According to a Chorus America study,
- More choirs are found in churches than anywhere else in the U.S., 216,000 of 270,000. 80% of all choirs in the U.S. are in church.
- Choir singers are better citizens than non-choir singers when measured by voluntarism, community involvement, charitable giving, empathy, and the likelihood they will vote.
If all part-time church choir directors knew these facts, would they think about their church jobs differently? Would churches make sure those part-time jobs turned into full-time jobs in order to get more choir singers as members?
Church musicians have connected their vocations with service for a long time. Consider this:
- “To the honor of the most high God alone, to the neighbor, that he may learn from it.” J.S. Bach, on the title page of the Orgelbüchlein.
- “That this part (i..e., the musical part) of Divine Worship may be the more acceptable to God, as well as the more profitable to yourself and others. . .” Prefatory sentence to John Wesley’s Directions for Singing of 1761.
Bach and Wesley understood the Great Commandment to love God and neighbor as primary to their vocations as church musicians. They, along with many others, have carried the positive attributes of faith into a needy world.
The Church Music Institute’s eLibrary, with its 6,500 (and growing) octavos searchable on 24 criteria, including Scripture text, is one way to deliver time-tested truths through beautiful music via choirs to our world. Interested? www.churchmusicinstitute.org
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