Sing! The Center For Congregational SongMykayla Turner Archives - Sing! The Center For Congregational Song

Does your congregation introduce a “hymn of the month” every four or five weeks? I once watched John L. Bell, a well-known figure in the world of congregational song, imitate the average music leader’s attempt to teach one of these songs to their congregation for the first time: “Well, so, it’s a new month, which means that we’re going to learn a new hymn of the month, and it’s a tricky one, so we probably won’t get it right, but just follow me, and we’ll do our best to make it to the end.” He didn’t use those exact words, but he nevertheless suggested through this impersonation that music leaders sometimes make their work overly difficult. By predicting that congregants will fail to sing a new song well (and by making our low expectations known to them when we introduce the song), do we empower them to sing with courage and exceed our expectations? Not according to Bell. More likely, by communicating to congregants that we doubt their capacity to sing well, we confirm that they won’t succeed before they even make an attempt.

Tokenism?

That’s not the only trouble that comes with introducing a new hymn at the beginning of the month. When I was collecting statistical data on my own congregation’s musical repertoire, I found that in our case, these songs were substantially different from our other selections, so much so that one could accuse us of exoticizing them. For instance, we sang a song from an Indigenous source (written by a Mohawk man) for the first time throughout the month of October, and we sang it with the aid of a drum instead of a piano or organ. That was very new for us. In November, we sang “Masithi,” a song with South African origins, in its original language, Xhosa, but none of us speak Xhosa. It would’ve been obvious that neither of these songs suited us very well if a stranger walked into the sanctuary while we were singing them. They were challenging and uncomfortable to learn, which might explain why neither of our song leaders (cantors) have selected them in subsequent months. We sang them—we sang each of them four times, in fact!—but since they don’t seem to be entering our canon in the long term, did our efforts to learn new music from other cultures and communities simply amount to tokenism?

Accepting the challenge

When learning a new song, repetition is so helpful. That’s the beauty of introducing a hymn at the beginning of the month and continuing to sing it each week! As Bell reminds us, though, and as my own congregation demonstrates, there are other confounding variables that might inhibit our efforts to introduce a hymn of the month with both integrity and success. Indeed, there are no quick fixes or easy answers when it comes to teaching music to a group of amateurs or fostering cultural appreciation without appropriation. I do, however, believe that congregations navigate both of these concerns best by accepting the challenge instead of balking at it. After all, with the exception of “Masithi,” my congregation only sang in English over almost six months, even though some of our own members spent their childhood speaking another language. For us, learning an unfamiliar text and tune functions as a subtle, perhaps even subconscious, effort to dismantle linguistic privilege within our congregation. For that reason among others, I would lament if we gave up the challenge of learning a hymn of the month.

Invitation

As music leaders, it is our task to invite the congregation to accept the challenge of singing a hymn of the month, not just in the short term, but in the long term as well. Responding to Bell’s critique, which addresses a short-term concern, music leaders need not dismiss congregational anxieties about learning a new song, but they might still graciously offer confidence and encouragement in the face of such apprehension: “We are learning a new song this month! It’s different from a lot of our other music, and we might make mistakes, but I’m confident that we will find lots to love about it over time. Who knows? It might become another one of our favorites.” By suggesting that “it might become another one of our favorites,” the music leader alerts congregants to the possibility of returning to the hymn of the month after the month ends, thus extending the challenge into the long term. After all, if the congregation does find “lots to love” in it, it would be a shame to stop singing it after four weeks. On the other hand, it might take more than four tries to develop an attachment to the new song that parallels what congregants feel for their existing favorites. Still, by promising that some level of attachment will form over an undefined length of time, it won’t shock the congregation to see the song appear in the order of service again in future months.

In my view, then, accepting the challenge of singing a hymn of the month is a short-term commitment with long-term implications. If the music leader doesn’t realize and articulate the nature of this commitment, though, how can we expect the congregation to give their assent to it?

Conversation Questions

In writing this blog post, I must also be clear that I aim to spark a conversation rather than conduct an exhaustive investigation. So, I conclude with some additional questions beyond the scope of what I can address here:

What are some other advantages and drawbacks of featuring a hymn of the month?
What is the best way to introduce a hymn of the month?
Should we even call it a “hymn of the month,” especially if it suggests that the hymn only exists for a month before disappearing from the congregation’s repertory?
Are there new or better ways to teach new songs to amateur singers?
Most importantly, when we accept the challenge of learning new music together, what gifts do we receive that we might otherwise miss?

