Quite a few of my Minister friends seem to have got quite worked up in recent months about singing ... specifically singing in church ... even MORE specifically, NOT singing in church.
I've missed it too!
Now, this is purely anecdotal of course, but it DOES seem to me to be mainly the ethnic English Ministers of my acquaintance that have been speaking out about this. I would have expected it to be our Welsh Ministerial brethren that felt strongest about losing singing in worship services during COVID.
And now, paradoxically, it is the Welsh that have been allowed to sing again while English hymn-singing is still on lockdown!
But WHY are we doing singing in the first place, I mean ... what an odd thing to ask people to do!
You invite them into church and (most commonly) WAY before you give people you've invited a cup of tea and a biscuit you give them a BOOK and you require lots of choral singing from them!
Just ... WHY?!
Why do scientists think people sing?
First of all there's ...
The primeval scream thing
There are scientists who think people love to sing because singing is the first thing babies do.
I must say I find this implausible.
I've been present close up and personal with four births, and though noisy enough with their first breaths ... I never once heard a birthing riff remotely resembling an aria from La Traviata (nothing LIKE it!)
Then there's the suggestion it's about ...
Well-being
Other more medical sorts of scientists suggest people sing because it involves physiological phenomena which produce well-being effects ... affecting mood ... because singing modifies heart-beat and respiration and the like.
Then there's ...
Tribal solidarity
But the sociologists are the ones that go to town on singing ... and there's quite a cohort of sociologists who seem to use their studies a good excuse to go to the football.
Oh yes ... THAT's where you see people NATURALLY singing urself-consciously, with NO thought of propriety or performance.
Sociologists really LOVE that sort of thing!
Popular chants (as encountered at the football) seem to them to have deep roots in human culture.
In fact, every social group ever studied from the Maori to the Whirling Dervishes ... even awkward-feeling English people at a wedding ... get involved in some sort of dancing, singing or chanting!
Then there's the issue of ...
Social cohesion
Psychologists tell us that when a group of people do stuff like that together it has a profound effect on how they think and feel.
It's not just (as a body of research shows) that group singing, dancing and chanting has a profound effect on the mood of depressed people.
It seems be the case for almost everybody that synchronising your voice, breathing and heart rate with a group of other people has the remarkable effect of making us feel connected to one another.
But that's not, of course, to say that football fans' chanting make them feel connected to EVERYONE in the stadium, but you know what I mean!
LOTS of football chants ... which arise when people are less restrained from doing what come naturally ... are rude, offensive, racist and discriminatory.
Singing and chanting seems ... to the sociologist and the psychologist... to be more than anything else a way to express:
- Social identity, and ...
- Group values ... for OUR group
... as you find for example when Liverpool fans chant 'Justice for the 96' in support of the Hillsborough victims.
Harnessing this phenomenon on the dark side
This singing, chanting dancing phenomenon is something that armies around the world capitalise on with 'drill'.
What's the point of it?!
(It's a question that I've heard young soldiers ask).
Marching in straight lines across battle fields has not been at a premium in modern warfare since the invention of the machine gun ... but moving and chanting together has been shown in experiments to steel the nerve for harnessed, corporate deployment of extreme violence.
This feature of human psychology has its darker side too!
To sum it up ...
There are chants and songs in EVERY pre-literate culture ...
- creating social identity,
- encouraging co-ordinated group action
- through support and
- encouragement and
- communicating and re-inforcing the chanting, singing dancing group's
- shared ideas
- common values and
- high ideals.
So why are we supposed to be doing that in Church?!
Worship in the Bible is most commonly, of course, directed to God.
Primarily that is what we aim to do, and we do that because we're convinced and we know, that our God is WORTHY of praise!
But THAT's just not the END of the story.
In the words of our Verse for the Day, the Apostle Paul writes to the young church at Colossae:
“Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you
teach and
admonish
one another
with all wisdom
through
psalms,
hymns, and
songs
from the Spirit,
singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
Colossians 3:16-17
Yes, we worship God primarily, but it has a useful effect on the Body of Christ ... the group.
Here's the point ...
The Point
Churches in some parts of the world have a culture of singing in their meetings very quietly.
They haven't always been free to worship God, and they're still in the habit of singing God's praises in ways that don't get overheard.
Our church in the West have had liberty to sing God's praise loudly, but in the last eighteen months of COVID lockdown we've had to learn not to take that privilege so lightly.
We've MISSED the psychological, well-being benefits of singing together.
We've MISSED the maintaining of our togetherness and unity as the people of God which is a leading source of encouragement and identity-building ... as the fall-off in adherence and involvement in what churches are doing has clearly shown. Many churches seem to have lost around 50% of their previous attendance.
And we've missed the spiritual stimulus of teaching and admonishing one another as we sing psalms, hymns and songs that have been inspired by the Spirit (to God, but) TOGETHER. And this SHOWS in the impact it's had on the quality and fervour of our Christian discipleship.
The Takeaway
If this hugely beneficial thing for us ... corporate worship ... has been curtailed at least with the permission if not as the purpose of God, then He will have done or at least allowed that for a reason.
When blessings are withdrawn, then we have to ask questions. And we have to ask them primarily of ourselves.
What could there be in our walk with God that might give rise to such a thing?
Have we neglected His heartfelt, Spirit-inspired, truth driven praise?
Have we displeased Him by being distracted from His worship by the music?
Have we been worshipping the way WE like it, but not for Him?
Have we been taking the privilege of His free worship too long for granted?
As the opportunity to sing together now gently returns, it's surely time to stop raging at 'the Government' who stopped our fun, and seeking God for why He directed this in the first place?
I for one wouldn't want to make a mistake that could cause such a thing EVER again.
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