Discovering the Joys of Singing in Church
If I haven't mentioned it already, the Church of Christ believes in acapella congregational singing only. This means that there are no musical instruments or choirs allowed. Everyone must sing, no matter what their abilities, and there is no piano or organ to help keep everyone in tune and on the beat. Most congregations do have a man designated to be the song leader. He chooses the songs and stands in front of the congregation and starts the songs, sometimes keeping the beat with his hand. Some song leaders will use a pitch pipe to get the correct starting note, but the more conservative congregations even frown on those because they consider them to be musical instruments, so your starting note at the beginning of each song is going to be anybody's guess. In a very small congregation of only 40-50 people (which is the size of the churches I attended growing up), acapella singing could be either wonderful or terrible depending on who showed up that day. Most of ...