My Quora answer to What are hindrances and obstacles to church growth?

First and foremost is that society doesn’t beleive in the church institution anymore.  Churches are not called to grow but to serve.  When they serve, they begin to grow.  People are not dumb, they can recognize an insincere church right off the bat.  They can discern which ones are ice cold, lukewarm or red hot.  Most are lukewarm and that is their problem.  They won’t grow if they are lukewarm. 

Every church has it own challenges and obstacles.  Most of the time the hindrances are the people themselves. Growth comes from many avenues: good preaching, good music, a welcoming community, location, parking, energy level, comfortable space, social opportunities, service opportunity and consistency.

A church once asked me to give them ideas to help promote growth and I gave them a list of 18 activities that they could easily organize over the course of a year.  They said “I don’t like that one.”  “This one isn’t something that fits our community.” “We don’t want to attract those kind of people.” and “Who is going to do all this?”  I told them that energy begets energy, that they must incorporate people of all generational, cultural, economic and educational levels into a comprehensive program and, even if they start small they will grow.  They whittled the list down to three and then they didn’t even do those three.  Survival of the fittest.  Not to act is to act.

I think the church needs to be offering the community at least one activity or event each week.  Even if the unchurched community is not interested in every topic, at least they will see that this church is active and vibrant and may decide to give it a chance. 

I took a church with three services a weekend and after fifteen years we grew to five services and two of them were SRO.  There was no one thing that promoted the growth rather a sinuous network of everything.  Everything was comprehensive.  We got rid of youth, teen and adult choirs and evolved to a family choir.  The youth groups didn’t do their own youthy things but rather plugged into all the ministries of the community and church with the adults.  Our music too became comprehensive and we did away with the folk group, the traditional choir and the praise band.  We did all styles of music at every service and no group owned a particular service.

My suggestions for a church looking to grow are three things; Pastors, get out of your office.  Jesus didn’t keep office hours.  Get out and be with the people.  Establish a beat like the old timey police officer.  Regularly visit diners, bars, clubs, senior centers, nursing homes, jails, courts, be seen and heard.  Approach people and be approachable and wear your collar.  Don’t do it to drum up business, do it to comfort, heal, serve and welcome.  Go to the mall, sit on one of the sofas in the hallway and put out a sign, “I will talk to anyone about anything.”  Pass out your card for further ministering and don’t worry about your homily.  If these things you do, the homily will take care of itself.

Hire a music director who does not worship music, one where music is not his ministry but someone who loves people and music is the vehicle to ministering to them.  This person needs to spend time with the staff to come up with creative and diverse ideas and programs and know how to delegate lovingly and compassionately.  The children of Israel were taken as slaves of the Babylonians and the musicians were forced to entertain their captors but they refused and hid their instruments in the trees by the river.  The Babylonians said play or we will smash your babies against the rocks and they still refused.  Likewise, a true music minister needs to know when to put down their instrument and minister.  Their job isn’t an hour on Sunday morning.  It begins when the service is over and ends the following Sunday when they pick up their instruments to worship - not entertain.

Finally, as I said before, lots and lots and lots and lots of events and activities.  One activity can grow into something big.  I once played weekly organ recitals at noon on a weekday.  We started with about 20 people and after a year there were about 200 in attendance.  They didn’t come for the music, they came because it was the place to be.  My choir started bringing in refreshments.  The parolees in the shelter next door came for the refreshments.  A home for disabled adults started busing in residents to get them out of the facility.  Homeless people came in out of the cold.  The parolees began ushering at the door and cleaning up afterward.  The homeless began passing out flyers in the community.  Pastors, choir members and organists came to network.  Brides came to scope out the building.  A police officer came in regularly to chat with the parolees to see what he could do for them.  Eventually the parolees started to use the building during the day for their AA and NA meetings.  The place was a beehive of activity and people started visiting the church because - something was going on there.  As the psalmist foretells in Psalm 66:  Come and see what God has done: he is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man.

