"does anyone care to hear the choir?"

I have been a fan of the church choir all of my life.  The bigger the better.  The more people involved in creating that huge 'Churchy' sound each and every Sunday morning just excited me.  Why? I think because there were a lot of people contributing to the worship service who actually wanted to participate.  What they contributed seemed to be exciting, lively, and from the heart (mostly).  It was really cool that these individuals had to get along at least one time during the week, in order to get along perfectly on the following Sunday morning.  If they didn't get it perfect or nearly perfect, beginning with the Pastor, everyone else would contribute their own two cent opinion on what was wrong with the choir!

You didn't have a successful choir at my old church without a successful band.  Now a good band at a minimum consists of a drummer, bass player, and a lead instrument.  My uncle Jimmy was really the one-man band for many years.  I watched and listened to him every Sunday morning belt out the lead vocal, beat the rhythm out of the upright piano, direct the choir with a nod of his head, all this occurred while the men and women in the congregation yelled and shouted out their approval. His left hand carried a bass line, while his right hand meted out accompanying harmonies. Oddly enough that even though he is right-handed, he had to use his left foot to depress the piano sustain pedal because of the length in his legs.  Thus his left foot would be the pulse for the entire church.

During the weekly choir rehearsal, my uncle Jimmy would be the person responsible for all the choir and congregational singing.  In other words, he alone chose the congregational hymns, any special music and all of the songs for the choir to sing each Sunday.  Since he was the one bringing the songs, it only made sense that he was the one who was teaching the songs to the choir.  Thus my uncle Jimmy would teach each section of the choir their harmonic lines: Sopranos, Altos, and Tenors.  Evidently, it worked.  And if it didn't work he would yell at the adults like they did something bad.  A lot of the adults would take the yelling and visibly be upset at his displeasure.  He would see their displeasure and fuss about that too!  Eventually, all of the harmonies came together and once again, there was melodious harmonies pouring from the collection of adult singers. 

This heavenly choral sound was contagious.  It would lift the spirits of the singers themselves and propel them to sing with vigor and conviction of whatever the lyric were.  This group was determined to go forth on the coming Sunday and soundly convince the waiting congregation that this particular chorus, chorus, verse, chorus verse, vamp, vamp #2, and spontaneous shouting, was sent directly from God.  They sang with conviction.  They sang out of the experience.  They sang to convince others of their experience and knew that their efforts would be pleasing to God because they put in the time.

So I ask the question in 2018, does anyone still care to hear the church choir? Let's talk...