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Who Will Lead Our Music?

Introduction

Over the summer, I was assisting several scholars with a project that explores how young people (aged 12 through 30) engage in worship. Utilizing ethnographic methods, our research team visited six different summer camps across North America that bring young people together to participate in worship-related activities. You can learn more about it here.

It’s an exciting topic. After all, as a 25-year-old, it sometimes seems as though every churchgoer over the age of 30 is strategizing to spark or sustain my generation’s interest in worship for the sake of keeping their congregation operationally afloat: “How will we remain financially stable in the long term? Who will host our events? Who will lead our music?

It is too early in the stages of the project that I describe above to offer many solid conclusions about what factors, musical or otherwise, motivate young people to participate in worship. There is so much analysis still ahead of us! In the meantime, to summarize what I am learning about young people and their capacity to lead congregational song, I will take less of a cue from the project data and more of a cue from my own life and experiences as a young adult.

 

When Young People Lead Music

Specifically, I want to reflect on my work as co-director of Menno Youth Ensemble. Although I recently concluded this role, it was my privilege to meet with a group of eight high school students once a week over eight months to make music together. We learned everything from choral repertoire to pop music, ranging from a cappella to instrumental arrangements, and on several occasions, we led congregational song at local churches.

Despite the relatively low number of participants, Menno Youth Ensemble was richly diverse. Some participants could sight-read advanced musical scores. Some of them could only learn music by ear. Some participants could play upwards of five instruments, while others primarily identified as vocalists. There were participants who exclusively read chord symbols, and there were participants who would have sung all four vocal parts at once if it were possible to do so.

Most of these young people were involved in other musical groups and activities while participating in Menno Youth Ensemble. For that reason, we saw our ensemble as less of a space for teaching new musical skills and more of a space for honing the skills that members had learned and then brought to our table from somewhere else. The result was a little eclectic and often a bit “clunky”: it sometimes took a lot of time for people to switch instruments between songs, and it was probably disorienting for congregations to experience such a wide range of musical genres in a single service! At the same time, our approach as an ensemble was highly participatory and accessible, leading me to wonder how churches might learn from it. If a congregation seeks young people to assist with leading music, perhaps there is value in considering not what kind of music will attract young people, but what kind of music is accessible to young people. As Menno Youth Ensemble demonstrated for me, the answer to that question varies from one young person to another.

 

When Young People Do Not Lead Music

Don’t mistake my description of Menno Youth Ensemble thus far to mean that young people wish to lead music in their congregations all the time (or at all). In fact, my work with these high school students taught me quite the opposite lesson! Yes, it was delightful to see young musicians contribute their various gifts to worship services through our ensemble, but it was also important to honour the times that these same musicians did not wish to exercise such leadership. I will share the two most striking examples.

First, at the halfway mark of our winter season, most members of the ensemble traveled with me and my co-director to a retreat center to make music with Mennonites of all ages for a weekend. It was a rejuvenating few days of workshops, worship, jam sessions, and crafts. I led a workshop with a songwriting focus (although I am far from a prolific songwriter myself). To my delight, one of the participants of our ensemble wrote a beautiful melody and paired it with lyrics expressing thanksgiving to God for creating the natural world. As I recall, she used “we” rather than “I” language, making it especially suitable for congregational use. I immediately started to brainstorm ways that she could share the song with a wider audience. Conveniently, I chair a team of people who make songs and other worship resources freely available on a website called Together in Worship, so I emailed her several weeks later asking if she might be willing to submit her work to us. Her response surprised me. Knowing that I had drafted a song at the workshop as well, she somewhat cheekily told me that she would only submit her song if I also submitted mine (which is still incomplete at this time)! I had assumed that by writing a song with so much liturgical potential, she would be eager for people to sing it in worship, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Maybe it feels intimidating to her. Maybe it falls on me—as one of her mentors—to model the vulnerability and courage it takes to share a musical gift with the Church.