There is another thing, the church needs to give back to the community.  It needs to do something that makes a difference.  It needs to do several things that make a difference.  People want to be part of something that makes a difference, not just sit in a pew and be entertained.  When people visit or join the church, have ministries they can immediately plug into and I don’t mean things like altar guild, choir, usher or woman’s club.  Things like working the food pantry, prison ministry, mission trips, gun buyback programs, homeless shelter, or do something revolutionary like Canada’s safe injection center (drug users can go there to shoot up without fear of arrest but medical care and counseling is provided in case something goes wrong.  These centers have never had anyone die of an overdose while blocks away, people die from overdoses alone and unaided, hmmmph - do something revolutionary and save lives or not?), and, the church needs to tithe to some big program like California’s Housing Works program where they give houses to the homeless.  Yup, GIVE.  It gets them off the street and gives them stable shelter.  A homeless person can cost your county about $20,000 a year in medical care alone because they lack shelter.  With shelter and a place to secure a job from, they will be healthier.  Dollar for dollar, homeless shelters are not cost effective on the whole and are only a band-aid.    Check them out: housingworksca.org.  Start one in your community.

Too bad the church can’t focus on some of these problems rather than worrying about growth and paying the bills.  Pew people are not “customer acquisitions,” they are saints in the making.  Too bad we don’t have institutions that fostered that growth and marshaled those forces.  Oh, we do.  It is called the DSS.  They take care of the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the hopeless, the dying, the lonely, the abandoned, the imprisoned, the evicted, the illegal, the incurable, the different, the despised, the abused, the addicted, the forgotten, the neglected, the invisible, the battered and the frightened.  Right there in that sentence is an awful lot a church can set its sights on and grow - instead or arguing over whether to keep the kneelers or not, to put in pew cushions or not, or the new wall color, or renting space to the gay men’s community choir.  Not in my church!  Think of the children.

How To Warm Up A Choir

I am not a fan of "warm ups."  Any athlete or pianist will tell you that isolating a single part of the body to "warm it up" is not effective.  The whole body must be warmed.  A pianist who plays in a warm room will play much better than one who attempts to "warm up" his hands by blowing on them in a cold room or playing an hour of scales.  Warming up is a whole body experience.

Vocal exercises are excellent tools if used for educational or instructional purposes but "warming up" comes from a different place.  A choir director who runs meaningless scales is just wasting everyone's time, especially if there is no educational purpose behind them.

Warming up the voice and the vocal apparatus is much the same as warming up the whole body but with a few additional parameters.  First, many choir rehearsals are held in the evening and the singers have already been walking, talking, breathing, eating and drinking during day.  Most likely, their voice is ready to sing.  However, there are usually a few components missing.

Imagine that a child is about to run out into the street and a car is racing toward him.   In an effort to save his life you would yell "STOP!" or "NOOOO!" or "Billy!"  Did you need to warm up to do that?  The force, confidence and conviction for that vocalization came from your brain because you knew little Billy was about to get smooshed.  It also came from your heart (the emotional one) because you knew little Billy was about to get smooshed.  Your diaphragm naturally rose to the occasion and your soft palate also raised in sympathetic response to the brain and heart in order to convey the message as fully, open and forcibly as possible.

What if your dog were to pee on your new $1,000 carpet?  If you are an owner who believes in negative reinforcement, you might yell "NO!" or "BAD DOG."  Did you need to warm up first?  No, because it came from your brain that the dog was about to soil your new carpet, it came from your angry heart because your dog was about to soil your new carpet and as a result, your diaphragm and soft palate unequivocally made your angry intention known to your pooch. 

A friend has a new born baby and it is sleeping in her arms.  With your best stage whisper you comment on how it is the most beautiful baby you've every seen and you ask to hold him.  You can whisper loudly because your brain knows the baby is sleeping and your heart doesn't want to wake him so your diaphragm and soft palate do what it takes to convey your message with delicacy in hushed, dulcet tones.

You go to a birthday party and everyone sings "Happy Birthday." The whole gathering of well wishers erupt into a rousing and full throated rendition - including two or three part harmony.  Did anyone need to warm up first?  No, because the brain and heart automatically engaged the diaphragm and soft palate with earthy bon ami.

Whether you cough intentionally to get someone's attention, sigh on "arrrgh," in frustration, groan at a bad joke, say "awww" at a cute kitten, jump out at someone and yell "BOO," "Ho-ho-ho" like Santa, or bark like a dog; your diaphragm and soft palate will naturally and fully engaged without warm up because the vocalization comes first from the brain and emotional heart.

All these body parts and mechanisms are already in place and will work on command if we beleive what we are doing, singing or saying.  The first job of any choir director is not to engage the choir in meaningless warmups but to give our text meaning and purpose which should be the primary task of any director. 

