Why Choral led Worship?
In the last two weeks, I’ve had a couple of questions concerning choral led worship. I want to take a moment to spell out the role of the choir.
Choral led worship is characterized by the choir serving as the primary worship leader. The choir encourages congregational participation in worship by leading the congregation away from a performance mentality.
It encourages congregational participation by singing in two, three or four-parts. This helps the congregation to feel free to sing out by creating a wall of sound made up of human voices. Choirs who do this well are the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, Christ Church Choir, Prestonwood Choir, First Baptist Dallas and many other local churches.
Leading worship is the reason a choir exists. This is clear from the role the choir played in temple worship and in the book of Psalms. There is only one audience on Sunday morning, and that is God Himself. It is our biblical responsibility as a choir to direct all attention away from us and onto Christ. Whenever we encourage the congregation to set back and become the audience, we neglect our responsibility.
Choir as Gospel Preacher
That being said, there are times when choirs can (and should) be used to introduce new music to the congregation and to create quiet worshipful moments, all with the congregation seated and actively listening. These moments familiarize the congregation with new music. And they also serve as teaching moments inasmuch as the Gospel of Jesus is proclaimed through se
Moving forward with choral led worship, the choir at First Baptist Church King will continue to pursue musical excellence. While I avoid the concept of “Special Music”, where everyone claps and cheers afterward for a job well done, we will continue to introduce new music while the congregation actively listens. We will continue stretching ourselves musically by preparing worshipful cantatas.
Serving as both proclaimer of the Gospel and worship leader can be an imperfect balancing act for a choir. Some years the focus may be more on worship leading; while in other seasons, it’s more on introducing new music and Gospel proclamation. In the end however, there is only one goal, which is to lead the congregation into a meaningful interaction with God.