Choir or No Choir

[Alan M.]

I am just curious how many of you guys/gals have a choir every Sunday? I am doing some research on this and trying to figure out if choirs are necessary for a "great musical worship experience"*. Please let me know what you think.


* I put that in quotes because I attend a liturgical church and believe that "worship" is the entire service, not just the musical aspect. I couldn't think of any better terminology, so please forgive me.

[Mike Darley]

We don't have a choir and our musical worship experience is pretty great.

[carguy1]

We are choirless as well, but have given it some thought... Oh and I have experience great worship both with and without a choir.

[stephen_can_man]

Advantages of choirs:
1. More people involved.
2. Encourages congregation to sing.

Disadvantages:
1. More work and organization.
2. Harder to appeal to younger generations.


In general, old people (55+) like choirs, middle aged (40+) like or tolerate them, Gen-Xers (30+) don't really like them but might tolerate, Millineals (below 30) would rather have their ear drums ripped out.

There are varying purposes for a choir as well. Some are used for "backing" purposes only where they sing one or two parts and only sing on the chorus etc. Sometimes a choir might have specific pieces with written music and they are the leaders of the song. Some churches use an "ensemble" which is usually 5-12 singers all across the front of the stage.

There are lots of combinations but the bell curve for a choir's usage tends to be the older the congregation, the larger the appreciation for a choir.

[chipshot0701]

Our choir is dying a slow death.
They do one or two songs per month at either one or sometimes two services per.
We have three services. One on Saturday night (traditional Lutheran Liturgy service.) An 8:30 Traditional Lutheran service. They would sing at those services. The choir membership is dwindling. ITs hard to sing Handels Messiah with 8 people-most being sopranos.
The 11:00 Sunday service is live contemporary and has grown two fold in attendence in comparison to the traditional services. MAny different age and genders are at each service. Hard to figure that one out but its true. .

[worshiptrench]

What about moving the choir to the modern service...for more see http://www.worshiptrench.com/?p=16

[milepost13]

We have a "worship choir" that "performs" a few times a year. Their purpose is to support the band in leading worship and teaching new songs. We write our own arrangements of the songs we use (lincoln brewster, chris tomlin, hillsong united, etc.). I'd like to incorporate them more often, but haven't had a chance to yet. We keep it simple, fun and on purpose.

Nate

[chrisfromcanada]

No choir ever.

Thinking about putting together a performance choir for a few times/year.

[garyhodges]

I'm not a strong traditionalist, but I don't think we need to throw the baby out with the bath water.

If we think of "choir" in the sense of a bunch of marginally competent singers who help lead the hymns and do an anthem, then maybe that model doesn't fit in our modern worship experiences.

But if we were to rethink "choir" like Worshiptrench describes on his blog, it can be a vital part and enhancement to all but the edgiest of sets.

It's tricky. Good arrangements for modern songs that don't set it back 10 years or more are hard to come by. Maybe those of us who have some arrangements could begin to share them amongst ourselves. Hmmm?

In my last church, the choir was a great way to facilitate the teaching of vocal parts (we had multiple teams, but wanted consistency in the vocal arrangements), so everyone, including our front line singers were a part of the choir, and on the weeks that the choir would sing, those who were not in the front line that week would sing with the choir. Did that make sense?

We also then would draw from the larger group new singers for the front line.

That said -- I wouldn't be inclined to use the choir every week, because quite frankly, not all modern worship songs lend themselves to choral arrangements.

[twc_admin]

I agree with Gary and Jordan ... there can be some great elements - I mean, look at Hillsong - they make great use of the choir!

As for us, I started a feature choir that will perform only a few times per year .. we had our first appearance on Easter, and it was great.