Mourning the decline of congregational singing

[jbird604]

Re-reading a blog post this morning from a few years back (on Patheos) put me to thinking about things, specifically the decline of authentic congregational singing in church. I vividly remember the kind I experienced in college and seminary (in the 70's and 80's) where we gathered for weekly chapel in an auditorium where you could actually "hear" (thus the name of the place), with superb acoustics and no sonic damping of any kind.

Both auditoriums seated around 1000 and featured good pipe organs which were well-maintained and designed with congregational support in mind. We sang from hymnals. No screens anywhere. Most of us had been raised on the standard hymns and gospel songs of the Baptist Hymnal 1956. Many were music majors, and nearly all of us were lovers of authentic worship. When we sang the majestic hymns of the faith, with sturdy support from the organ, with all the SATB parts being sung, the sound was just heavenly. Better than anything I'd ever heard in church growing up of course, though I should say that I also remember some very enthusiastic and uplifting singing even in the small rural church where I grew up, on the best Sundays at least.

After seminary, I often attended large denominational gatherings, conferences, conventions. These meetings were always graced with magnificent hymn singing too, being held in some of the largest churches of our denomination, nearly all of which were of traditional design with tall interiors, walls and ceilings of hard plaster, music-friendly in every way. All featured a good organ of some kind. Like college and seminary chapel, these were events with singing of a heavenly proportion.

But at some point, I began to note that our large gatherings included less and less actual hymn-singing. More and more of the time between sermons and seminars was filled in with "musical artists" brought in to "perform," offering their latest CD's for sale. Finally, hymn-singing was all but eliminated from our meetings, and any singing that supposedly took place was some kind of "preview session" where a big name Christian pop artist or rep from a publishing house would be "on stage" with his latest lyrics projected on gigantic screens as he played the guitar in his holey bluejeans while crooning into an over-amped microphone and joking with the crowd. Many of the attendees appeared to swoon over these "productions," while they left me totally cold.

Nowadays, in certain churches, there seems to be no memory of great hymn singing at all, as if it never existed. Nearly all the structures built by certain denominations in the past 40 years have been on the "stadium" plan, often fan-shaped, with acoustical damping everywhere, elaborate stage lighting, mega-watt sound systems, cinematic projection equipment, and often no choir loft, almost never an organ. The music in the services is nearly 100% show music -- Christian entertainment music that isn't really singable by the average person, so the actual vocalising is left to the crew of trendy-looking performers on the stage holding microphones. They may toss out a "hymn" once in a while, but it is barely recognizable, the polyphonic harmonies generally obliterated, dumbed down for unison singing only, the sturdy metric style replaced with a "groove," the band thumping out a rock-style accompaniment track in place of the bold leadership of an organ.

Ok, so now I'm criticizing the way some people "do" their worship. I shouldn't stray into that area, I suppose. But my point is that I'm mourning the loss of something truly valuable, lovely, wondrous, heavenly, transcendent. And mourning the fact that so many people have never even had the chance to experience this loveliness and probably never will. And mourning the substitution of a hideous imposter in its place -- a genre of music that claims to be "worship music" but seems to have no staying power, songs performed a few times then replaced with the latest hot-off-the-presses hit tune from one of the big publishing houses. No lasting heritage of music is being offered to these unsuspecting seekers. And few seem to be concerned.

One of the reasons my wife and I have started making an annual pilgrimage to England is to attend the wondrous services in the great cathedrals. Yes, I know there must be places here in the USA where something like that can be experienced. But there sure are more of them per square mile in England! We have attended services in close to a dozen different Anglican cathedrals over there, and have yet to be disappointed. Even in the lesser-known and smaller cathedrals there will be authentic hymn-singing and of course a grand organ and lovely choir. Not to mention a well-structured and orderly service replete with copious scripture and usually a very brief but poignant sermon. Sometimes I think I'd just sell everything I own and move there if it were possible, just so I could go to church in one of those places.

But sadly, a great many of the people I interact with in my real life have absolutely no idea what it is we experience in those services, or why it would affect me so, or why I'd travel so far at such expense to attend one as opposed to the local big box church where I could hear a band every bit as loud as the organ at St. Paul's playing songs I can dance to.