I navigated a very similar situation with one other member of Menno Youth Ensemble. At the end of our season, we hosted a coffeehouse for family, friends, and other community supporters. We prepared several collaborative acts as an ensemble, but we also encouraged solo performances from our members. One participant shared an original song that she composed; much like what emerged at the retreat from one of her peers, the song was very suitable for worship! She wrote it in a contemporary style with lyrics speaking of the comfort that comes from her relationship with God. Once again, I readily encouraged her to submit the song to Together in Worship so that other people might find opportunities to sing it. Once again, to my surprise, she thanked me for the recommendation and told me that she would consider it, but several months later, she hasn’t submitted the song (although she assured me that she still intends to do so!).

 

Who Will Lead Our Music?

It is tempting to deduce from these examples that older music leaders need to work harder to convince young people that their contributions to worship are both valid and essential. Perhaps these two members of Menno Youth Ensemble don’t fully realize the value of what they might offer to the Church through their music. The risk of this approach, however, is the amount of pressure that it places on young people. Are we inadvertently suggesting that the future of the Church rests on what young people contribute to it, whether that is an original song or a commitment to leading music on a regular basis? While it is true that the Church is shaped by young people in the long term, and it is important to create space for young people to make their mark on worship, it is equally important to ensure that we aren’t overburdening them.

I want the members of Menno Youth Ensemble to know that all of their diverse musical gifts are welcome in worship. I also want them to know that their music is uniquely valuable and capable of transforming their communities in life-giving ways. Despite all of that, though, I want them to know that musical leadership does not fall exclusively to them. I want them to feel free to immerse themselves in congregational song so much that they start writing their own songs—not because the older people in their churches are demanding anything from them, but because the older people in their churches are so inspiring and encouraging to them.

Young people should keep receiving opportunities to lead older people in music. At the same time, older people should continue to lead music for the sake of its impact on younger people. That impact often runs deeper than what a young musician might be willing to share on a Sunday morning, and that’s alright. After all, there is little reason to celebrate a congregation that stays operationally afloat if the relationships that form below the surface and between generations are not rooted in mutual trust and support. Who will lead our music? It might be someone young, or it might be someone old. Let’s show enough grace to each other to let people of all ages ask (and answer) that question as the Spirit leads them.

 

 

Mykayla Turner holds a Master of Sacred Music with a Liturgical Musicology concentration and a Master of Theological Studies. She obtained her A.C.C.M. in Piano Performance from Conservatory Canada. Currently, she is a PhD student in the Faculty of Theology at Saint Paul University in Ottawa, ON. Apart from her academic work, she is an active church musician and liturgist. She also co-directs Ontario Mennonite Music Camp and chairs the team of volunteers who maintain Together in Worship, a curated collection of free worship resources from Anabaptist sources.

What a Hymnal Does

I love hymnals for lots of reasons. I love that hymnals, especially denominational hymnals, showcase the breadth of the whole Christian tradition, as well as the depth of my own Mennonite tradition. I love that newer hymnals feature chord symbols in addition to SATB harmonies. Some hymnals include thoughtful essays, readings, and liturgies in addition to an expansive repertory of music, and I love that as well.

Perhaps most of all, I love that hymnals organize songs into categories that make liturgical sense. For instance, when browsing my congregation’s hymnal, Voices Together, a few weeks before Easter Sunday, it is so convenient to refer to the “Jesus’ Resurrection” section and find a wealth of suitable songs. If I need additional suggestions, I might consult the thematic or scriptural indices at the back of the book. Most of the time, though, I find what I need by visiting the section of the hymnal that corresponds with the current liturgical season. Some sections might also correspond with a specific instance of congregational life, like the “Death and Eternal Life” section that includes suitable songs for funerals.

