I have a confession to make..
I’m kind of a church music geek. I love the “oldies”. And by old, I mean stuff that would have been popular for my parents. I get goosebumps at the sound of a tight 4 part men’s harmony, I thrill to the sight of a choir. SATB, men’s, children’s anything. I love it. A youth choir form Trinity Baptist in Kelowna came to our church once and I almost cried. Most of my fellow contemporaries would be sighing or looking at their shoes (this is before smart phones people) or cringing or whining, “why can’t it be current music?” or, “choirs are so boring”
Isn’t it amazing how different we can all be?
I love this music because I grew up with it. But I know people that don’t love this music because they grew up with it. Such a strange parallel universe we live in. My mom loves to sing, although her lack of hearing has made it near impossible for her to carry a tune anymore, but in her day.. this is a comfort I go to in my mind often. She talks about how she would sing with her mom while they were doing dishes. Gramma would sing soprano and mom would sing the alto part (God bless the altos). They always would be old hymns that gramma had grown up singing and my mom grew a heart for those tunes. But when my mom hit her late 20’s, North American evangelicalism was changing and the music was changing and from the south came some wonderful gospel music that is still sung in many churches today. But at my mom’s time, they were not sung in Sunday morning service. Likely because they required drums and guitars and that just did not happen. So, my mom and her friend Betty, sang some of these new songs together.
And. It. Was. Beautiful.
I was a child at the time and my mom was perfect and I loved my auntie Betty and sometimes my sister would accompany them on piano or Betty’s brother-in-law Bob, would fill in. Bob was an amazing man, he was exceedingly gifted in music and he tuned pianos. He would go to someones house to tune their piano and when it was done he would play a hymn to “show” the customer that the piano was properly tuned. He didn’t share the gospel with his mouth, he used his hands… let that sink in.
I have memory on top of memory of going with my mom to her voice lessons with auntie Betty, or practices at auntie Betty and uncle Ken’s house. There became a family around music. And to me the music was always beautiful and redemptive. My mom and Auntie Betty would sing at different churches around Vancouver. Often at Collingwood Baptist (that is where most of my memories lay) but other churches as well and my sister says they were even on the radio a few times. See my point? Music was in our house. Always. I think my mom needed it to be that way and I am finding the same. As a child I loved to sing Sunday mornings. I would put on a record and just sit at the stereo and listen, hearing the different notes and instruments. It was like food for my soul.
Choirs in school were my jam and I tried to get my friends on board because, come on, singing is awesome and singing in a group it the shiznit! High school choir was just as wonderful as elementary but eventually my bed won out to early morning practices. Then the church I was attending had a choir and I didn’t join right away but when I finally did, I cried in the middle of my first practice. But like, dignified tears, you know, the “something’s in my eye” crying. It was like my soul had been emaciated for years, starved of it’s first language of nourishment. It was beautiful and uplifting and glorious and gracious.
and then it wasn’t.
You know you can tell a lot about the health of a church by it’s choir.
I was able to enjoy a few years with the choir before I noticed the cracks, and then the more I noticed them the harder it became to be a part of it. I had to leave the choir and it was a surprisingly difficult decision. I had originally left because I had a new baby and it was too challenging to manage that and choir responsibilities so I just expected to take a few months away and be back for the start of the new season. But once I had stepped away I realized how toxic it had been for me and it wasn’t long after that and the church began to crumble. Music ceased to be redemptive and instead became a lightening rod for all problems. No one cared about content, they only cared about how it was packaged. And once again my soul was starved.
This was when I learned that for me, it was never about the music. It was always about the community, about the unity, about the family, about the different parts putting aside their wants and working together to produce something beautiful to the glory of God. I believe that when people argue about the music they are really telling you they don’t want to put themselves aside for the body and work together. Then the church starts to look sadder than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest. (yes, that’s irreverent, deal with it) The entire body is then being forced to work for that leg. All it’s efforts go into that ass being kicked. And how productive is it to kick your own ass? That ends up in destruction. Is it not better to just walk, properly, in His grace, to do something that benefits all involved? Aren’t our arms and hands and brain and eyes and ears and mouth able to do other things that help the whole body when they don’t have to focus on just one part? My church looked like someone whose limbs were trying to destroy each other. And then that destruction caused leprosy and many of those limbs fell off.
I haven’t been able to join a choir since then. To be honest I haven’t had a choir to join since then but even if I did I’m not sure I could do it. I haven’t even been able to sing on a worship team, and I’ve been asked.. but for some reason I can’t place, I just can’t do it. But, I feel I need it. You know when you get so hungry you get to the point where you’re not hungry anymore and food makes you nauseous. I am there. I have been without the unity in community so long that my soul doesn't even recognize that it needs it. Or maybe it does. Maybe that’s why I’m here now. I came across the phrase “mind of Christ” the other day and it got me thinking of a song we sang with my previous choir and I searched youtube and found it and wept. It was beautiful. Not just because the choir was tight, or because they had a spot on orchestra or because the sound was clear and you could hear the words. But because the words were hard and fast and true. Just as true today as they were near 2000 years ago when Paul wrote them, just as true when my former choir sang them and just as true today when the church is dealing with issues that is tearing it apart form the inside out. Just as true for little Colleen listening to her mommy and auntie Betty singing “O Glorious Love” or “God Hath Not Promised”. Just as true for the Queen of England, the widow in Calcutta, the refugee, the comfortable, the uncomfortable. Just as true for the midwife in Haiti, the teacher in Nigeria, the Doctor in Beirut, the nurse in Russia, the missionary in Cameroon, the priest in Chile, the coal miner in China, the farmer in Australia. You name it, it’s is true for them. Because if the gospel isn’t true for the single mom in Jamaica working three jobs to feed her two children then it isn’t true for any of us.
People, we are the body and we are to work together. We are the body for Christ. You know, the Messiah, the Saviour? We do this because of Him. In Him we live and move and have our being.
That is the most beautiful song we could ever sing.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death- even death on a cross!
Phil 2:5-8
