Six Reasons Congregational Singing Is Waning

Please be nice.

This blog has several million viewers every year, and many of them are not believers. They are watching your interaction with one another.

I know I am touching on several sensitive subjects in one post: the loudness of music; lighting in the worship center; music preferences; and performance versus participatory singing.

But here is the clear reality in many congregations: congregational singing is waning in many churches. In some churches it seems to have disappeared altogether.

I will try to discuss this reality from a dispassionate perspective, at least for the most part. And I don’t consider myself the expert in this area, so I asked the guru of church worship, Mike Harland, to help me understand some of the technical decisions we make.

Ultimately, though, this blog is my own, and I take full responsibility for its content. What then are the primary reasons fewer people are singing in church? Why has that act of worship before God become nominal in so many contexts? Here are six reasons:

  1. Some church members do not prepare themselves for worship. We come to judge, to check off an obligation, or to go through the motions of a habit. We have not prayed for God to do a work in us through the worship. If we do not have a song in our heart, we will not have a song in our mouths.
  2. We don’t know the songs. We sing the songs we know. That is obvious. But if we are introduced to a steady influx of new songs without sufficient time to learn them, we don’t participate. The best congregational singing includes both the familiar and the new, but the worship leaders teach the new songs until we know them and love them.
  3. The songs are not sung in a range where we can participate. Many trained musicians have a wider range in which they can sing. Most of the rest of us don’t. If we are expected to sing in a range that is beyond our ability, we won’t try. Worship leaders make the decision, intentionally or not, if they want to lead the congregation or perform for the audience.
  4. The lighting communicates performance rather than participation. We participate in singing when we can hear each other and see each other. If the lighting for the congregation is low, but it is bright for the platform, we are communicating that a performance is taking place. We thus fail to communicate that the worship by singing should include everyone present.
  5. The music is too loud to hear others in the congregation. There have been quite a few comments at this blog about the right decibel levels for music in a worship service. The greater issue, however, is whether we can hear others. If we hear the voices of others, we are encouraged to join in. If the music is so loud that we only can hear ourselves, most of us will freak out. And we will then be silent.
  6. The worship leaders are not listening to the congregation. If worship leaders truly desire to lead the congregation in singing, they must be able to hear the congregation. Some can only hear the instrumentation and platform voices from the monitors. And some have ear monitors where they are truly blocking the voices of the congregation. Congregational singing becomes powerful when it is well led. And it can only be well led if the worship leaders can hear those they are leading.

Your own perspective about this issue may be one where you really don’t care if the congregation can be heard singing. But if the desire is truly to lift all the voices before God, some things will need to change.

Now it’s your turn to comment. Be kind. Be gentle. Be Christlike.

Posted on October 24, 2016


With nearly 40 years of ministry experience, Thom Rainer has spent a lifetime committed to the growth and health of local churches across North America.
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212 Comments

  • Tony Watson says on

    Great post! I listened to Mike Harland’s podcast last week talking about children’s and youth choirs and it really struck me in this way . . . The church of days gone by with children’s choirs and youth choirs at least gave exercise to singing with a group and gave experience in singing to the Lord. With fewer ensemble and choral type groups and those that remain often being “singers with microphones”, we don’t teach congregational worship by happenstance like we used to. Fewer schools have choirs and music as a part of the curriculum so they aren’t getting exposed anywhere. Not to mention the advent of singing shows like “American Idol” giving rise to the idea that everyone’s a soloist . . . you get the point. Corporate worship is da bomb when it’s done well.

    We have to remember as worship leaders that, while we may feel somewhat repetitive by singing fewer songs more frequently, the object is getting the people to sing. There is a balance between fresh and repetitive, but I’d rather refrain from being so fresh that the congregation is just staring and not singing.

  • When the praise team (a.k.a. “Band”) stops leading worship and starts entertaining, people get it. They get the message that they are merely spectators of a show being performed by musicians and not participants in the worship service. Cue the lights, cue the smoke, cue the sound, everyone stand up… and watch. When so-called contemporary worship leaders and pastors dumped liturgy in the trash they killed worship.

    • Tony Watson says on

      I THINK I understand what you are saying but why must it be contemporary or liturgy? There is a lot of span in between. I’ve never been in a part of a church where liturgy was a part of worship but I have been in churches where traditional music was the rule and others where a more blended style was preferred. Good and bad in both sides. I think the points made have nothing to do with style but everything to do with how it is presented.