What a Hymnal Doesn’t Do

As much as I love my hymnal, there are limits to what it can offer if I take its organizational structure at face value. For instance, we are in Ordinary Time right now, and I don’t often see “Ordinary Time” when I look at a hymnal’s table of contents. Even when I utilize what does appear in a table of contents, it’s tempting to skip sections like “Death and Eternal Life” when selecting music for a Sunday morning, since I am apt to assume that these songs are exclusively appropriate for funerals. If I’m using Voices Together, I might therefore never encounter a song like Pablo Sosa’s “El cielo canta alegría”!

Although I commend the editors of this hymnal for carefully determining where “El cielo canta alegría” best fits among such a range of categories and themes, I must also acknowledge the relative arbitrariness of their decision. Pablo Sosa did not originally write this song for a funeral, and many of the song’s themes and references are transferable across a variety of settings. It works for a funeral, but it works in other cases as well. That means that I miss some of what a hymnal might bring to my congregation if I hold too fast to its table of contents or narrowly define what a section like “Death and Eternal Life” implies.

What a Hymnal Could Do

Similarly, how often do I assume that the “Jesus’ Resurrection” section of the hymnal is sacrosanct, reserving it for Easter Sunday and ignoring it in all other situations? Keeping with the theme above, I recently attended a funeral that challenged this assumption, since we sang “Lift Your Glad Voices” to conclude the service. It served as a beautiful celebration of eternal life in the wake of a loved one’s death. It works for Easter Sunday, but it evidently works in other cases as well—even a funeral!

When selecting music from a hymnal, we all know that we need not bind ourselves to its table of contents. Still, it’s often convenient for us to take this approach. It reduces time and effort. However, it also reduces our creative impulse and limits our theological imagination. For that reason, I suggest that Ordinary Time is an ideal opportunity to recall that there are songs which warrant our attention in the sections of our hymnals that we are least likely to consult.

Lessons from a Liturgical Calendar

Indeed, for those who follow a complete liturgical calendar, Ordinary Time is the most flexible season of the year. On these Sundays after Pentecost, according to most lectionaries, the biblical storyline is less linear than Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection. It creates more room for experimentation, leading some congregations to explore alternative themes or scriptural texts over several weeks. It might mean studying an entire book of the Bible or engaging with a theme that reflects the experiences or circumstances of your congregation.

Ordinary Time creates more room for musical experimentation as well:

  • It might mean learning a new song that doesn’t explicitly correlate with a liturgical season.
  • It might mean singing a familiar song at an unfamiliar time.
  • It might mean turning to sections of the hymnal that we failed to notice earlier in the year.

It might even mean searching beyond the hymnal for musical ideas. Every hymnal overemphasizes some themes while deemphasizing other important topics. Further, hymnals only contain songs that were written before a certain date. How might the freedom of Ordinary Time inspire us to consult other sources, perhaps introducing us to new composers, musical genres, styles of worship, or theological themes?

The possibilities are far more numerous than we often take time to acknowledge. Like a liturgical calendar or set of lectionary texts, a hymnal is richer than what we often assume, while, at the same time, it is far from comprehensive. We exercise wisdom as church musicians when we intentionally balance respecting, redefining, and removing the boundaries that a hymnal sets for us. If we forget to strike that balance, Ordinary Time serves as our annual reminder.

 

Mykayla Turner holds a Master of Sacred Music with a Liturgical Musicology concentration. She recently obtained her A.C.C.M. in Piano Performance from Conservatory Canada, and she is currently completing a Master of Theological Studies. Mykayla has presented research at conferences in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Apart from her academic work, she is an active church musician and liturgist. She works as a worship coordinator for a Mennonite congregation in rural Ontario.

Mykayla Turner holds a Master of Sacred Music with a Liturgical Musicology concentration. She recently obtained her A.C.C.M. in Piano Performance from Conservatory Canada, and she is currently completing a Master of Theological Studies. Mykayla has presented research at conferences in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Apart from her academic work, she is an active church musician and liturgist. She works as a worship coordinator for a Mennonite congregation in rural Ontario.

