{"id":30283,"date":"2015-06-02T06:39:05","date_gmt":"2015-06-02T11:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=30283"},"modified":"2015-06-02T06:39:05","modified_gmt":"2015-06-02T11:39:05","slug":"13-solutions-for-a-church-that-just-wont-sing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2015\/06\/02\/13-solutions-for-a-church-that-just-wont-sing\/","title":{"rendered":"13 Solutions for a Church That Just Won’t Sing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over at Ponder Anew<\/a>,\u00a0Jonathan in Texas describes himself as, among other things, \u201cevangelical\u201d and \u201cpost-evangelical.\u201d He grew up Southern Baptist and is now happily United Methodist. He has 13 Solutions for a Church That Just Won\u2019t Sing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He has much to say about each solution. To give you a taste of the piece, here are his 13 solutions without elaboration.<\/p>\n

1. Teach. 2. Dust off the organ console. 3. Bring the choir back. 4. Make it obvious that your congregational singing isn\u2019t supposed to be a performance. 5. Get rid of the lead soloist. 6. Don\u2019t sing so much. 7. Sing all the time. 8. Build a resonant sanctuary. 9. Encourage and support the arts in the community. 10. Bring the kids back into corporate worship. 11. Use hymnals. 12. Make the music worth singing. 13. Stop doing the same songs over and over and over.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(With all due respect, though, on no. 2 I don\u2019t think the Protestant Reformation \u201cbrought back\u201d the organ into the church. Its use in church gradually increased throughout the second millennium.<\/p>\n

Jonathan concludes,<\/p>\n

Not all are immediately practical solutions for every congregation, but in time, implementing these ideas would begin to build a singing culture in our congregations once again. No, nothing we do is going to fix this problem over night, but it\u2019s time we make the obvious changes necessary to gradually restore congregational singing. It will take a concerted effort. It will take making changes that aren\u2019t popular with everyone or that might not immediately resonate with the culture around us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thoughts?<\/p>\n

awr<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No, nothing we do is going to fix this problem over night, but it\u2019s time we make the obvious changes necessary to gradually restore congregational singing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-general"],"yoast_head":"\n13 Solutions for a Church That Just Won't Sing - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2015\/06\/02\/13-solutions-for-a-church-that-just-wont-sing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"13 Solutions for a Church That Just Won't Sing - 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