I’ve sung in church choirs off and on for many years. I started singing in the church choir when I was a high school student. I sang in the chorus at school and I had learned to read music as a child when I was taking music lessons. When my voice changed, it wasn’t as dramatic as was the case with some of my peers and songs in the tenor range came easily for me. Our first call to the ministry was to congregations that didn’t have regular choirs. They were simply too small to have enough singers to support a regular choir. When we moved to the second call of our careers, I sang in the choir each week. The choir sat in the chancel and sang from the front of the church so it was easy for me to join with them as they sang. I found that I formed some strong relationships with choir members by joining their ranks. I enjoyed singing with the ensemble.

When we moved to Rapid City, the choir in that congregation had a strong tradition of singing from the balcony. The congregation had a very strong music program and there were members who could remember more than a half century of musical excellence. When the congregation had moved from a church building down town to its present location, the new building was designed with the choir at the rear of the congregation in a balcony. The conviction of church leaders at that time was that the choir could support the congregation’s singing by being behind the congregation. The anthem was considered to be less of a performance and more of a contributing part of the liturgy of the entire congregation.

Having the choir in the balcony meant that it was a difficult bit of logistics for me to join in when they sang the anthem. For many of the years that I served as pastor in that congregation I did not sing with the choir. However, there would be occasional occasions when I joined in to be another tenor in a fairly small choir where the extra voice helped the choir to sing some particularly beautiful anthems. I got pretty good at running back and forth and climbing the stairs to the balcony without disrupting the flow of worship. There were some times when serving that congregation when disagreements in the choir loft could be calmed by my presence. There were a few times when tensions in the choir seemed to threaten the peace of the congregation and part of my job as pastor was to help find resolution to disagreements.

Despite the challenges, I enjoyed singing in the choir and felt that the investment of time in choir rehearsals was valuable to my work as pastor as it brought me into regular contact with the members of the choir. Advocating for the church’s music programs was appreciated by both members of the choir and other folks in the congregation who continued the tradition of strong support for musical programs.

Before I retired I thought that part of retirement might be being able to sing in the church choir and I imagined that I might become a regular choir member. When we became members of our current congregation the pandemic meant that the church did not have an active vocal choir. We wore face masks to do what we were able to prevent the spread of the virus. Shortly after joining the congregation, I joined the church staff. My responsibilities for faith formation programs and small group facilitation meant that it did not work for me to participate in the choir. When the church was able to resume having a choir the ensemble experimented with a couple of different rehearsal times and finally settled on Sunday mornings before worship. That time slot did not work for me when I was an employee of the congregation, but now that I have completed that work and am once again fully retired, I am back singing with the choir. To be more accurate, I went to my first rehearsal and sang with the choir on the anthem for the first time yesterday and I intend to keep up the practice.

Our choir is fairly small, however. Yesterday I was the only tenor in the choir. There is a lot of church choral music that is arranged in three part harmony with all of the men singing in the baritone range. I can sing most of the notes in the bass range, though I don’t have a lot of volume at the bottom of my range and prefer to sing the tenor line. Yesterday, the anthem that was selected had split parts for male voices so I had to sing the tenor line alone. I’ve never considered myself to be a soloist and prefer to sing with others singing the same line, but I can sight read music fairly well and don’t mind singing harmony with the ensemble. I have not, however, taken private vocal lessons and don’t have as much confidence as I would like to have when I feel that my part is exposed.

Last year the choir had three section leaders who were college students and were paid a small stipend to sing with the choir. Their leadership helped fill out the sections of the choir. This year since I will be singing with the choir, the director is proposing to have four section leaders so there will be an additional tenor. Even with that additional strong voice, our section of the choir will be smaller than has been the case with other choirs in which I have participated. I guess I will need to practice a bit more and make sure that I am a bit more confident in my part each week. It is good to have some new skills to learn, but there are limitations to the aging human voice. Furthermore, one of the gifts of retirement is a bit of flexibility to travel and I expect that I will miss a few weeks when we travel and visit other congregations.

It is all a bit complex, as I suppose it is for every member of volunteer church choirs. For now, the song that keeps going through my head is “All God’s Critters God a Place in the Choir.” I’m one of God’s critters and it is good to know that there is a place in the choir for me.