      • I have to agree with Tony on this one. I’ve seen and been involved in various styles and volumes, and there’s never been liturgy in any of them. Some did brilliantly with balancing old and new music and keeping the volume loud enough the congregation could hear it to follow it, but low enough it was still mostly the congregation singing. Liturgical churches may be reluctant to change much of anything, from my observation, which is why they may not struggle with some of this stuff, but your typical Baptist church had no liturgy long before the volume went up.

    • I grew up with liturgy but for the last 7 years have attended a Quaker meeting in the unprogrammed style. Now, when I visit a Catholic mass, that feels like a show too. Yeah, there are fixed words you recite like rote (except they changed them on all us ex-Catholics), but the singing is the only part that feels participatory. Meanwhile at our meetings for worship, everyone is sitting there waiting and hoping for the Holy Spirit to call them to ministry!

  • Interesting comments about the db levels in church. As a long time safety manager I am well versed in the OSHA 8 hour TWA for noise. There is a reason the maximum acceptable levels are far less than the 96 db noted above. Noise induced hearing loss is a very real problem in our society today,and apparently ear buds aren’t the only reason. Just a thought from the sidelines.

    • Stuart Allsop says on

      Ron, as I mentioned in the comment, I’m talking about dBC, but OHSA standards are set in dBA. They are not directly comparable. Also, OHSA standards are about cumulative long-term continuous exposure in the workplace, regarding typical workplace noise (generally, machinery) not about short-term occasional exposure to music. A level of 96 dBC in contemporary worship music would probably equate to around 85 dBA, which is well within the OSHA guidelines for workplace noise. At 85 dBA, the exposure time under current OHSA norms, is more than 8 hours. I’m not aware of too many worship services that last eight hours! Even the far more restrictive (and better!) NIOSH standards allow a level of 85 dBA for 8 hours, all day, every day. 85 dBA for (which is roughly 96 dBC for music) is considered safe by all standards.
      As a safety manager, you doubtless have access to a calibrated sound level meter, so it might be instructive to use it to check various sound sources on both “A” and “C” weighting, to see the difference. You’ll notice that typical office and industrial noises register about the same on both scales, perhaps a bit higher on “C”, since most of the sound energy is concentrated in the mid frequency range, but contemporary music is very bass-heavy and will show much higher on the”C” scale than the “A” scale, which is why it is appropriate to use a level of 96 dBC in the church, as the reference level for the “limit”. It more accurately reflects the real level perceived by people.

  • David Carr says on

    Try unaccompanied (a capella) singing at least once in a while. Doing that can help the congregation sing to ONE ANOTHER as we are instructed in Scripture. (Eph 5:19, Col 3:16) God hears the praises of all who love Him, but He wants us to sing and listen to our brethren. It is vital to the life of the Body of Christ.

    • Benjamin Glaser says on

      Yeah and Amen.

      Few people know that for the majority of the history of the Church there were no musical instruments used at all in worship, even such a luminary as Thomas Aquinas bemoaned their introduction. In fact the Eastern Orthodox church still does not use them as some traditional Presbyterian denominations do not as well.

  • Dan Knight Sr says on

    This is a topic which interests me a lot. I have attended quite a few different churchs in recent years and finally settled on the one I am attending now. It seems that all of the churches now present a contemporary style of worship with more modern music; the church like I grew up in doesn’t exist anymore it seems.

    Anyway, I have noticed as I look around that most people are NOT singing – and nobody in my age group (60 ish) sing with the music. I mentioned this once and got the impression that they didn’t want to hear it. On the positive side it seems to me that the churches with the contemporary music seem to attract more kids.

    • Magdalene says on

      Not ALL churches sing “contemporary” music. I have attended the same small church since its organization in 1948. We still use the hymnal, and have some members who joined our congregation because of that. Our choir has sung on occasion contemporary music, but we always feel more comfortable singing from the hymnal.

      • I know of a new church in my part of the country that has a strictly traditional format – complete with a piano and organ. It’s growing by leaps and bounds because it’s the only one in the area that still sings hymns.

  • Excellent points, all. I am currently experiencing 2, 5 and 6, myself.

    Keep up the good stuff, Thom.