If anyone cared for my opinion, I'd say that we could work on the problem by attending to certain clearcut principles. Build better churches (or remodel existing structures for better acoustics). Quit designing churches like rock concert stadiums. Replace the band with an organ, and get a properly trained organist to play it. Use a choir. Sing from hymnals. Sing real hymns in real hymn style.

But mostly, and before any of this can happen, quit thinking of Sunday morning worship as a production or spectacle. Plan services with the glory of God uppermost, and go back to the historic elements and acts of worship, properly ordered and done with dignity -- thoughtful prayers, extensive use of scripture, the people not as spectators, but participating through reading, singing and other actions. Make worship dynamic rather than passive, with standing, sitting, kneeling, bowing, speaking, listening, singing, silence. The Table at the center of it all. And utterly reject the politics and moralizing and manipulation and money-grubbing that have infested so many churches.

What are the chances that I'll see anything like this in my remaining lifetime? I'm not betting on it.

Now for the absolute WORST part of this -- what if I'm 100% wrong about all this? What if my experiences with thrilling hymn-based worship are just my subjective opinion, having no bearing at all on anybody else's experience? What if I'm just deceiving myself when I think that the church has lost something profound by replacing organs and choirs and hymns with bands and praise teams and jazzy tunes on screens?

Yes, I've actually had that conversation with myself quite frequently. Especially after being challenged by someone prominent in today's church worship scene, who seems to think that worship is better than ever. The self-doubt here is the worst.

Anyway, if you got this far, thanks for reading. This is sort of a rant, I guess. But mostly just a lament, a pouring out of my heart over a loss that few can even understand, beyond my compats here on this forum. Thank you and God bless us all!

[Organfella]

John, this topic touches on some wide discussions already on this Forum, however, as always, your views and especially the way you air them, is thought provoking and stimulates a great deal of thought.
There is no arguing away the fact that worship styles and especially the musical kind, is fast changing together with perhaps all aspects of life to suit the "younger" ways of thinking. But there is a great danger in this trend, to my humble way of thinking: It gives way to humanism rearing its ugly head in church worship gatherings. People attend for the thrill rather than for the opportunity and the need to become humble before their God.
This past Sunday my sermon was on that very topic with reading from 1 John 2:18-29 and 2 Tim 3:1-5. At the risk of being criticized for being overly pious I also mention that we will allow no other instrument in our church than the organ. We recently invested in a great deal of money to get a decent one and we enjoy every note it plays. Our singing is only from our own hymnal containing most, if not all of the ones we remember from childhood.
To me there is nothing more inspiring to humble worship than the singing of hymns and because our ancestry kind of includes origins from the Dutch I like to listen to their church services and particularly their singing of hymns. Those people have retained the original wordings and accompanied by pipe organ music. If one should listen to some of their singing you might hear the type of worship singing we practice today.
Of course the Dutch have not been spared the modern trend of importing noisy instruments into some of their modern churches and there are signs of the trends this and other threads have described over there as well. So the tendency seems to be kind of universal, but perhaps that very fact should keep us older folk on our toes and hone our love for the traditional types of hymns and music in worship services.

Nico

[johnbeetem]

I see this as an example of the decline of singing in general by the American public. In the 19th Century and early 20th, before the dubious achievements of the phonograph, radio, and television, most families had a piano or organ and had someone who could play it. The music desk was littered with the popular songs of the day, and for entertainment people would gather around the instrument and create music. The phonograph, radio, and television converted the public from music creators to music consumers, IMO a definite loss.

I love the scene in Tobacco Road (1941) in which Sister Bessie and Dude Boy are having trouble getting a marriage license. In protest, she starts belting out "Bringing in the Sheaves" a cappella and the marvellous thing is that everyone in City Hall comes into the room and joins in. People back then were used to singing in groups -- "in harmony" -- and knew the popular hymns.

[KC9UDX]

johnbeetem Copyright law sure doesn't help either.

The church I attend hasn't changed this way yet. What's changed are the number of attendees, and the words in the hymnal. The Lutheran Hymnal was replaced many years ago now with Christian Worship. It irritates me because the words have been modernised, and, "cleansed." Of course, I'm a crotchety old guy now so it also bothers me because the hymn numbers have changed. It's been thirty years and I still remember all the old hymn numbers.

