Constructing Successful Student Choirs for the Second Quarter of the 21st Century

Part One – Daunting
Part Two – Beyond Mere Possibility
Part Three – Listening
Part Four – Leading
Part Five – Following
Part Six – Courage vs. Shyness
Part Seven – Collaborating
Part Eight – Goodbye to Me First
Part Nine – Choral Music … Much More than Singing
Part Ten – Revealing Riches and Building Lives

 

Jesus is calling us to a new kind of community where leadership will be measured in terms of effective facilitation of others; where each of us will find the fulfillment of our own dreams as we encourage others to the fulfillment of theirs; where our task will not be to unload our riches upon others but to reveal their riches to them – and where the power of my self-esteem, my fullness of human being, will come to me as yours comes to you.

– Robert Raines, TO KISS THE JOY

 

The quote above is five decades old and, yet, it rings as true today as it did in the 1970s. Does it not feel as though it were written yesterday?

The challenge with most of us seriously ensconced in the performing arts is that we have difficulty getting beyond “unloading our gifts upon others.” Many in our guild, in a continual quest to prove ourselves as worthy musicians, fail to find the connection between our own musical prowess and the personal ministry opportunities which are begging for a ramp of engagement. The “personal ministry opportunities” of which I speak are the teenagers growing up quickly in our communities and occasionally floating across our orbits. They sometimes engage at church, usually as consumers, and they often have no one to connect them to the giving side of life.

On the other hand, there are also warm-hearted vocational church musicians who find the nexus with the adolescents surrounding them, but their choral musical skills are underdeveloped. Or, perhaps we have lost — or never possessed — the fire in our bones to help middle schoolers and high schoolers achieve excellence in their choral experiences. We tend to take on the attitude of, “Oh, well, they’re just a bunch of kids,” and allow that mindset to maintain such a low musical bar that we and the students often trip on it.

These words thus far have sounded rather brutal. But please do not rush to a hasty conclusion by what I’ve just written and you’ve just read.

Truth be told, all of us struggle to various degrees to find a high functioning space somewhere between the two extremes … between one pole of maximizing our own skills and, on the other end, being totally consumed with the teenagers’ musical development. Thankfully, a very workable balance can be found. There is a glorious middle ground, but not the kind which spells mediocrity. The middle ground has to do with where our fire is; it is dependent upon our being able to turn our undivided attention away from ourselves and towards others.

First if we’re going to be effective at all in choral music with students, there has to be fire in our bellies. And what is that? It is a passionate desire to be the absolutely finest artist I can be for the sake of the legacy I hope to leave with those younger. And that legacy will require far more than the students being impressed with my talent. Yes, they must be impressed if they are to respect us musically, but that’s only the starting block of our ministries with them. Furthermore, in most cases, they will be impressed far more by our care for them than by our immense skill unloaded only to impress them. Ministry means making such stuff accessible to all. It means earning trust, educating, keeping promises, and having a heart for the students who want to learn from us.

It’s a matter of our own ongoing motivations.

Isn’t that a combination task of epic proportions — to be a top-tier, growing and developing choral musician as well as a caring director who knows the students’ birthdays? Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. And that’s the biggest reason why so many have abandoned the idea when the going became really tough beginning about two decades ago.

I am relieved, excited, energized, and heartened to see that many of the youth ministry roles in music are now being lived out by deeply caring public and private school music teachers. They are school teacher-choir directors who now provide the ministry for their teenagers the way church choir directors did two decades ago. And yes, across the board, I do see much more student ministry going on at school than I do at church.

I challenge all of us anew — school choir directors, community choir artistic director, or church music directors — to leave a legacy of revealing riches and building lives among the students surrounding us. No job is more challenging. No cause is more worthy. No enterprise will be more transformational and life-changing than this.

Onward.

Randy Edwards