I recently started conducting a choir after many years of just doing worship teams. Here are 8 great reasons to consider adding a choir to your congregation. (edited from Chuck Lawless)
It provides opportunities for many members to serve. Think practically for a minute: A Bible study program requires one to two facilitators per group, but a choir requires many people to serve. Open choir seats are opportunities to serve.
It helps produce good congregational singing. A praise team can achieve this goal, too, but it’s easier to worship through song when dozens of people are leading the way.
A good choir sings and illustrates joy. It’s not just the singing that makes a difference. It’s also the smiling. It’s the worshiping through raising hands. It’s the singer who closes his eyes and takes us to God through his own personal worship. It’s the large group praising God together.
It can highlight diversity in a church. Particularly when the choir leads worship from the front of the worship center, the congregation can often see diversity (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity) in front of them. That diversity among the singers is a picture of heaven (Rev 7:9-10).
It helps promote teamwork. That, of course, is the nature of a choir. Everybody has a part, and it’s the parts combined that create the overall sound. It seldom hurts for believers to learn to work together in any capacity.
It offers multi-generational fellowship. I’ve been to churches where the choir is the only opportunity for several generations to serve together. There’s something God honoring about an older saint and a teen believer singing next to one another.
A choir can be an entry-level service opportunity for members and attenders. Any follower of Christ can sing God’s praises, including a baby believer who isn’t ready yet to serve in other capacities (and, to be frank, a choir helps even the worst voice somehow blend into the praise).
It helps avoid the “single star” approach to worship leadership. That’s just naturally the case: Get enough people in the picture, and no single leader becomes the star.
The original post by Chuck Lawless is here.