The biggest thing I miss is the sign boards with the hymn numbers. Again a long time ago now, but they started printing the hymn numbers in the bulletin. Then they started printing some hymns in the bulletin. Then they printed all the words to the service (except the sermon) in it. So these days everyone spends the whole service fumbling with the bulletin, dropping them, and worrying about being on the right page.

[voet]

The rector of a church where I used to be the Director of Music, memorized people's phone numbers by using hymn numbers as a mnemonic device. This worked well for him until the Episcopal Church replaced the 1940 hymnal with the 1982 edition!

[davidecasteel]

jbird, it should be no surprise to you that I agree wholeheartedly with your "rant". There still are Hymnals provided in my church, but they are located under the pews in front of those seated, and not easy to grab (or replace). We have 2 big screens up front and the words are displayed there. I imagine that at least 90% of the congregation sings using those words on the screens and don't use Hymnals. (I'm in the Choir and we use paper sheets that reproduce the Hymnal pages--in order to avoid having to carry and manipulate the Hymnal books in the Loft (which offers no place to conveniently store or stash them), and therefore am not in a position to ascertain just how many congregants actually use the books.)

The upshot of all this is, of course, that the congregants don't see the MUSIC--just the words--and as a result have no idea what the music line (or the parts) is. If it's a well-known Hymn many will know the melody, of course, but part-singing is very much dying out. The Choir is required (by our Director) to sing unison on the first and last verses of every Hymn, which means that there may only be 1 verse (or none--sometimes we only sing 2 verses) in which parts are even sung. Sometimes the Organist wants to play alternate harmonies, too, and we must sing unison when that is done. Most of our anthems these days are "barn burners" with lots of flash, but very little actual beautiful part-singing. As a result, the Choir is losing its ability to really provide excellence when such is called for. I am appalled!

And the biggest issue is that the Church (as a whole establishment) is not even really aware of what it is losing. A great many worshippers today have never experienced truly excellent Hymn singing and the emotional uplift that it can engender. One cannot miss what one has never heard.

David

[picothinker]

Good points all around. I think one of the best, is that no one sings parts. I attend a tiny, rural Christian church that was started in 1895. This is so rural, the nearest Pepsi machine is ten miles away (and that's a town of 500). The congregation is largely farmers, which is an aging population. Four generations of my family have attended. We have always been blessed with great pianists. There has always been excellent musical talent with an active choir, and special performances every Sunday.

There has been a declining attendance for 30 years. The choir has been dropped. Except for Christmas/Easter there is no special music. For the last two years, we have had a new minister, whose only experience was a youth minister. He is a full-time carpenter, talks good-old-boy English (which offends some people). This guy has truly turned this church around. Attendance has tripled, young people are driving 40 miles to attend. He is personally very humble, and overall great.

This has always been a hymn-based church. Now with younger people involved, they are singing more and more new songs in unison, to a CD backup. It's easy to learn to sing the melody of anything, eventually. There is now probably only a handful of people that can read music, and sing parts. When we sing from a hymnal, it's great to hear all the parts. Singing from the song-sheets, people at best just pick out a root or a third to throw in.

So? This church is now very much alive. They have expanded the building. There is a lot of outside activities, with good participation. I personally am sad to see happy-clappy singing taking over. I guess it beats the congregation being down to a dozen senior citizens happily singing their favorite hymns.

[Organfella]

Reading these comments coming mostly from older folk I paraphrase from a writ I posted in another thread some time back (Michael, you remember?) "Perhaps some of us old-timers have overstayed our time?"
Nico :-P:o:'(

[jbird604]

It is indeed a complex issue. Though I may "think" I have the simple solution -- ditch the band and the microphones, bring back the choir and the organ, sing hymns from hymnals in proper SATB hymn style, make the order of service more formal, read more scripture in the service, de-emphasize the sermon, or at least shorten it in those places where it can go on for half an hour to an hour or more, elevate the place of communion in the service, stop building churches to look like performance halls or studios and go back to traditional architecture.

