Singing Your Heart Out
You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, that’s what they say. I heard this week that even if we return to the church building we won’t be singing in it! Congregational singing in the days of COVID-19 is about as smart and welcome as a coughing fit in a doctor’s surgery. So say the experts anyway.
I didn’t realise how much I loved, even needed, singing until someone stopped me doing it and told me they weren’t sure when I’d be able to do it again! It’s difficult to imagine church without the music. We had a service just before lockdown with no songs and, maybe because we’ve not sung for so long, there’s a big void where a song should be. Like the awkward silence that comes in the conversation you have with someone you bump into at the supermarket that you haven’t seen in five years.
It didn’t always feel like that, not for me. I can very clearly recall the first time I consciously sang at church. I was about 16 and it was the week some of my mates came along for the first time. I’m sure the Holy Spirit played a part in this miracle but there were good looking girls and a pizza in the mix too, a powerful trio. I remember the moment my mates lifted up their hymn books to sing. I’d never really thought about it before, I’d gone to church forever, I couldn’t remember not singing. I’d never really considered what I was doing, or the words that were coming out of my mouth. I’d never read them! Now, as I glanced sideways at my mates looking down towards this old book for direction, I saw the words through their eyes, long words that ended in ‘tion’ that I knew were good for me without really knowing why. Lots about death and blood too and, almost worse, joy and love. I died inside. Then, despite the furious odds stacked against it, in untrained and brutally raw Yorkshire dialects, we sang.
What is this strange thing we do? And how have I come to miss it so much?
The thing is, or the thing I’ve come to appreciate is, it’s really not so strange. Singing is really normal. It often just happens rather than needing to be forced! And it’s not just church types or choir types that like a sing. Some of the least likely environments on earth forge a chorus. Butch fishermen love a shanty. They love a harmony too, striking up a ballad whilst hauling in the nets. Thuggish football fans fill stadiums where masculinity (or the need to present it) is king, and sing odes to each other or one of the eleven folks running around on the pitch! Soldiers clinging to life in the trenches on the western front belt out Christmas carols… and what happens in the pubs of Cas and Ponte after a few pints? Song! None of this is coerced; it’s how humans exist, how they cope, how they celebrate, how they survive.
The BBC even thought it worthy of attention last week, ending a midweek broadcast with it. Noting how, in lockdown, we had turned to song. Commenting on how Italians were quick to sing from their balconies, and choirs and churches had determined to unite in song online. They listed the health benefits; when we sing the ‘brain lights up with activity’; as we focus on our breathing to aid our singing we activate parts of the brain linked to our emotions, so it helps our mood. But it’s when we sing with others that the benefits really crank up.
‘There is evidence that, in general, singing in a group enhances our sense of empathy and social connection.’
The report goes on to say ‘as well as endorphins racing through your body, another hormone released when we sing is oxytocin… which has a powerful effect in enhancing a feeling of connectedness between people.’ Then, most emphatically, it quotes Jerome Lewis who says
‘Song or music is able to capture something that goes beyond what we would normally be able to articulate in our rational, logical minds.’
Bottom line from the Beeb, singing is really good for you, keep doing it!
One of my favourite pastimes in church is to switch position to gain a different audio experience. I move from one side of the church to the other; all of a sudden it’s the base rather than the keys making my toes tap. The backing singers change too; do I stand near to the loud baritone guy or go nearer the lady with the soft Celtic tone, or both? It’s like you can twiddle the controls of the stereo, it’s ace. But the sound is only a small part of the beauty of the gathered song. What makes singing together (especially at church) really beautiful, why it really moves you like nothing else and why I’m pining for it now, is your relationship with the words and the people you sing them with.
I’ve sung Amazing Grace as a kid with no real idea of what grace was, surrounded by a bunch of people praying I’d find out. I’ve sung Amazing Grace when I’ve been on top of the world, not feeling ‘wretched’ or ‘lost’ at all, able to just belt it out with a smile. And I’ve sung it hanging on the grace like a thread the weight of my problems felt sure to snap. We sing in joy and we sing in pain, we sing away from God and we sing near to him, we sing with indifference and with real passion. Week after week we stand and sing, in different seasons of life, next to people going through the toughest storm of their lives and people on top of the world. But all the time we are kept! By the truth in the words, the care of the people we sing them with and the God who binds both together.
These songs sung at church are more than nice tunes. They’re how we exist, how we survive, why we have hope.
Singing is more normal than we know but it symbolises something more magnificent than we can conceive. When humans sing words of truth with hearts moved by love to unity with each other they become heavenly, they’re perfect.
My Grandad was the engineer in the mill I used to work at. The textile machines he made, full of cogs and leather belting, he’d describe not as operational, but as singing. As every part performed its function the whole thing sang, so he would say. This is how God describes creation running perfectly, it’s not just a chemically functional ball of gas and dust that happens to be a nice place to live, it sings.
‘The heavens declare his glory and the skies proclaim the work of his hands’ (Psalm 19)
And when people discover the creator behind the creation, they join the chorus. Not necessarily like they’ve just landed a role in a musical and have discovered their inner Michael Ball, bursting into song as they walk down the street (although this has happened to some Christians I know). But they join the tune God began, that carries on forever and incorporates all people of faith.
Here’s how John sees it,
‘After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:9–10)
No wonder we miss it!
I’m aching to sing again, not just on my own in the shower but with the mob on Wheldon Road, or the kop at Elland Road, or singing the lyrics to Oasis or Blur (insert 90s band here), but mostly back at my Church with people who know me and a tune that will carry me.
Loved before the dawn of time, Chosen by my Maker, Hidden in my Saviour; I am His and He is mine, Cherished for eternity.
When I’m stained with guilt and sin, He is there to lift me, Heal me and forgive me; Gives me strength to stand again, Stronger than I was before.
So with every breath that I am given I will sing salvation’s song; And I’ll join the chorus of creation Giving praise to Christ alone.
Stuart Townend
Ash Gibson, Pastor, Christchurch Xscape
