of the Lord, is to educate them on how to worship the Lord—to include how one mows the front yard, makes eggnog, hosts a visiting family from Missouri, and sings on Sunday mornings and Tuesday nights.

It is not at all unacceptable for the patriarch in a family to learn how to do some or all of these things well while he leads his family—in fact, it may be an even more poignant example to the family of how one learns how to get good at something. While it is obviously helpful for the father to know how to sing, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a prerequisite—it will just take some more determined work. If a father is completely unable to produce accurate notes, there are a few ways to go about this.

One is to delegate the task of leading singing during family worship to his wife. This is less than ideal, even if he is still taking responsibility for how things are done. A family whose only able singer is the mother will most likely only pass on a singing skill to the daughters. The sons, unless their father visibly takes a hand in things, will see it as a feminine activity and lose all interest. This will not change simply because they see everyone singing on Sunday mornings. Even if the father is faithful in his task of bringing his family to the Lord daily, if he does not lead in daily singing, the boys will still see the singing on Sunday mornings as a feminine activity.

If a man has decided that he is unable to lead his family in singing, a better solution would be to get them singing alongside other men. While difficult, it is important and there are all sorts of ways to do this. It’s just that these other ways require effort.

The first step is to figure out who the men are in your church who can sing and have them help you provide an opportunity for your family to be led by a man who can sing like a real man. This can be done with some or all of the family, but remember that it is your sons who particularly need the example of men who can sing like men. And this doesn’t have to occur in your own home—it can happen at the gun range, in the barn, or around the fire on Saturday nights. I’m not personally a huge fan of Christian schools and co-ops, but these are also excellent opportunities to get the boys singing under the direction of a man. In a healthy church, men get stuff done together outside of Sunday mornings, and these are prime opportunities to pull out one (or two) (or three) hymns to sing in a masculine fashion. Does it take extra time? Yes it does. Is it immensely valuable for your sons, who don’t have the privilege of having a father who can sing? Absolutely. Is it fun? Particularly so.

While establishing a singing household might seem daunting to a man who can’t sing already, know that this is a worthy task which the Lord will bless in one way or another. And while it is very difficult for a man above age 40 to learn a new physical skill, young men and boys have far more ability to pick up something new and run with it. It is why language is best taught to young children. Similarly, if a child grows up in the midst of a family who sings, he will have a comparatively easy time slipping into the flow of things and learning how to do so himself. My seven-year-old brother, for instance, follows his older brothers in singing tenor, something I was not attempting until much later in life. And he picked it up as though one might pick up the main melody. All this to say that long-lasting, generational skill takes time and diligence to acquire—but not an obscene amount of skill to begin with.

Nevertheless, we indeed have a large task in front of us. It will be an uphill climb either way—but we have an opportunity to make it easier for our next generation to first surpass our level of skill and then surpass the level of skill from a century ago. Not an impossible thing by any means.

“But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”

-James 1:5