Now, that may all seem obvious to me, that it would solve a bunch of problems in churches -- long-time members leaving, the "secularizing" of the church, with music, as well as general ambiance, that is more like a Christian rock concert and/or entertainer goosing up a crowd than like the profound spiritual experiences many of us associate with our most memorable worship experiences.

So THAT would be MY IDEAL, my personal recommendation to the church at large today. But obviously, this is not what EVERYBODY wants, at least it seems that way, based on new church plants and "conversions" of existing churches.

99 out of every 100 new church starts in this country (I'm guessing, but probably right on the money) is totally informal, with rock or pop or folk-style music, centered around the preacher, whose sermon occupies much of the "worship" time and is likely to be a quasi-intellectual PowerPoint presentation on some point of theology, some Greek or Hebrew words, or something supposedly high-minded and academic like that.

And quite regularly yet another long-established main-line church gives away their organ, hymnals, and robes, and sets up a "stage" for the band front and center in their historic sanctuary. They hang big screens that cover up stained glass or organ pipes or even the cross, removing the altar table from the chancel and only rolling in a portable table on the rare Sundays when communion is served.

If these changeovers and new church startups are any indication of "what people want" these days, then we who love historic worship, hymns, classical and complex and ancient music -- we are doomed. We will have to retreat into fewer and fewer, smaller and smaller little knots of folks who meet in increasingly dilapidated and gloomy old church buildings. The future doesn't look good for us, if all that is true.

Another possibility is that the current rage for contemporary-informal-entertainment focused worship will play itself out, that the masses will tire of the noise and the nonsense and come back penitently to the churches that offer the ancient rituals, the majesty and awe, the beauty and sacredness and profundity.

But at this point I don't see a great deal of movement in that direction. An occasional hint, as some notable bells and smells church somewhere becomes suddenly trendy in a university town and overtakes the local big box church in attendance. But can this indicate a trend, or just a blip?

Anyway, none of us has a crystal ball yet. All I know to do is to keep on doing what we can wherever we are and trust God to do the rest.

[Piperdane]

I suppose that I have been lucky and always landed an organists position in congregations that love to sing and have hymnals available (in rack directly in front of worshiper on the back of the pew in front of them). My present church is the first I've encountered with screen projections. The people have a choice to use either the hymnals or read the words on the screen; since we primarily use very familiar hymn tunes much of the time, people already know the tunes and some even sing in parts.

We are a large congregation of 1,400 members - a long established ELCA Lutheran congregation that began in 1974 and moved into the current sanctuary in 1989. We have 4 services, one on Saturday at 5pm, the others on Sunday morning: 8:00, 9:15 and 10:30. All but the 10:30 service are held in the sanctuary, the latter held in the church family life center with a focus on families with young children. We have an active Sunday School with about 90 kids, and a pre-school that has operated for over 34 years, runs 4 weekdays with an attendance of 115. We have 4 choirs (adult with 52 voices, childrens with 10 kids, and two bell choirs).

Traditional altar that all congregants face, with separate choir area (where organ console resides) to the right of the altar. Very traditional worship services with hymns, sung liturgy, lessons, special music and a 12 to 15 minute sermon. All services offer Holy Communion by means of intinction where the bread is dipped into one of two chalices, one with wine the other grape juice. The choir sings an anthem every Sunday at the 9:15 service. The bell choirs each play once a month. The choir has its rehearsal on Thursday nights, the bells rehearse on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.

Down the street is a church with the raised stage, theatrical lighting, streaming video, smoke/haze effects ... and very few in attendance each week. Seems this city (Tucson, AZ) prefers traditional service over theatrical worship styles, which is a good thing.

We have several large pipe organs in churches here, the largest one being 65 ranks, the smallest 9 ranks (my former parish). The local university (University of Arizona) has a huge music department that includes organ - complete with a 33 rank Schoenstein in their performance hall and several smaller pipe organs in various practice rooms.

We also have a very active AGO chapter that has many events schedule throughout the year.

Over the years I have attended the "smoke and mirrors" worship places - the format was always the same. Started with 25 minutes of irritating/throbbing booming bass heavy rock music to the point of creating a massive headache, then a 45 to 60 minute "talk" on scripture, then a final blessing and more pounding bass heavy music.
I was brought up attending very traditional worship in several Lutheran churches. Been a Lutheran organist for 58 years and still loving every minute of playing and serving my congregation, uplifting their souls through music and the spoken word.

