Many years ago Porter Wagoner did a recitation on his television show entitled “Trouble in the Amen Corner.” You can access it on YouTube.
The recitation tells the story of an old gentleman named Ira who sang in his church choir. His cracked voice did not harmonize well with the rest of the choir and he sometimes missed words.
The members of the “fashionable congregation” complained, and the obviously Baptist church formed a committee to go speak to Brother Ira. No denomination loves a committee better than the Baptists. I once sat on a church bylaw committee, and the document recommended by the Southern Baptist Convention included a Committee on Committees!
The committee met with Brother Ira and told him he would have to stop singing in the choir.
Below you will find a quotation of Brother Ira’s:
I’ve sung the songs of David nearly eighty years said he
They’ve been my staff and comfort all along life’s dreary way
I’m sorry if I disturbed the choir I guess I’m doin’ wrong
But when my heart is filled with praise I can’t hold back a song
I wonder if beyond the tide that’s breaking at my feet
In that far off heavenly temple where my Master I shall meet
Yes I wonder if when I try to sing the songs of God up higher
I wonder if they’ll kick me out up there for singin’ in Heaven’s choir
The committee returned to town but Brother Ira was dead. The implication is that the hurt and discouragement of not being able to express his faith in song caused his death.
As a lot of you who were raised in local Baptist churches will remember, anyone who wished to sing was given the opportunity. I remember when I visited Northside Baptist Church in Knoxville as a teenager that every service began with these words from the choir leader: “Everybody that will come to the choir.”
Everybody.
The focus was on the Holy Spirit who gave utterance, not on the quality of the music. Some churches still operate on that principle.
The Inspirations recorded a song a few years ago titled “Spirit Filled Choir.” I strongly urge anyone to go to YouTube and listen to it.
I remember Barbara Archer once reminiscing at the First Baptist Church of Maynardville that in olden times a “good ol’ sister or brother” would be singing in the choir. S/he would “get happy” in the Holy Spirit and start clapping with the hymnal, slapping it against her/his hand.
Sometimes the Spirit would be felt so strongly that the hymnal would “go flying through the air”! Barbara said she’d never known anyone in the church being hit by those flying hymnals.
It used to be a practice that funerals of faithful church members were held in the church attended by the deceased. Often, the church choir sang at these services. This still happens occasionally as evidenced by obituaries, but has become less frequent in recent times.
Perhaps the move in many churches during the past few years from a choir of many to a “praise team” of a few is Brother Ira’s revenge from above. In many churches today choirs are nonexistent. A praise team and worship leader sing for worship services. Members of the congregation can sing along as they wish, but it is not necessary as the volume of the musical accompaniment will override any voice like Brother Ira’s that is cracked or misses words. In so many cases it seems that quality of music is associated with volume—the louder, the better.
There also recently seems to have been a great shift from singing the old hymns of the faith to more contemporary songs. Even Bill Gaither’s gospel songs, which seemed a major shift from the older hymns, are not sung in many churches as frequently as in the past.
Of course, times change, and the younger generation who has been raised with cell phones and abundant access to all types of electronic media are not entranced by the older, traditional order of worship services that appealed to their parents, and especially to their grandparents.
The move to praise teams is in great part an appeal to the younger generation, and churches who do not nurture young people in the faith are doomed to die with their older members.
It is so important for churches to remember the heritage that brought them from their founding many years ago. The gospel story as told in the hymns of the faith was and still is the foundation upon which eternal hope lies.
Hopefully, Christian heritage will not suffer the same fate as did Brother Ira. The recitation goes on to tell that the choir missed Brother Ira for a while, but he was soon forgotten.
It is one of the crucial reasons for the teaching of history that those who are not educated in the past are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. Does the present time in America remind any of you of the late 1970s, when gas prices, interest rates and inflation were high? When we had hostages in Iran? The present generation balks at the increase in mortgage interest rates to approximately six percent. When I bought my house in 1991, my original rate was 10.375%, and it was considered good.
Yes, times must change, but there is great value in the lessons the past can teach, both in religious and secular life. Many of our founding fathers (and mothers) suffered much and labored hard so we can have the American freedoms we so casually take for granted. Learn from the past and use those lessons to educate those of the present to sustain and pass on our great heritage to a future generation.
Perhaps, Dear Reader, you are reading this after the Fourth of July. I hope you had a blessed holiday that marked the 246th anniversary of the founding of our great country. I leave you with some of the church bulletin bloopers from my world of email that provided inspiration for what you have just read.
Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.
At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be ‘What Is Hell?’ Come early and listen to our choir practice.
Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
This evening at 7 p.m. there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.