 

When we sing in unison, we embody unity in Christ. Don’t we?

It was only a few years ago that I first encountered this interpretation of singing with other Christians. I soon realized that it is anything but novel; on the contrary, “commentators from the fourth century onward mention unison singing as expressing symphonia (sounding together, i.e., acclamatory agreement)” (Flynn 2006, 772). The logic is simple: To sing the same thing at the same time, our voices must move in the same melodic direction. It is impossible to sing in unison without unifying our voices, or at least attempting to do so, which equips us for unified action in other areas of life.

That wasn’t my understanding, though. I once made the opposite claim in an assignment for one of my courses. I contended that Christians embody unity by singing in four-part harmonies. Upon reading my work, my professor alerted me to what seemed to be a consensus among medieval Christians: At best, singing in unison unifies us; at the very least, singing in unison serves as a figurative reminder of the concord that should characterize our communities.

How did I develop such a different idea? Where is the logic in my argument?

When I suggest that unity results from singing in four-part harmonies, I am applying the ecumenical concept of “unity-in-diversity” to congregational song (Wendlinder 2018, 390). Rather than prescribing uniformity across all Christian groups, some ecumenists root their vision of the Church in Paul’s description of the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12:14–20:

Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members yet one body.

While maintaining our diverse beliefs, abilities, or commitments, everyone claims Christ, the head of the Church, as the source of their faith. We represent this inter-ecclesial vision in our congregations when we sing different parts of the same song at once. Diverse musical assignments arise from the same source and contribute to the same goal. Furthermore, by singing different harmonies, a congregation accomplishes more than an individual might achieve alone. In real-time, an individual cannot sing more than one musical line. When it comes to live, sung harmonies, individuals must join their voices together to move in the same harmonic rather than melodic direction. Just like singing in unison, it is impossible to sing in four parts without unifying our voices. The difference lies in working together to build the same chord rather than land on the same note.

I am defending a mode of congregational song to which some Mennonites hold dear. Although I do not descend from sixteenth-century Anabaptists, whether Swiss-German or “Russian” (Dutch and North German), I spend a great deal of time with other Euroamericans who do lay claim to that heritage. For a variety of reasons, most of them untenable, Mennonites in these circles seek to “maintain what they understand to be a Mennonite tradition of a cappella, four-part hymn singing” (McCabe Juhnke 2018, 45). Community ranks high on our list of priorities, but we express our commitment to one another through the sound of diverse voices coming together to form something more than a single melodic line. It’s a beautiful image. It’s also a deceptive image for several reasons that are becoming increasingly apparent to me:

  1. Isn’t it ironic that a thoroughly uniform group of Mennonites (at least in an ethnocultural sense) embraces a kind of singing that embodies unity in diversity? The multifaceted image of the Church that forms through our song dissolves as soon as we shift our attention to congregational demographics. (I suspect that I’m not just naming a Mennonite problem here. Does anyone else belong to a homogeneous congregation wrestling with the realities of self-contradiction?)
  2. On the other hand, some Mennonite congregations are not so uniform. I work for a majority-White congregation affiliated with Mennonite Church Eastern Canada, but many of our members did not grow up in Mennonite communities, nor are they able to trace their family lineage to sixteenth-century Anabaptists. Consequently, these members feel less comfortable singing in four-part harmonies. In fact, on a Sunday morning, I often fear that I am distracting or intimidating some of the melody-bound congregants around me if I choose to sing an alto line. (Once again, I suspect that this range of musical abilities is not unique to Mennonite congregations. Are there any other church musicians who worship alongside untrained singers?)
  3. On a global scale, non-Western Mennonites far outnumber those of European descent. Even in North America, Mennonite congregations that were once ethnoculturally homogeneous are experiencing demographic shifts to reflect global realities (Graber 2022, 193). (I’ll say it one last time: Am I describing a solely Mennonite phenomenon, or are other denominations moving in a similarly diverse direction?) When one adopts this global perspective, it is no longer true to assert that four-part harmonies are ubiquitous among Mennonites (or Christians of any tradition, for that matter). On the contrary, for instance, Katie Graber conducted a project that enabled her to visit a wide range of Mennonite Church USA congregations and observe their diverse musical forms: “I heard a cappella singing, and singing accompanied with piano, keyboard, guitar, drums, and recordings. I heard songs influenced by traditions from around the world, and European and North American hymns translated into many languages.”