[davidecasteel]

Piperdane, I attend a 6000-member UMC church in Richardson, Texas--a northern suburb of Dallas. We have a wonderful Klais 4-manual 80-rank pipe organ in our Sanctuary that seats 1300. The Choir (80-100 voices) and the organ are behind the Communion Table (well, there are 4 ranks of the organ in the rear balcony, including the Fanfare Trumpet). We are not as liturgical as I would wish, but our services still retain some semblance of tradition. We have 5 Sunday morning services: an 0845 fairly traditional servivce with Youth Choir support; 0945 and 1100 fairly traditional services supported by the Adult Choir; an 1100 Contemporary service with praise band in our Worship and Arts Center (a theater, essentially); and a Zimbabwe service at 1200 in our Chapel. When I say our services are not as liturgical as I'd like, it's because we almost never sing the Gloria Patri (either version), maybe sing the Doxology once or twice a quarter, have only 1 Scripture lesson, and the Sermon is 25 minutes long (half the service). WE do have Communion once a month (by Intinction), but it is offered as a short side service every other Sunday in the Chapel.

We have a beautiful Sanctuary with pretty good acoustics (about a 2-second reverberation) throughout the space. (There is an echo for the spoken word, though, which I find troubling at my old age. If we ever open up the space under the balcony to get more seating, that might improve the echo problem.) The Chancel floor is hard wood over concrete and the Sanctuary floor is slate (with a couple of aisles thinly carpeted). It is a good space for music, and the local Richardson Symphony likes to perform in it when they need an organ--we do the Saint-Saens "Organ" Symphony quite well.

I don't think our church is on the brink of failing, and we do have quite a few young families attending all the services.

David

[jbird604]

Certainly there are still a good many churches carrying on our historic traditions and singing hymns with choir and organ. If you are Episcopalian or Lutheran or Methodist or Presbyterian you'll have a better chance of finding a traditional service in your preferred denomination.

Baptist are pretty much out of luck, though there are scattered traditional Baptist "CBF" churches such as the one in Little Rock to which we fled when we left the Southern Baptist Convention. CBF churches are not all traditional, but are more likely to have organ and choir and hymnals, and to follow the Church Year, read from the lectionary, and have short sermons rather than "lectures," as well as monthly communion open to all.

CBF's aren't terribly numerous, so Baptists without access to one may have to look elsewhere for traditional worship. Most SBC churches have either gone "blended" (if not full-on rock concert), or else they sing "Gospel songs" or "Southern Gospel" or possibly even sing a lot of standard hymns but have a model of worship that is utterly foreign to "historic" worship -- basically 20 or 25 minutes of random music, then a lengthy sermon followed by the invitation and some closing stuff that varies from church to church. No formal scripture reading, no Lord's Prayer, and communion only 3 or 4 times a year. All Baptists are not alike of course, so you may actually find one somewhere that does a pretty decent historic worship service, though that is truly rare in most of the country.

I do applaud those congregations that uphold high standards of worship, such as David's UMC in Dallas, the Lutherans in Tuscon mentioned above, and all the rest. May God bless them all!

[davidecasteel]

In Dallas there is Wilshire Baptist Church, which advertises itself as "a different Baptist Church". They have a Sunday morning service broadcast on the local fine-arts station WRR, and from my experience they are really different. They have a fine organ (and Organist) and the Choir sings a lot of old Masters music. The Sermon is a reasonable length, and could usually be indistinguishable from what would be heard in a Traditional Methodist church. I would feel fairly comfortable attending services there. I'm not familiar with the "CBF" terminology, and don't know if Wilshire is of that tradition. What does it stand for?