  • I think by and large its a heart issue for both the members of the congregation and the worship team. Where is our focus, who are we singing to? I have say I’ve been blessed with being lead by worship in each church we’ve been members to have worship teams lead us who were themselves worshipping. Personally i like the music loud as I’m a terrible singer who loves to sing praise to our God and the sound, the lighting all of it allows me to forget everything else but praising Him. I’m aware of the awful emails worship pastors receive and it breaks my heart. How do Christians allow themselves to get to the place where worship is all about them and their personal preferences instead of it being about Him. You want to praise and honor Christ, worship whatever and however the music is played, if you want it your way your style buy a ticket and go to a performance of your choice. All this division over music, carpets whatever reveals our hearts and rather than honoring Him, we’re grieving Him, why would unbelievers ever want to be with us?

  • Stuart Allsop says on

    Spot on, with every point! I teach seminars (sound and acoustics) for churches all over the country where I live, so I get to see every single one of these issues happening, to one extent or another, in the churches I visit.

    I wanted to point out that #5 and #6 are generally intertwined, and are often two sides of the same coin: The praise and worship team often cannot hear the congregation sing because the entire sound system is run too loud, both on the stage and in the congregation, and the congregation cannot hear itself for the same reason.

    If the people in the congregation can’t hear each other, they do a “mental switch” and see the praise and worship as a show to be watched, not a fellowship in which to participate. If the praise and worship team cannot hear the congregation, they make the same mental switch but from the opposite perspective: “This is a show, so we are here to perform, not to lead”. Everybody loses.

    The key is setting the sound level in the sanctuary correctly.

    This isn’t so much an issue of sound systems, acoustics, or even a spiritual thing: It’s an issue within the little-known science of psycho-acoustics: how we perceive sound, and react to it.

    There’s a point at a sound level of around 96 decibels (dBC) where we humans make that “switch”: any louder than that, and we all go into “concert mode” not “participate mode”. It’s a pretty much fixed level, and doesn’t vary significantly for different people or different congregations or different worship styles, for a simple reason: 96 dBC is about as loud as a bunch of people can be when they sing together normally, as a group. It doesn’t matter how many people you have in total, since this is a local effect: you hear the people closest to you loudest. The folks twenty rows away on the other side of the church might be singing loud too, but you hear them quieter than the people right next to you, due to distance and blocking. The “local group” is what you hear, and it can only reach about 96 dBC when singing together heartily, It can’t go much higher than that because of the way God designed our vocal tracts! It is possible to sing a bit louder, but it is uncomfortable to do it for long, and it becomes more like screaming than singing.

    Therefore, if the sound system is run louder than 96 dBC, it drowns out the local group, and people cannot hear each other any more. That’s the level where you can’t even hear yourself sing! So you stop.

    Therefore, if the perceived sound level of the music at most points in the sanctuary is kept below 96 dBC (including on stage!), then the worship leaders WILL be able to hear the congregation, the congregation WILL be able to hear each other, and the conditions are right for corporate worship, together. Conversely, if the level is above 96 dB, then the people in the congregation won’t be able to hear each other, and the praise and worship leaders won’t be able to hear them either. Everyone can hear the music, but nobody can hear the people.

    This is perhaps the only item on your list that can have a physical, objective, measurable number attached to it, and can be “fixed” by taking that number into consideration at the sound desk.

    Please note something rather important about that “96 dBC” number: The letter “C” after the decibel designation. That tiny letter is fundamental to getting this right! There are different mathematical models for measuring sound levels in different situations, and the correct one for measuring loud music inside buildings is called “C weighting”. All good sound level meters allow you to select between “A” and “C” weighting. Some meters offer other weighting selections too, but “C” is what you use for loud music. If you use the “A” scale, then the actual real level will be much higher even though the meter shows 96. “A” weighting does not take into account all of the low frequency tones, such as drums, bass guitars, keyboards, and things like that, so in order to see a level of 96 dBA, the music would have to be much louder than it would to see a level of 96 dBC. The “C” scale takes all of those into account, so it is the correct scale to use for measuring loud music.

    Many, many churches make the mistake of not switching their meters to the correct scale, then wonder why they have so many complaints from the congregation. A meter set incorrectly might show 96 when the real level is as high as 110 dBC. That’s way too loud.

