A Revival of Hymns Could Help

Like most pastors, I’m considering what it might look like when our congregation is able to gather again.  In the online discussions that I have participated in, some have suggested that the congregation not sing.  It may be that the prohibition against singing is even mandated in some places.

Such a prohibition is hard for me accept.  But I get it.  Singing takes more breath energy than speaking and the “particles” that inevitably fly from one’s mouth when singing (especially when it is in German!) may travel more than the prescribed six-foot social distancing boundary.  Still, as a life-long church musician, that is a hard pill to swallow.  

As I’ve pondered this, I wondered if singing acapella at a soft level might be an effective compromise.  As a choral musician, I know that some of the most poignant moments are often when the choir is singing very softly.  I can imagine that a congregation singing hymns softly would have a profound effect. 

Why hymns?  Because unlike most contemporary songs that are dependent upon rhythmic drive, the hymns that have endured through time have a sing-able melody.  They can stand on their own and be effectively sung without a band, piano, or organ.  Some who are reading this may get defensive and think I’m ragging on contemporary praise and worship songs.  I’m not.  I’ve championed the genre since its inception.  But the truth is, most of the songs are dependent upon a band.  A few aren’t, but they’re the exception. 

While we can’t use the hymnals (public Bibles and hymnals would be germ carriers), the words to well-known hymns could be presented on the screen. And then, have the congregation sing them almost “under their breath,” a technique singers call sotto voce.  I promise, the effect would be stunning, especially if your church has good acoustics. 

When the early church was formed and gathered in their first three hundred years, they practiced acapella singing.  We know this from Paul’s letters to the Ephesians and Colossians.  But we also know from the writings of the early church Fathers that singing didn’t play such a predominant role in worship gatherings as it does today in our culture.  The two primary foci of each weekly gathering were the Word of God and the Lord’s Table.  It is likely, during times of heavy persecution, that if the congregation sang at all, they sang quite softly.  We’ll survive, Church, and perhaps through this time of adjusted expectations and practice in corporate worship, we might discover new delights and what, in the end, is most important.   

We have seen the demise of hymn-singing for the last forty years.  Many of our young people have never heard the treasures that have been passed down to us from decades and centuries before.  Perhaps this pandemic can have the surprising effect of bringing the valuable practice of hymn-singing back to the American church.