“Many church choirs are dying. Here’s why” is a pretty popular article spreading online last year, which made me a bit frustrated because they never see the whole story. The church choir is a vital existing for a church, I am not arguing here that every church should have one but without it, a church might be missing something. In fact, choral art still grows and flourishes for many of the current churches. I love choir and I do think that church choir is worth existing. There are several reasons to state:
1. It helps enliven the good congregational song. It might surprise someone that the first important reason is to support a congregational song. Please don’t miss the point that the keyword here is “congregation”, without it, the choir is just a community choir. Singing is one of the most efficient methods to touch the hearts of both singers and listeners, so it’s our chance to embody the Lord’s words through music, improve our confidence and transform people’s rest of lives.
2. It’s a symbol of togetherness. You couldn’t argue that the choir is the most visible factor of church services. A bible study&discussion team can achieve this goal, too, but a choir team could involve much more people, which means that opening choir seats are opportunities to gather people together to serve God. Any follower can praise God through singing, even for the baby believers who aren’t ready yet to serve in other capacities.
3. It creates good teamwork. One for all, of course, should be the core value for a choir. Everybody there is a part, working together to produce the overall sound. It’s never been bad for believers to learn how to cooperate with each other without conflicts.
4. It helps reduce multi-generational gaps. Regardless of being a teen or an elder saint, everyone stays next to one another to serve God together. Church choir could be the only opportunity to achieve this goal.
5. It avoids individualistic culture. Human sin determines that everyone even believers are easy to be arrogant after some achievements, the desire to be a “single star” could hurt followers’ confidence. A choir team could significantly reduce this situation and that’s just naturally the case: Get enough people in the picture, and no single leader becomes the star.