Several instructive comments arise from this discussion. On one hand, if congregations in North America are becoming more diverse, it is not so ironic to sing in four-part harmonies after all. When our ecclesial bodies are visibly diverse, consisting of various ethnocultural “parts,” four-part singing symbolically affirms those differences and asserts that unity can still emerge from them.

However, just as it takes considerable effort to bring four vocal lines into harmonic union, we should not assume that congregational unity comes without work. In all areas of congregational life, including the act of singing together, we must exercise hospitality and thoughtful discernment. Singing in four-part harmonies might exclude some individuals who struggle to sing anything other than a melody line. If that is the case, singing in unison might (ironically) serve as a better way to embody unity amidst people of diverse musical abilities. Some of this discernment unfolds at an individual level. When I am singing European hymnody alongside someone less confident in their abilities, I might sing the melody for two or three verses before attempting any harmonies that might distract them. On the other hand, I might be standing beside someone trying to sing the alto line with some difficulties. As a musical leader in my congregation, hospitality compels me to abandon the melody line and support them. When I am selecting music for a congregation representing various musical backgrounds, I might avoid European hymnody altogether, instead choosing contemporary songs that favor a melodic line while still accommodating extemporaneous harmonies. As a keyboardist, when I am accompanying a congregation, I might make careful decisions in advance about whether I should play a song as it is written (to encourage four-part harmonies) or deliberately alter those harmonies so that congregants must sing in unison.

Conclusion

When we sing, we embody unity in Christ. That statement might be true for a congregation that sings in unison. It might also be true for a congregation that sings in four-part harmonies. In truth, it depends less on how a congregation sings and more on how a congregation intentionally includes everyone in the act of singing, which may vary from one song or service to the next. After all, congregational song consists of all kinds of sounds. Sometimes it sounds rich with four or more textures, while at other times, it sounds strikingly smooth. At all times, though, it should consist of all voices or risk evoking little more than an illusion of the unity to which Christ calls us.

 

While reflecting on my experience as a graduate student in Dallas and preparing for work as a church musician, I wrote, “I just spent two years studying at a Methodist seminary, and in that environment, faculty and students spend a lot of time talking about being “called” to ministerial work. Honestly, I’m not very compelled by this idea. While it’s true that Perkins School of Theology was a great fit for me, I would have enjoyed working elsewhere. I seriously considered working in other fields and/or studying at other schools, but in the end, I earned a Master of Sacred Music degree at a seminary in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Regardless of how my “calling” fits into that equation, that choice was mine. By making that choice, I was able to visit Mennonite, Methodist, Disciples of Christ, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Baptist, and non-denominational churches. I made Texan, Korean, Brazilian, Kenyan, Tanzanian, El Salvadorian, and Dominican friends. I ate new foods, saw new sights, and heard new ideas. Our choices curate our relationships and experiences. Some things are not within our control, but in many cases, we choose the stories that we hear. We don’t have the bandwidth to listen to all of them, so we must be selective. We also choose between dismissing those stories (perhaps privileging the sound of our own voices?) or allowing relationships to form out of them so that they shape how we think, speak, and act.”

Now, it strikes me that church musicians make similar choices.

This month, I started working for a Mennonite congregation in rural Ontario. I serve as a “worship coordinator,” meaning that I select music, develop service themes and orders, and equip congregants for various liturgical roles. The congregation selects repertoire from Mennonite Church Canada and Mennonite Church USA’s most recent hymnal, Voices Together (Kauffman 2020). This hymnal made headlines in the world of congregational song for its richly diverse repertoire deriving from a variety of linguistic, stylistic, and cultural sources.

