Why Do Mennonites Have So Many Choirs? — Benjamin Good — Ep. 009

Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong, they are weak, but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so. Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Anabaptist Perspectives. I'm with Benjamin Good. We're at SMBI. This is the choir room here at Sherri Mennonite Bible Institute. And you would have, wow, you would have conducted the choir here for how many years? What have you done that? Well, I'm here four times since 2012. Okay. And was part-time before then. Okay. So a couple of years then, definitely. Yeah, a few years. Yeah. Because I remember standing about right there under, you know, under you teaching us about.

This is the bass often go. Yeah. That's right. So, yeah, a lot of good memories there. And you've had a lot of experience in a lot of different choirs. So can you tell us, first of all, a little bit about yourself and your experiences here at SMBI? Well, I grew up in a family that sang together quite a lot. So I've been singing all my life and had my first experience in conducting here at SMBI. Okay. Took the conducting class. And then, so besides being involved in the choir here, I also teach music classes, both music theory and music theology, and some Bible classes as well. Something that our circles are really well known for, we have a lot of choirs.

I mean, they're on YouTube, they're all over the place. We have tons of CDs. It seems like everywhere, every time you turn around, another church is starting a choir. And obviously, we really stress a cappella music, you know, music without instruments. That's kind of historically been something that the Mennonites have. But to be blunt, why do we have so many choirs? What is it about our culture that produces so many choirs? Well, singing is fun.

Singing is a lot of fun. That's why you join the choir proudly. Sure. Sure. You know, and it's just something that people want to do. And in fact, I think most of the choirs are formed just because of the demand for them. People enjoy singing. People enjoy listening to choirs. People enjoy singing in choirs. Supply and demand. Yeah. And one time we were on tour, actually, the SMBI choir, we toured up into Canada. And crossing the Canadian border, one of the officials asked one of the students, you know, why, what are you doing on this tour? It's a singing tour, you know. And the official asked that student, how much do they pay you to be a part of this tour?

And the student said, no, I pay to be a part of this tour. And the official said, strange. But we love to sing. People want to sing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay, so then how is it that that is so embedded into our culture then of doing the choir, church choirs, and youth group choir? I mean, we have so many of them. And obviously in our congregations, you know, singing together, a cappella. How did that become such a part of our culture? Singing has always been important to the Christian church. And early, the first century of Christians after Jesus sang a lot. And they believed in the power of congregational singing. We find that both in the Bible and in extra-biblical sources as well.

Singing is worship. But it's more than that. Or there's a lot entailed in that. Singing is teaching the truth. And singing is a source, a way of evangelizing and witness. Singing is a way to join people together. And so there's a lot of power in music, specifically in singing. There's a lot of power that we as a church understand and we want to tap into that. So you've kind of described a little bit about what attracts us to choirs. But what is it theologically that choirs and a cappella music does for a group? And I guess I'm trying to get a little bit deeper. Like what is it about our belief of the Bible that brings out this in us?

God asks us to sing. And if singing were something that would be difficult to do, that would be one thing. But God asks us to sing and we want to praise Him through singing. And so that flows out of our hearts and our lives in both congregational singing, in worship scenarios, also in performance. We want to sing to glorify our God.

So then why is it, I mean, I know other groups have an emphasis on choirs and singing, but I'm going to guess not nearly as much as the Mennonites. I mean, for how small of a group we are, how much music we produce, it's very disproportionate. Why haven't other church groups picked this up? I believe it's because we focus on a cappella singing, where many Christian groups are okay with instruments, even in their worship services. The Mennonites, the Anabaptists in general, would, we would prefer, we would actually strongly uphold a cappella singing in our worship. And because of that, people sing and they learn to sing in parts from little up. And so choirs are a natural extension of that.

Youth choirs are a big thing. And it's a way of involving the young people in something healthy and having them get around and see other youth groups and to see what God is doing in other churches by doing a choir tour. It's so baked into the culture from little up then, basically. Oh, yes. Oh, definitely.