David

[jbird604]

David, the "CBF" is the "Cooperative Baptist Fellowship" which at first was a sort of sub-group that developed within the Southern Baptist Convention back in the 1980's when it became apparent that the SBC itself had been totally taken over by an very rigid conservative group. These conservatives have managed to get their candidates elected to the SBC presidency without fail since the 70's, and have always been intent on taking control of the seminaries and the agencies of the SBC, firing professors they considered "liberal" (including some of the most learned and deeply spiritual profs I had studied under when I went to seminary in the 70's in Fort Worth). They basically wanted to remake the SBC into a sort of retro know-nothing denomination where the colleges and seminaries would only teach a narrow fundamentalist view of scripture and theology. This appealed to certain segments of the SBC culture where education had already been a dirty word, and these people prevailed.

As a reaction to this nonsense, many folks began to object to these draconian measures. But because the grip of the fundamentalists had become so strong on the SBC, all attempts to bring back balance failed, and the CBF eventually became a separate entity with its own annual convention, alternative mission boards and agencies, and a small number of cooperating colleges and seminaries. I don't know the exact figures, but I suspect that about 10% of SBC churches eventually changed allegiance and now support CBF causes. Some churches remain in the SBC while supporting the CBF too. One large church in our area is like that, because there are so many folk in the membership who don't totally understand the reason for the divide, and still want to be identifed as Southern Baptists, while others within the same congregation are very much attuned to the issues and want to support the CBF. I'm not sure just how they manage to stay all in the same church, but they do.

So most large cities and even some smaller cities have at least one or two formerly SBC churches that are now in the CBF. Some of these churches are very large, and some are small. But they all share some common concerns, largely wanting to stay aligned with open-minded views on social and theological issues and reject fundamentalism, while also rejecting the trappings of the "church growth movement" which have compelled so many SBC churches to ditch their organs and choirs and hymnals in favor of bands and screens and such.

Most of the people I know who remain in SBC churches have given little or no thought to this phenomenon, and consider the few churches that have left the SBC for the CBF to be basically in the hands of Satan. They just can't see that there is any other way to live other than the fundamentalist lifestyle, thus considering those of us who have rejected it as reprobates, probably going to hell.

[KC9UDX]

I don't want to derail the thread, but this must be related. Something that's bothered me since I went from a 7 minute to a 47 minute commute: Churches aren't named after biblical figures or concepts anymore. They're named after geographical features. Now naming a church after the town it's in is almost passable to me. But the nearest one to my house is named after a somewhat insignificant river 5 miles away! Another is called the River of Life. Is that biblical? If so, I apologise. But Weatherstone? What is a weatherstone?? I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that this strange sounding word is not even in the Great Bible.

[jbird604]

I know of a "Third Baptist" in several cities here. And I have heard of a "Ninth" Baptist somewhere.

[tbeck]

There's a large Third Baptist in St. Louis.

[MarkS]

17th Church of Christ Scientist, Chicago (4 manual Aeolian-Skinner)
7th Presbyterian, Chicago (8th Presbyterian and its building from 1866 are likely long gone)
Not to mention Fourth Presbyterian, Chicago

[KC9UDX]

I'm glad we don't have a Second Twelfth Bank of The Church!

[voet]

Due to the many Dutch immigrants who settled in this area, there are many Reformed churches in my city. First and Second Reformed merged in 1918 to become Central Reformed. Third Reformed church built a new building in 1969 at a different location. Currently there is a group of people who are beginning what they call the New Old Third Reformed church at the former location. There are also Fourth and Fifth Reformed congregations, but no Sixth Reformed. Finally there is a Seventh Reformed church, although, due to declining membership, it is a rather diminished Seventh.

[jbird604]

"diminished seventh" .... hmmm... Sounds like a barbershop church!

[voet]

Good one, John. Although they do have a Schantz pipe organ.

[libraryguy]

I confess that I have been the bass player in a church band where we played that contemporary stuff. Now I am the fourth string pianist at a small Orthodox Presbyterian church. As the fourth string player I don't see much action. What I do see is traditional congregational singing of a lot of pre-revivalist era hymns from the Trinity Hymnal and the 1650 Scottish Psalter. We do sing in parts but we don't have a choir or even a music director. Everyone is ok with this arrangement and I'm not the only one who was a church rocker. I am the organist one Sunday a year just before Christmas when we have our only musical event which is the Christmas Hymn sing. I have used a Yamaha PSR248 and a Roland Keyboard amp. It is not ideal but I'm working on an upgrade for this year.