I'm not saying that our church choirs don't beleive but, if they need to warm up, something else is missing.  Why can't we automatically sing songs of adoration to God the way we would vocalize the first time we see a loved one who we haven't seen in ten years as they get off an airplane?  Why can't we sing in contrition they way we would if we broke our mother's prized antique vase and bellowed "I'm am SO sorry.  I WILL replace it."  Why can't we sing songs of thanksgiving to God the way we would profusely thank someone who just returned our lost wallet with all the  attendant money intact?  Why can't we sing songs of supplication to God they way someone would beg for a significant other not to leave them?  If the answer is that we need to warm up first, something else is missing. 

Why do so many choir directors have to trick their choirs into engaging their soft palates and diaphragms through the use of warm ups?  The answers can be many and varied.  Maybe we don't beleive in God.  Maybe we don't know how to beleive in God.  Maybe we are afraid to express our belief in public.  Maybe we don't have the conviction to beleive in God.  Maybe we have directors who don't beleive in God.  Maybe we have directors who beleive in music.  Maybe we have directors who are only regurgitating what they've been taught.  Maybe we have directors who just haven't figured it out yet.  Maybe we have directors more concerned with the notes rather than the words.  Maybe we don't know or believe that our music has purpose, meaning and power.  Comprehension does not imply belief and without belief we can't fully activate our bodies.

The solution then, isn't to do warm ups.  It is to network our emotions with our bodies and that takes effort not related to music but - is wholly related to music.  At a job interview once, a member of the search committee, who made sure I knew she was a Juilliard graduate and a soloist in the church, asked me if I did warmups and I spouted to her an abbreviated version of this blog and then I told her that I do lead sung prayer before every rehearsal and she asked, "What does any of this have to do with directing a choir?"  My reply was more advanced than a mere Juilliard grad could understand; I'm not a choir director.  I am a pastoral musician who trains the choir to be music ministers and, that music should not be their ministry but a vehicle to ministry.  Directing a choir has a great deal to do with reversing foreground and background.

First and foremost though is to support what the text and music itself is saying, not to necessarily inflict our own views and emotions on it.  The last thing we need to do is sing and play as if our feelings were being injected into the music.  That happens a lot in church choirs.

Ultimately, the universe has given us everything we need to vocally do what we need to do.  The only thing that stands in our way is ourselves.  I know many music directors will disagree with me and that is okay.  Just remember that no agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.  If you disagree that fervently, chalk it up to differences of opinion. 

If you'll excuse me, I need to go warm up gravity because I am going jogging and I want to make sure every time I take a step, my foot will return to the ground.

Church Musicians: Get Out Of The Way

When a church focuses on sin, they focus on what the church is not called to be.  When they focus on forgiveness, mercy, grace and compassion, they focus on what the church is called to be.   Where can we learn this if not from the pulpit?  Our music.

A friend of mine was hired to oversee a large music program at a church with about 2,000 families.  One of the groups in the church which he didn't have authority over was the folk group.  This group consisted of several singers who sang back up to a soloist.  The soloist was a very active wedding singer and the drummer in her band was also the drummer for the folk group.  They also had a saxophone player who improvised a blizzard of 64th notes on every song. 

The "audience" loved the music.  The music was alive, vibrant and energetic.  Everyone clapped along, it was very entertaining, they listened and they loved it.  Each and every Mass was a concert of the highest caliber.  The new priest noted that nobody at that Mass was singing, they just listened.  Many people, especially musicians, would not be alarmed at this as long as the people were happy but, the sweetest sound a pastoral musician can hear is that of a congregation singing while fully and actively participating in the liturgy, not just listening. 

If you were to attend the ritual of a birthday party for someone you cared about and right before you were all to sing the song Happy Birthday, someone hijacked the singing by doing a campy, over the top or stylized version of the song, the focus would be on the singer/performer, not the person celebrating the birthday.  Liturgy is much the same.  The congregation participates in the ritual by singing and if a band does it "to" them, the congregation doesn't need to do their part as the "actors" of the liturgy, it is done for them and they are the "audience."  In the theater model, God should be the audience and the congregation the actors.   The musicians would assume the role of prompter.