Talk a little bit about the history of Mennonite choirs. Is this a new thing? Because it seems like there's more than there ever were. Or is this something that's been around for a long time? Good question. Choirs have not always been in our churches. So back a little bit, a little bit back to the first century, singing was a big part of the early church.

And then we have when the church became a state entity, choirs were the ones who produced all the music in the church. You would go as a lay person and just sit in the pew and not make a sound.

For hundreds of years, that was the case. And then when the Reformation came along, many of the reformers, including some of the leading Anabaptists, they said, we want to get the congregation back involved again in the music, in the singing, I should say.

And so they pushed it hard that this should be a congregational activity and strong participation. And they may have reacted just a bit to the lack of congregational singing pre-Reformation because it went for a number of years. In fact, we have very little or no record of choirs in the Anabaptist circles until the 20th century. Really? Or maybe soon before.

At that point, you have the choirs beginning to flourish, actually late 20th century. But prior to that, for many years in the Mennonite, the conservative Mennonite and Amish circles, you had youth singings. It was very common on a Sunday evening to have a youth singing. What's the difference between a singing and a choir? Well, choirs are built around the idea that you're rehearsing a set of songs to perform to an audience at one point.

So choirs formed out of the singing at some point. That's a really, this is a pretty new development, isn't it? Yes. Yes. Huh. But I believe that we have a better mix, or maybe the best mix the church, the Christian church has ever had in keeping strong congregational singing, as well as having choirs that supplement that occasionally and do some touring. Well, because that's the flip side. Like the choirs, I mean, at least from my experience in Mennonite circles, have not in any way taken the place of congregational singing. Right. And we're concerned about that. We want that to stay that way. Well, because that was a question I had, you know, that I was going to ask is, has that been a case where choirs are?

But I mean, no, it doesn't seem to be that way. Even those of us who are involved deeply in choirs, you care very much about your typical local worship services that happen with congregational singing as a major part of that. We don't want that ever to go away.

There's value in both. Oh, yes. Yeah. What is the single biggest positive outcome you've seen from the Anabaptist tradition or culture, as it were, of a cappella music? It's the strong congregational participation. So when you have pre-Reformation, the leaders, leading worship, the choir singing, the rest, the lay people, the congregation just observed worship. But congregational involvement is so key to what we do, to what we believe. And so a cappella singing depends on everyone knowing how to sing and wanting to sing along. And so strong participation from the congregation. The other thing that you have with a cappella singing that is undermined a bit with instrumental music in worship is the focus on the lyrics, focus on the truth of the lyrics.

The gospel message needs the clarity of text, of the lyrics. And so while we enjoy the beautiful music and while the beautiful music draws our hearts and minds toward God, the text drives it home. That's where everything is focused.

And so worship then becomes something that's more than something that we see performed. It's something everyone's a part of. Yes. Yeah. In our churches. Definitely. Yeah. Well, and that's the other thing too with like instruments. Not everyone can play instruments either. Can you imagine a church service of that? I think in the end, choirs strengthen the congregational singing by teaching people how to sing. They teach congregations new songs.

They promote the joy of singing, of vocal music. And it's a great activity for young people to do. And on tour, they can go see other places where God is working, His church is flourishing. And so choirs are a good thing that strengthens the church and that in the end strengthens congregational music as well. So you would definitely recommend that people go out and join a choir. Oh, yes. All right. That's pretty cool. And how many choirs have you sung in then?

Oh, that's a tough question. Quite a few, yeah. Cool. Very good. Thank you, Benjamin, for, yeah, being on this episode and sharing your thoughts. And yeah, that's some good stuff to think about. Yeah. And for the audience out there, go out there and look up some of the choir music from our different choirs. I don't know, Oasis, SMBI, different Bible schools that have, it's worth doing. It really is worth doing.

So yeah, thank you all for watching. And if you like what you see here, let us know. If you have some input, comment it and we'll discuss it. We'll maybe do another episode if you have some ideas. And yeah, thanks for watching. We put out new videos each week. So yeah, be sure to come back and we'll see you guys in the next one.