This Sunday many of us returned to church after our longest time away since . . . ever.
Along with just a handful of others, I had gotten to come every Sunday. Although this week was totally different from those weeks, it also felt very much the same—
mixed emotions.
It was so overwhelmingly great to see everyone.
It was so heartbreaking to go through the service without singing together.
Singing together—as a congregation—is the best way to fulfill the command in Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16. Nowhere does the Bible ever command us to listen to others sing, though we certainly enjoy doing so. Those two passages, though, do command us to sing. (For more on this topic, see “Five Balances in Our Church’s Music.”)
And yet not singing was the best way we could take care of the health of our church family and guests.
As our online services progressed, we began paring down the amount of live singing even further than we had at first. Sometimes I was the only singer.
This week, even though there were over 100 people in the 9:15 high-risk service and over 200 in the low-risk one, we kept it that way.
Some churches have already had to re-close after re-opening, and group singing has proven to be one of the fastest ways to spread COVID-19. Multiple group singing events (including choir practices and concerts in Washington and Amsterdam) have resulted in the majority of attendees contracting the coronavirus and multiple deaths each.
So we considered our options. Some chose to stay home and continue singing, and I certainly respect that. Others chose to meditate silently or mouth the words while the instrumentalists played. Others hummed along, and that enabled us to share some of the joy of making music together without spreading contagious particles or aerosols.
In the 10:30 service, we also got some help from Doug Young, the teacher for our deaf class.
Doug started the service by teaching us how to sign the chorus of “Trust and Obey."
Doug Young teaching the sign for “trust” in ASL on May 17, 2020.
That really took away a lot of the awkwardness for me. And it was great to see many join along in person and hear about others joining in online. Doug signed for all the songs and taught us several signs along the way.
At the end, my heart was still full. ODBM assistant director Paul Fields called it
triumph with a tear.
With Paul, choir members I’ve spoken to, and others, I too long for the day we can join our voices together around the throne--with no more death or sickness to restrain us. And before then, I long for ways to resume singing as soon as it is safely possible. We're considering singing together online and/or outside at some point soon. In the meantime, we can all work on our congregational signing!
Todd Jones
Music Pastor