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Singing a bit sad?

There have been a few articles in the evangelical press recently about the demise of congregational singing. I was told only a few weeks ago that the singing at St. Helen’s (where I run the music) is dreadful.

I think our singing is not bad as it goes, but the person who made the comment was Welsh, so there are different expectations. That’s my excuse anyway.

Audiences not congregations

There are many reasons why our congregations don’t sing well. Sometimes it’s related to cultural insecurities, sometimes the skill of our musicians, sometimes even the humidity. I’ve talked about these in a previous article, with practical suggestions as to how to overcome some of those obstacles. However, here I want to highlight one of the major problems that I’m grappling with at the moment: the fact that most of our songs these days are written for an audience, not a congregation. Songwriters have got into the habit of writing for the market or label rather than for the people of God.

Where it’s gone wrong is the thinking that the way to disseminate songs is to ‘sell’ them well. We must wow people with highly professional CDs and song arrangements. After all, that’s how the world sells its music. However, this leads to expensive production costs, marketing and then staffing to cope with the ensuing admin. This means that the next song to come from that label needs to generate enough money to keep the bills paid.

The trouble is that songs that are professionally produced on CD often sound great to the one listening, but they don’t always work well with a congregation.

It’s a simple issue

It’s not necessarily the style of music that’s the issue, but the simplicity. We shouldn’t care as much about the style of the music we use in our churches (as long as it’s done well); what we should be concerned about is that no one can join in with the songs because the tunes are too complicated for us to sing and for our musicians to play. (I’m as culpable as anyone for being tempted to write songs that I like the sound of rather than songs that serve the people I’m writing for.)

The Bible in both the Old and New Testaments is clear that we preach the word of God to each other by speaking the truth and singing the truth (e.g. Exodus 15, Colossians 3.16). Therefore, the first and most important element for congregational singing is that the truth is present and clear. The second element is that the musical accompaniment helps us remember and respond to that truth with all our hearts. If this element is absent, then it doesn’t serve the first element. We need tunes that are simple to pick up by the most non-musical member of the congregation while, at the same time, having simple enough accompaniments to be played by the least proficient of musicians.

Keith Getty and Stuart Townend’s ‘In Christ Alone’ fits this mould perfectly. It didn’t need to be ‘sold’ through CDs and marketing; the song sold itself because of the simplicity of the tune and the fact that its accompaniment can be played by any musician with one finger. ‘In Christ Alone’ has since been recorded because people love singing it, not because it needed to be marketed.

Another marketing ploy has been big Christian conventions, where any song can sound great played by a slick band in front of thousands of people. You’re guaranteed that at least a few hundred of those thousands will take the song back to their churches.

Stick to your guns

Pastors, stick to your guns when congregation members come back from major conferences waving their CDs saying, ‘We must sing this song because the lyrics are biblical’. If the congregation can’t pick it up after two tries and the musicians can’t cope with the rhythm, it may indeed be biblical in content, but in its concept it is not biblical because the song is only going to serve the audience that wishes to hear it rather than the congregation who would love to sing it, if only they could.

There are a number of songs which I love, which have great words, and which we sing well at St. Helen’s (though don’t forget, I’m not Welsh), but which I’m reluctant to sing often because I don’t want to ‘market’ it to visitors from other churches who may not have as many competent musicians to make the song work in their own context.

Please pray for our Christian songwriters to use their music to serve the Word of God and the people of God.

Richard Simpkin

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