In my friend's church, the sax player was asked to play only the melody so that his torrent of notes didn't get in the way of the congregation's  participation but he replied that the priest was trying to stifle his creativity.  Therein is the confusion.  The liturgy and music is not about the musicians.  It is about the people.  Musicians are not there to do the work of the people, they are there to support the participation of the people.  If we need to show off our musical ability, there are bars for that.

Why Singing Is So Important:  Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact. 
There is an old African saying that "We are the stories that we tell."  We are what we believe and stories are the foundation of our identity.  There is a saying among pastoral musicians that "We are what we sing."  That is why singing in church is so important.   Singing scripture gives us the opportunity to enflesh the Word.  Singing is not only "praying twice," but combining scripture with melody and rhythm further helps to get it in our brain, heart, sinew and soul.  I think it is interesting that medical science calls breathing “respiration.”  The root of respiration is SPIRIT – re-spir-ation.  We re-spir-ate,  take in Spirit.  Singing oxygenates our blood and brains with spirit.

If I were on an airplane and it hit turbulence, I might think of a psalm text I have sung hundreds of times (Psalm 27) "The Lord is my Light and my Salvation, of whom shall I be afraid?"  If life is throwing me curve-balls, I may remember the scripture from Psalm 42, "Why do I mourn and toil within when it is mine to hope in God?"  If your memory is like mine, I can't remember a name I just heard but I can recite hundreds of lyrics.

Consider the gay teenager who is thinking about suicide, might he think deeply when he sings the words "Will you love the 'you' you hide if I but call your Name?" from the song "The Summons," or what about the person filled with hate and prejudice when he sings "See the face of Christ revealed in every person standing at your side," from "We Remember."

Our songs and hymns are a treasure trove of philosophy, scripture and poetry which has the power to change and transform life and, singing it is one powerful way to quickly and lastingly get it into our bones, sinew and brains.  If we are distracted by musical proficiency, performance and technical artistry, the moment of being in the moment may pass us by. 

Musicians, back off from the mike, let the people sing, carpet living rooms not churches, and revel in the sound of their congregation.

Musicians don't know what they don't know and it is the churches fault for not hiring pastoral musicians or not educating and training the ones they do hire to be pastoral.  It may be appealing to hire a young person with an advanced degree, who can play or direct well and build a quality music program, but does a church want a quality music program or a congregation lusting for justice, conversion, proclamation, respiration or community?  Many music programs are like a Texas longhorn; a point here, a point there, but a whole lot of bull in between.

People are changing, society is changing, churches must change, too.  People no longer look to the church for social activity or entertainment.  They thirst and hunger for something more, something the church isn't giving them.  More than entertainment, they want a sense of sacred, they  thirst for simplicity and a relationship with God.  They can only grow by facing and navigating the difficulty of life - together.  That takes an apostolic church rather than an entertaining one.  Instead of feeling still and empty the way the eye of a hurricane must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding action - which is where real life is at.  Every condition of our lives, good or bad, wonderful or horrible, is merely the support system for the journey.  There are always people who wish to deny us our humanity but if we tell our stories, there will always be someone who wishes to restore it.   Any church which has a focus on sin, they focus what the church is not called to be. 

Additionally, music ministry is a parish wide ministry, a community wide ministry, not a Mass time centered ministry.   This is not to say that musicians need to put all their feelings into their music.  Musicians should not be burdened with the responsibility of expressing themselves and demonstrate how much the music and God means to them.  That is important but whatever gift you have, it has to be used to support what the music and Word itself is saying, not inflict a personal view on it.   Feelings should not be injected into music as if through a syringe.  You can find that in a lot of churches and it can be distracting.  Musicians must learn to PROCLAIM the word, not interpret it. Leave interpretation to the Holy Spirit.

To the church who is afraid to forgo entertainment in favor of liturgy, consider the media; they only write about the sinners, crime and the scandals, but that's normal, because a tree that falls makes more noise than a forest that grows.  That church needs to have faith.

My friend in the opening story, after they disbanded their folk group who refused to modify the entertainment model of ministry, there was a flurry of nasty emails, all the folk group left the church and the church even lost members who supported the folk group.  Two years later after creating a more pastoral music program, they have tripled the number of people they had lost.  One of the long time members said, where once he knew all the faces he encountered during the passing of the peace, today he is met with many and new faces.  That is something to sing about for a congregation doesn't sing because they're happy; they're happy because they sing.