    Another very important point in the article, mentions the in-ear monitors that are so common today, and how they block out the sound of the congregation for the musicians. That’s a big issue, but there is a simple solution: place an ambient microphone focused on the congregation, and feed that to the in-ear monitoring system. That allows the praise and worship team to hear what is really happening in the congregation, and thus to lead them. You cannot lead someone if you cannot hear them! But here too there’s something that must be taken into account: if the sound level in the sanctuary is above 96 dBC, then it is coming mostly from the sound system, not the congregation, so the ambient mic will just be picking up the sound from the speakers and sending that to the in-ear monitors… So that’s yet another reason to keep the sound level at or below 96 dBC for everyone. (The same applies to stage monitors…).

    So #5 and #6 on the list are problems that can be fixed fairly simply. Any church that can afford a sound system can also afford a sound level meter. A good one costs around US$ 100. Buy one, learn how to use it, set it to “C” weighting, and teach both the musicians AND the guy on the sound desk the importance of that “magic” number: 96 dBC. If everyone is aware of the reason why that number is so important, and takes it to heart during the praise and worship portion of the service, then the conditions will be ripe for deeply moving congregational singing, real praise and real worship. If that still doesn’t happen, the it must be one of the other 4 reasons on the list, which are much harder to fix, since they can’t be measured with numbers.

  • I am going to straight up admit something here. I think I need to. We ALL need musical worship in addition to the sermon that is presented before us. I confess that I was looking for another church home at one time. I had visited a church and I just loved their pastor. Boy! Could that man of God preach! But, I got to a point, because I did not like the redundancy of the music, that I got to a point where I was “showing up late”. Like, I am talking 11:30 late. I just felt like the singer was up on a stage and didn’t want to let go of the microphone. And guess what folks!!! His preaching didn’t seem real anymore. I knew that The Holy Spirit was ministering to me because of that. What I just said probably didn’t sound right, but I think you understand what I am trying to say. The pastor’s sermon didn’t have the power towards me because I had not prepared my soul to receive it. I am a firm believer in that now. But at the time, I admit, I didn’t think that I needed musical worship. Just like some folks think that they don’t “need” to go to church WEEKLY and worship. And what a slump to be in. It was horrible. And I paid for it. It affected me throughout my entire week. We need worship! We go to worship God because of our love for Him, but, I certainly believe that He allows The Holy Spirit to minister to us because of our worship. And that ministry helps us get through our next week.

  • Joe Pastor says on

    Interesting article. And interesting comments. My two cents worth: From congregation to congregation, most of these factors vary tremendously. A church that has an attendance of 2,000 in a large building with virtually-professional musicians leading very contemporary worship (with people who for the most part don’t know one another) is a different animal than a church of 100 in a small building with volunteer musicians leading very traditional worship (with people who for the most part know one another). So to some degree, we are discussing apples and oranges. Having said this, I agree with many of the points in this article. And as others have already mentioned, I really do think “singability” is a major issue. Some contemporary songs are great, but others have very little congregational singability. If you want the congregation to sing, don’t underestimate the significance of singability.

  • Great points. As a songleader I try to consider ALL the congregation in my song selections to allow the greatest amount of participation possible.

    • In my opinion, that’s a very wise approach. I can understand a worship format that has something for everyone. I can also understand a purely contemporary format if that best fits the context. I don’t understand the mentality that says, “This is what the young people like, so the older members can like it or lump it.” I really fail to see how such an attitude brings glory to God, especially when the Bible tells us to respect the older members of the church.

  • Thank you, Dr. Rainer, for summing up the reasons for waning congregational singing. The people in our church tell us that they are a “singing church” yet I can find no evidence of it. The singing is discouraging. Mind you, we have a large sanctuary with only a quarter of it occupied, scattered throughout (that is another topic for another day).

    Our music ministry has worked on all of the areas that they can.

    • there is only ever one new song, repeated over several weeks
    • the keys are appropriate (higher than alto range but lower than soprano range)
    • lights are never dimmed
    • our sound system sucks but our sound guys do the best they can
    • as leaders, we do try to hear the congregation but again, the scattered congregation is very very hard to hear

    The only one that we have no ability to change is #1. What can be done?

    • Thom Rainer says on

      Pray for others.

      And pray for yourself, that you may truly be a person of God-centered worship. Sometimes God uses one person to spark a true revival.

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