Blogger 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.

A Poem

I attended a friend’s wedding this summer. It was an outdoor ceremony in a wooded section of a campground, so we sang everything a cappella, including one number hastily rehearsed by a hodge-podge group of “friends and dads.” While it would be worthwhile to reflect on the ceremony’s musical content, it wasn’t the music that caught my attention. Instead, it was a reading. One sibling read Mary Oliver’s poem, “Don’t Hesitate,” which begins with an admonition:

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give into it” (Oliver 2010).

I love that idea. It stuck with me because I want to heed Oliver’s advice, allowing myself to feel joyful without delay or reservation. That’s not how Advent works, though, is it?

Advent…not Christmas yet!

It’s the perennial concern of a church musician. The Advent season begins in December and lasts for four weeks, bringing us right to the doorstep of Christmas Eve, but we see evidence of Christmas festivities in the world around us by November 1, if not earlier. Who can blame the congregants who wish to join the throngs of non-liturgical folk singing Christmas carols for two months or more? It’s fun! More than that, it brings joy to our lives! After all, Oliver told us not to hesitate.

For those who follow a liturgical calendar, though, we know that Advent calls us to “solemn stillness” rather than exuberant joy (Clymer Kurtz and Clymer Kurtz 2014). Much like Lent, Advent makes room for reflection, lament, and longing. While we know that Jesus already entered the world, we act as if we are still waiting for his arrival, reacquainting ourselves with the world’s grief and remembering again why we still hope for the ultimate redemption of creation. It is a season of intentional restraint so that the eventual joy of Christmas feels even more tangible. Advent is a difficult season, but it bears rich fruit. Maybe it’s worthwhile to hesitate sometimes.

You might think that I’m taking the side of the church musician, encouraging you to remain steadfast in your refusal to accommodate requests for Christmas carols before December 24. That’s not my intention, though. You see, Oliver alerts us to an important fact: Even in a season of intentional lament, we will encounter causes for celebration. Likewise, in a season of intentional celebration, like Eastertide (which deserves far more attention than what it currently receives from most congregations), we will encounter occasions for lament. No season is monolithic, even if the liturgical calendar makes it seem so.

Wiggle Room

How then do we anticipate, acknowledge, and make allowances for the complexities of the Advent season when choosing music for our congregations? Here’s one simple suggestion: What if we concluded each service with a Christmas carol? Even if we make a relative commitment to withhold exclamations like “Glory to God in the highest heaven!” until the angels join us on Christmas Eve (assuming that most congregations will read and reflect on Luke 2:1–20 on December 24), it’s not so much heretical as it is honest to acknowledge throughout Advent that we know how the story concludes. We know that longing is not the last word; rather, our cries of lament soon enough blossom into exuberant celebration of the birth of Jesus. Singing a Christmas carol at the end of a service which acknowledges the world’s deep need serves as a foretaste of the good news that we won’t need to stifle for much longer: God is with us! Love is both imminent and immanent.

Worship already often concludes with some kind of uplifting benediction, so I contend that it might suit the flow of a service, the veiled hope of the season, and the ever-shifting state of the world to set aside our well-intentioned reservations for a moment and sing a Christmas carol. Did I mention what comes next in Oliver’s poem? After calling us to “give into” joy without hesitation, she makes the following observation:

“There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back” (Oliver 2010).

The poem continues for a few more lines, but even from this excerpt, we sense Oliver’s rhetorical aim. She means to communicate that grief and joy are not discrete realities appearing in chronological order in our lives. Joy follows a much less linear and much more defiant trajectory than what the liturgical calendar might lead us to believe, and it’s worthwhile to make that corrective in our work as church musicians. We must not fail to recognize and lament the world’s need, but at the same time, joy is far too fleeting for us to ignore when it “suddenly and unexpectedly” appears in our lives. In this season, and in all seasons, we can’t afford to hesitate.

Don’t Hesitate by Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

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:

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?)
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?)
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.”
https://mwc-cmm.org/en/membership-map-and-statistics

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:

What kind of community do I wish to create through song?
What are its characteristics?
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:

Whose stories do I choose to tell? Do we have a connection? Could we form one?
When I tell the stories of other communities through music, am I muffling or distorting the sound? How much of that distortion is inevitable?
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.

The Hymn of the Month