Silencing the Voice of the People: Part One.

During its very first years, the Anabaptist revolution recognised the importance of the 'voice' of its laity. Already in the early 1500’s, Anabaptist laity were encouraged to own and study the Bible for themselves, and then talk about it in their own terms. They soon learned to improvise prayers rather than rely upon written prayers, and groups of laity sang new songs telling of their evangelical faith. Very quickly, however, voices of strong leaders increasingly predominated during the worship services, but that initial ideal of the laity having an important 'voice' kept re-emerging over the centuries.

The worship experiences which have most profoundly affected my spiritual journey have been those in which I listened to the 'voice of the people' from the pews. These lay people asked for God's mercy, collectively affirmed their living faith, and shared prayers or words of encouragement—all from the pews. These voices of the laity have made a much greater impression on my spiritual thinking than have words from the pulpit by the same voice, Sunday after Sunday. The unparalleled joy I experienced during the resounding a cappella congregational singing ultimately encouraged me to memorise far more verses of songs than scripture. One of the primary reasons I continue to associate with the Anabaptist tradition is because of the ways my present congregation (Point Grey Inter-Mennonite Fellowship) continue to give the laity a 'voice', whether during congregational singing, 'sharing time' or times of 'free prayer' (offered aloud by laity from the pews). In order for this 'voice of the people' to continue its important role within our spiritual tradition, we, the gathered community of faith, must ensure that we can hear that which is said and sung from the pews. The ‘voice of the people’ has the power to move me.

Each of the components of our worship services requires that our congregations listen: instrumental music, scripture readings, sermons, prayers, dramas, or even the sharing of The Peace. Mennonites tend to forget, however, that congregational listening also occurs during our hearty participation in congregational singing and responsive reading. Although we may not realise that we are in fact listening while we join in congregational singing, we immediately sense when we are in danger of going ahead or lagging behind the congregation, singing too loudly or on the wrong verse, and our ears are constantly informing us about the overall effect of the congregation's singing together or reading aloud in unison. I have observed that even our little children hear the 'voice of the people', for our congregational singing seems to make a far greater impression upon their young minds than do all the scripture readings and children's stories combined. The participation of our young children in this singing assures them that they are accepted by their parents' community of faith, and that they have the right to participate in its most public expression, that of singing. Even our children listen as they add their singing to the ‘voice of the people.’

Given the importance of the ‘voice of the people’ to our spiritual tradition, this paper argues that our modern tendency to construct sanctuaries which are designed primarily so that congregations can hear the sounds produced from the stage (rather than to sounds produced by the congregated laity) is now profoundly altering at least two things: our congregational singing (and repertoire) and our concept of our relationship as individuals to our gathered community of faith. This paper calls attention to the role which the acoustical properties of our sanctuaries plays in our worship services, and urges that our people work to discover how the designs and construction of our sanctuaries can assist rather than discourage congregational participation in communal acts of worship in the generations to come. The assumption underlying these arguments is that the Anabaptist tradition must now find ways to ensure that the 'voice of our people' continues to be heard from the floor of our sanctuaries, both when singing and when speaking. This principle offers an alternative view to more popular theories of church growth and hierarchical church structures which assume that important statements come only from the stage and never from the pews.

The Important Role of Music in our Worship Services

Visitors to some of our Mennonite congregations often used to comment upon the emphasis music is given in our weekly worship services, and on how wonderful the singing sounded. I recently asked email contributors to MennoLink to report on the amount of time their churches devoted to congregational singing and to several other activities during the Sunday morning service. The thirty-six respondents revealed that their worship services devoted far more time to congregational singing than to reading from the Bible, and some tended to spend nearly as much time in congregational singing as in listening to the sermon. For years, many of our churches have added an extended period of time for congregational singing before the 'worship service proper' (whether hymns or songs from overheads); in length, this period of pre-service singing may be longer than that devoted to scripture, prayer and announcements combined. Even as the musical repertoires of our congregations change, the importance of congregational singing itself remains a vital part of the average Mennonite worship service. Throughout this singing, regardless of which repertoire is being employed, everybody is listening to what the others are doing (whether consciously or not, and whether singing or not).

The Slow Changing of Architectural Designs of Mennonite Sanctuary

Although Mennonites have generally borrowed their musical repertoires from other denominations, for many years the architectural designs of our sanctuaries remained resolutely utilitarian and distinctly ‘Mennonite’, for we refused to copy modern sanctuary designs from other denominations. It was this very insistence upon constructing austere church buildings that unknowingly aided our congregational singing enormously, for the resonant acoustics of those plain rectangular wooden structures enhanced congregational singing in ways that are unimaginable to young Mennonites today. In those older buildings, the 'voice of the people' resounded ever so gloriously. But with the economic prosperity of the 1950’s and 60's, some of our people started to move out from their isolated communities both physically and intellectually. As theories of 'church growth' swept through our denominations in the 1970’s and 80's, some Mennonites developed formerly unthinkable interests in imitating the sanctuary designs used by other fast-growing evangelical congregations. Slowly Mennonites abandoned their stance of architectural isolation. By the 1970's many of our new sanctuaries could no longer be identified as buildings in which Mennonites worshipped unless one first looked at the signboard perfectly positioned in the manicured lawn, beautifully edged by the smooth hard-surfaced parking lot which was now worthy of holding our latest-model upscale automobiles. Our former ideal of living a more simple lifestyle was dying both at home and at church.

It was in England's Winchester Cathedral that our two-year-old son first discovered the pleasure which resonant acoustics give anyone interested in vocalising. The science of building these cathedrals is now basically dead, but in our day, acoustical engineering is making remarkable progress, as a very few architectural firms build upon complex mathematical formulae and develop increasingly sophisticated computer models. Congregational building budgets, however, do not permit our committees to consult with any of these firms (such as ARTEC) in order to create the best acoustics possible, for their architectural fees honestly reflect the enormous amount of work and expertise required for ensuring the best possible reflection of sound for the room's varied intended uses. But as we move from older architectural designs to newer ones, the changes in acoustics are certainly noticeable. [Beware, many men who have business cards which say that they are ‘sound engineers’ are merely P.A. salesmen without physics degrees, and without any university work in acoustics.]

I recall having heard one enthusiastic Mennonite Brethren college choir of perhaps 30 voices sing in a recently constructed sanctuary in Clearbrook, B.C. Although I sensed that the musicians knew their music well, I noticed that they were working hard, hoping that their singing could even be heard in the acoustically deadened sanctuary; I also noticed that they could hardly hear themselves from one side of the choir to the other. After the service, several concerned church members from their building committee asked why the sound of congregational and choral singing in their new sanctuary was so poor (and like the rich young ruler, when Bill Berg and I suggested what they must do to solve their problem, they turned sorrowfully away.) Not long afterwards, I sang with a choir of perhaps twenty amateur voices in that congregation's old sanctuary next door. I admired how effortlessly our untrained voices carried, how the room's acoustics enhanced the singing of the small audience, and how even a single voice could be heard reading scripture or praying without any electronic amplification. One American minister recently wrote to me to confirm that this experience is not unique to British Columbia's churches:

"Our new building [built in the 1980's] has all the characteristics you mention: fan-shape, carpeting everywhere, padded benches. I've only been pastor here three years but have had numerous people tell me that the singing was so much better in the old building, which was wooden, rectangular, no carpeting, etc. Many young people no longer sing at all, and they certainly have never experienced the thrill of a vigorous gospel song ringing throughout the sanctuary. I am not a professional musician but I have frequently noticed that I feel like I'm singing by myself...And the grand piano sits partially behind a brick wall!"