“I’M NOT sure I would have first encountered God if it wasn’t for singing,” a young chorister said to me earlier this year. Her parents are not religious, and she probably wouldn’t have attended a church if it wasn’t for a music offering and a friend’s inviting her to sing.
Although I am not musical myself and have never sung in a church choir, I would say something similar about my first encounter with God. I became a Christian in my early twenties in a cathedral; and, looking back, I see that it was the choral tradition that first taught me to pray.
It came as no surprise, then, when I heard so many people — not least the “unchurched” — speaking of the beauty of the choral music after the death of Her Late Majesty (News, 23 September). The singing of the Abbey choir, said one person I got chatting to in a pub, enabled her to experience a sense of “transcendence”. It was as if she was for a moment transported, transformed, lifted beyond herself. “Was this an encounter with God?” she wondered.
CONVERSATIONS such as this are becoming more regular. I remember something similar after the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral and the Platinum Jubilee service this summer — basically, whenever the Church of England has been at the centre of national life. I see through this, more and more, that my experience of conversion is not unique. I am further convinced that the choral tradition is not just an aid to prayer, or a place of encounter with God, but a missional tool for the Church.
During the past year, I have witnessed this missional draw of the choral tradition as a parish priest. I am lucky enough to be the Vicar of a parish that has a team of extraordinarily talented musicians and a strong choir. What is rare, though, is that it includes just short of 40 young people under the age of 18. They come from diverse backgrounds, are split almost equally between children and teenagers, and allow us both a boys’ and a girls’ front row.
Like most young people in church, their level of engagement with faith varies. I won’t pretend that they are all card-carrying Christians, but their commitment to the church and choir as a community is unquestionable. Most of them come three times a week, when they, of course, share in the leading of worship through their singing; but many also lead prayers and read at services. Some are now exploring serving at the altar.
As a church, we don’t just provide a place to sing, but a community where discipleship and relationship can happen, too. The choristers attend weekly “Friday School” (Sunday school, but creatively renamed for a different day), and those older have a really quite rigorous Christian education through their RSCM awards. In recent months, a number have independently expressed a wish to be confirmed (including a couple of their parents, who have started attending worship).
I have absolutely no doubt, too, that vocations are brewing to all kinds of ministry, both in the Church and in their adult working lives as Christians. There is one chorister who, I am convinced, will become Prime Minister, and, last week, another said that they wanted to be a priest when they grew up. If this is mission, it feels like God’s!
BUT it is not all rosy. The reality is that a quality choral set-up, with proper safeguarding and good outreach (not least to underprivileged schools with little or no existing music provision), is expensive. And, on top of maintaining a large building with rising costs, and a substantial parish share, even a healthy-sized congregation will struggle. Without historic endowments, and in the second most deprived parish in the diocese, we are no exception. But hearing young people talk about prayer, watching them grow, seeing them deepen in relationship with God . . . it has to be worth it.
This is why I believe that the Church must invest more intentionally in the choral tradition across the country as mission that works. It cannot just be left to cathedrals. Now, I’m not saying that every church should have a choir like ours: that’s unrealistic; but I do think that now is the time to be strategic.
I have been encouraged in recent months that Strategic Develoment Fund money is going into choral projects, but I think that more can be done — not just by investing in new initiatives, but by supporting those with potential, and securing those that are well-established. Our church is not the only one where God is at work through choirs. If this happens, I know that countless young people will encounter the gospel, whether as singers, or those awoken by its beauty, like me.
The choral tradition as mission is mission that works. Surely that’s worth investing in.
The Revd Tom Mumford is the Vicar of St Mary le Tower, the town and civic church of Ipswich, in the diocese of St Edmundsbury & Ipswich.