Organizing an Evangelistic Choir

The mission of the church is to "rescue the perishing." Any church that is not engaged in constant evangelistic endeavor is lifeless and powerless.

There are many avenues of evangelistic ef­fort: distribution of tracts, house-to-house visi­tation, street meetings, evangelistic campaigns, radio broadcasts, and personal work. There are several powerful evangelistic weapons avail­able : the sermon, the personal exampld, the printed page, and gospel music. All efforts, of course, must be drenched in prayer and be inspired by the Holy Spirit, or they are value­less.

In order to have a well-organized choir, the song leader should be one who is co-operative. He should be a person who can be depended upon to be in the meeting in plenty of time to take care of the song service. He ought to have a pleasing, as well as an aggressive, per­sonality. If he can work well with the choir and the pianist and with those who furnish special music, he will take a tremendous load -off the evangelist. He should understand that he does not have to do all the singing, but that he is to be the director of music.

In organizing a choir one is likely to have difficulties with the various personalities and voices. However, the director will generally take care of these difficulties by using tact and careful judgment. If the members of the church are anxious to see the meetings succeed, and if they feel that the success of the service de­pends to a large extent on them, they will usually respond to the call of the leader.

If the leader has a few dependable voices, he can build around them as a nucleus, and also use those who May not be able to read music or parts well, for they can follow the dependable voices. The choir should not try difficult songs or anthems, but work with simple hymns and make them effective.

The fact of the necessity of rehearsal cannot be too strongly emphasized. It is regrettable that the standard of gospel music presentation is generally much lower than that of secular music. We have concert artists, radio artists, and orchestra members who spend hours, yes, years, in practice and rehearsal. So why should not our gospel singers and those who make up our choirs for evangelistic efforts also be well prepared? To be unprepared or unre­hearsed is certainly not a credit to the ministry of the gospel. So in organizing a choir, make it well understood that there will be a time for rehearsal.

Before the service begins, the choir should meet for a preliminary time of prayer and prep­aration, and even though they may not have trained voices, if they have had a period of rehearsal, with consecrated lives and intense spiritual zeal, they will be the means of bring­ing a definite spiritual blessing upon the entire congregation.

An evangelistic choir is a decided asset in the song service, provided the audience does not allow the choir to carry the burden of the singing. Every person in the audience should be made to realize that it is as necessary for him to sing as it is for the individual members of the choir to sing. The choir is to help stimu­late the audience to participate in the singing and assist in the learning of new songs.

The choir, of course, is expected to provide special musical numbers. Do not forget to tell them that their efforts are appreciated. This will encourage them to work harder and stay by the effort to the end.

Souls can be won to Christ through the sing­ing of a sacred song as well as through the preaching of a sermon. With divine anointing on a choir and on the song, souls may be drawn to the Lord—souls which may never have an­other chance. And if, because of a powerless song, those souls are not reached when they might have been reached through a powerful song, then the responsibility for their eternal doom rests upon the singers who performed their task so lightly and carelessly.