Despite the efforts of the editorial committee to carefully curate songs for inclusion in Voices Together, local congregations will not sing all of them (Johnson 2023, 132). Especially in Anabaptist and other Free Church traditions, congregational leaders make selective repertoire choices for their communities. The result is often a body of song that represents the congregation well, but it fails to account for the wider denomination in North America and worldwide. Is that a problem?

As Sarah Kathleen Johnson remarks in the preface to the Worship Leader Edition of Voices Together, “this book was created with the recognition that not every resource in it is the right fit for every community” (Johnson 2020, vii). However, Johnson also challenges leaders to allow “changing cultures within your community, neighborhood, and the wider world” to “inspire changes to your worship practice. For example, bilingual worship may develop if a new language group becomes prominent in your neighborhood or if older and younger generations in your community use different languages” (Johnson 2020, 2). Evidently, music leaders make critical choices about what to sing and whom to include in singing it.

When we sing, we both envision and enact a future for ourselves.

Just as it was not reasonable (or even possible) for me to listen and respond to all the stories I encountered while living in Dallas, it is not reasonable for a congregation to sing every song in a hymnal. Again, we must be selective, which means that different congregations and their leaders will make different choices, further resulting in different outcomes. Leaders must therefore ask themselves:

  1. What kind of community do I wish to create through song?
  2. What are its characteristics?
  3. Who does it include or exclude?

When we sing, we both envision and enact a future for ourselves. When we sing familiar songs, we might reinforce existing beliefs, norms, and boundaries—for better or for worse. When we sing songs that seem new or different to congregants, we might challenge beliefs, disrupt norms, and stretch boundaries—again, for better or for worse, although I maintain that it makes a good deal of sense for discerning leaders to shift the status quo to reflect the emerging realities of faith and life.

Do we succeed in these efforts? Earlier, I stated that, in addition to choosing if we will devote ourselves to hearing the stories of those around us, “we also choose between dismissing those stories (perhaps privileging the sound of our own voices?) or allowing relationships to form out of them so that they shape how we think, speak, and act.” As someone who works in a fairly homogeneous neighborhood, it feels like a daunting task to form relationships with members of the Black and Asian communities from which songs like “Total Praise,” and “Ososo (Come Now, O Prince of Peace)” derive. After all, the two BIPOC members of our congregation relocated to an urban area within two weeks of my start date. On the other hand, according to the most recent Canadian census, there are several Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking residents of our region, so it might be feasible to connect with these neighbors and, in doing so, foster deeper engagement with songs like “Perdón, Señor” and “Cantai ao Senhor (O Sing to the Lord).” In this new role, then, I will utilize my connections, recognizing both that I am not connected to everyone and that I am connected to more people than I realize. I’m also looking forward to The Hymn Society Annual Conference and other events that enable me to strengthen existing connections and form new ones with members of other communities. Several additional questions are instructive for this work:

  1. Whose stories do I choose to tell? Do we have a connection? Could we form one?
  2. When I tell the stories of other communities through music, am I muffling or distorting the sound? How much of that distortion is inevitable?
  3. What kind of research, relationships, and rehearsals must ensue for our songs (or the songs of others) to shape our future for the better?

With these considerations in mind, let us become critical, curious, and considerate leaders who make relationships the fruit (and the labor) of our liturgical choices.

 

 

Blogger Mykayla Turner is a Master of Sacred Music student attending Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. Under the direction of Dr. Marcell Silva Steuernagel, her thesis research focuses on the role of music in rural congregations. Mykayla has completed graduate coursework at Conrad Grebel University College and Southern Methodist University in both theological studies and church music. She is an active church musician and liturgist in both Mennonite and ecumenical contexts. In 2023, Mykayla obtained her A.C.C.M. in Piano Performance.