Church Music's Brave New World

There has been so much discussion and bickering over the last twenty years over the WHAT and WHO of congregational singing. I've been thinking recently quite a bit about the HOW and WHERE. I'm convinced the next great change related to congregational song will involve these questions, and evolving technology will provide the answers. I haven't worked out the answers, but the questions are fascinating.

A recent issue of my church's edition of The United Methodist Reporter announced our move to high-speed wireless (wi-fi) throughout most of the building, including meeting rooms, classrooms, fellowship hall, offices, gymnasium, play school/day school, and the library. The choir room and sanctuary are not yet wired, but it's only a matter of time. What are the implications?

Congregational Singing
Churches with sanctuary screens have sung without hard copy hymnals for years. But now with wi-fi, there is no longer the need to purchase software and prepare slides ahead of time. Wi-fi will allow a technician to have immediate access to thousands of hymns and songs from the Internet — lyrics only, melody and lyrics, or full harmonizations. Such immediate access and speed of display were unattainable with PowerPoint. Publishers will struggle to figure out how to make money delivering songs to congregations for use in worship when their main competition for the church market will not be other publishers, but the thousands of individual entrepreneurs who will be able to compete by delivering the same material from their homes. Sanctuary wi-fi will also eliminate the need for music licenses such as CCLI, OneLicense.net, and LicenSing. Congregations will be able to deal directly with publishers, individual suppliers, and even the hymn writers themselves for immediate access to worship songs. Song suppliers and churches will have to work out a payment system, but that's a minor detail that can already be taken care of with today's technology. Heated competition will work to keep the cost low, a boon to large- and small-church budgets. Churches will enjoy an unprecedented freedom in selecting worship music, paying only for songs they want rather than dozens or perhaps hundreds of songs in a hymnal that they may never sing. Pirating and illegal use will be widespread, as it has been with illegal music file sharing in recent years. Churches that once had to confront the issues of illegal photocopying, then illegal PowerPoint projection, will now face the temptation of illegal Internet reception.

Choir Singing
Choir directors will be able to connect to thousands of Internet sites (including the websites of The United Methodist Publishing House and the Discipleship Ministries) for choral music and project the scores for rehearsal in front of the choir. One result may be unprecedented eye contact (finally!) between director and choir. One drawback will be that singers will not be able to hold and mark up their own scores. This will be ideal for many children's and youth choirs, for whom individual sheet music is unnecessary, and for choirs that present their music from memory. How will choirs sing in the sanctuary? They'll need screens on rear walls or mounted near the choir seats.

What About Hymnals?
People have been predicting the death of print books for years, but it hasn't happened. The truth is that many people prefer to hold a book. They enjoy the tactile sensation and physical connection. They like the freedom to page around the book as they wish. I believe we will quickly move to a time when individual worshipers will bring their own hand-held devices, probably not the tiny IPODs and PDAs, but larger book-size devices that will open up to show a screen. The wireless signal will be received at a central location in the church and rebroadcast in the sanctuary (or choir room) for each individual to view and sing from. Sanctuary screens will allow those without hand-held devices to sing if they wish. These personal devices take us back to the time of the nineteenth century when it was the individual worshiper who provided the hymnal rather than the church. Organists and pianists will play from built-in screens in the music rack. Images will be able to be programmed to move automatically, with the pressing of a button, or even with the blink of an eye. Directors, choir singers, and instrumentalists may use music stands with similar screens installed. Preachers may even deliver sermons from built-in pulpit screens.

Christian Education Classes
The next time I teach a class at my church, I'll most likely include Internet material, including things from our own General Board of Disciipleship website. As with music, publication and delivery of curriculum and teaching materials will pose a challenge to publishers: How can we make it available for wi-fi use in the church and still cover our costs and make a little extra? Students will be able to download and study the same material at home that the teacher will cover in class, with a vast array of Internet resources available at the push of a computer key. As with music, teachers will be able to tune in to thousands of sites immediately, and publishers and denominations will struggle with how to keep them tuned in. Many more teachers will create their own lesson materials for study by students at home and in the classroom.

Church Budgets
After the initial outlay for the technology, and after churches and publishers arrive at a mutually agreeable arrangement for compensation for delivery, churches stand to realize big savings.

Is It Really Instantaneous?
As with your home high-speed wi-fi, there is a very short delay, easily overcome in the sanctuary by the use of two computers. A better option that will truly be instantaneous will be when delivery comes to the church via satellite, making our current state-of-the-art high-speed cables and modems obsolete.

The Big Winners and Losers
Local churches, independent individual publishers and composers, and access providers will gain. Established publishers and retailers who don't anticipate and embrace the changes will lose and disappear from the scene. Musicians who can't or won't adapt to the changes may find it increasingly difficult to find and keep their positions. The demand for the new technology will come primarily from those who stand to gain the most from it — the local church.

The Most Amazing Thing
Consider this: nothing in this article is future…every single thing mentioned here is available and technologically possible RIGHT NOW. The future's brave new world is the present's reality. How shall we go forward?