Songs to teach the faith: songs to keep the faith

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Songs to teach the faith: Songs to keep the faith

Report of the Research Team Conference

12.30pm - 2.30pm,
Friday 11th November, 2005

Present:
Sue Carey, David Chantler, Elspeth Chantler, Ben Hannen, Joan Hill, Jo Sibley

Here follows a summary of the conference proceedings:

Evaluation of the research tools

Discussion on the act of observing young people's responses to sung liturgy

The young people were sometimes put off when they realised researchers were watching them.
This happened most with the children that were sat/stood behind the researchers, causing the researchers to turn around in order to observe them
David made a point of looking around the church at everybody, not just the children, so the young people were less aware he was looking at them.
The presence of the research team sometimes affected where the young people sat.
Announcements made by ministers in some of the churches (announcing the presence of and welcoming the research team) did not affect the results of the study, as at no point was the exact nature of the observation disclosed.

Discussion on the observation record sheet

There were questions over whether the categories on the sheet were sufficiently delineated, but this was only an issue for the first observation where one column (responding to music) had accidentally been left off the chart on the first observation. This was subsequently corrected.
There had been confusion over how to categorise 'responding to music' and 'attempting to participate'. It would appear that these terms had been interpreted by some of the team interchangeably and therefore if the data in those two categories is merged there is no great problem, as both indicate that the young person is making some sort of definite response to the music that is not actually singing.
Jo said she would have had a category called 'pretending'.
It was remarked that the sheet was well designed.
Using a tally system to mark each child as they were observed and classified was a lot easier than trying to count up who was doing what and coming up with a figure for each category. Elspeth should have thought to tell everybody this as soon as she worked it out.

Discussion on the observation classification sheet

The categories of 'singing confidently' and 'singing' had been viewed somewhat subjectively, especially by Ben and David who had developed their own criteria on which to judge both. This means that many who Elspeth would have judged to be singing confidently (as stated on the classification criteria sheet) would have been judged a merely singing by Ben. Again, all agreed that any inconsistencies here can be levelled by merging the two categories, as all the young people falling into these two could safely be described as 'singing'.

Feedback and evaluation of the research team's experiences of the research.

What did you get out of doing the research?

David 'got a buzz out of it', especially from the more 'alive' churches (Church Four & Church Nine).
Jo particularly liked Church Five and Church Four.
Sue and Elspeth really enjoyed the minister at Church Five.
It was great to see so many different churches.
It was interesting to see the differences between the services and the organisation of each. Some services were much harder for visitors to follow and were therefore more difficult to participate in than others.
Elspeth enjoyed meeting friends and acquaintances in all the different churches.
All the team agreed that Church Two's way of presenting the entire service, including hymns, on one sheet was an example of best practice.
Ben was pleased to find out things about church practice that one would not necessarily find out if regularly attending only one church.
Jo was surprised to see how many children still go to church, but went home each time feeling depressed, having encountered so many communities and realising she was not part of one.
Sue was struck by how attendance at the Anglican churches has shrunk since she was a child.
Joan liked the use of the OHP and pretty pictures at Church Eight.
Ben liked Church Nine even more.

Where do we go from here?

Would you be interested in executing further research in this area?

All the team said they would be happy to help undertake further research in this field.

Regardless of any personal involvement, what further research can you see leading on from what we have already completed?

Jo would like to see research into the correlation between church practice and levels of attendance.
Ben would like to observe the same group of churches again, visiting each several times to see their full range of services and gain a fuller picture.
Elspeth suggested looking to see if the churches' children's provision is better than what is on offer for children on 'normal' Sundays.
Ben suggested that further research would need to be concentrated on one denomination, with the churches themselves deciding what they wanted to find out with a view to developing best practice.
David suggested looking at churches in urban areas with a multi-racial element, maybe in Chesham or High Wycombe.
Joan identified the need to make all Sunday services more child friendly.

Conclusions

Any other business

Lighthouse was agreed to be a huge influence on the children observed.
There was discussion as to how to harness the influence of Lighthouse favourably to help young people participate in sung worship in their own churches.
Ben suggested that all the churches involved in Lighthouse should contribute songs to the Lighthouse repertoire from their own list of favourites. That way the children attending Lighthouse would have a chance to learn some songs that would enable them to participate in their own churches.
David suggested that Lighthouse could run singing workshops for one of the Lighthouse sessions, using songs from the churches that are not the usual Lighthouse fare.
Sue noted the influence of families over how children sing. If adults sing every day then so do the children.
All agreed how much children love to sing, but how few opportunities they get to do so in any area of life.
Joan talked about how the expectation of participation in congregational song is counter-cultural, and suggested the inception of children's choirs to foster singing in young people, using both sacred and secular repertoire.
All agreed on how the use of other instruments to complement (or sometimes replace) the organ should be encouraged, and how including people in music making in church encourages people of all ages to come and participate, and be drawn to faith. West Gallery village bands were highlighted as an example of how instruments could be used.
David suggested a Deanery 'flying choir', on the same lines as the Wild Goose Worship Group, to go round and bring life to services in churches with small congregations. (The 'flying choir' would serve a different function to the Churches Together Choir that exists to serve ecumenical services and community events where a united church presence is desirable).
Joan noted the need for more strong musical leadership in churches. There is a shortage of good music leaders.

Sum up briefly what has been said

The act of actually observing posed no problems other than a few children stood close behind the researchers being self-conscious when they realised they were being observed.
On the observations record sheets, data in the 'singing' and 'singing confidently' categories will be merged into one category called 'singing'.
On the observation record sheet, data in the 'attempting to join in' and the 'responding to music' categories will be merged into a single category called 'attempting to join in'.
All agreed that it would have been both inappropriate and impractical to have used cameras to record the services.
All agreed that the research methods used produced clearer and more truthful data than that which could have been recorded on camera, as cameras are intrusive, and alter the subject's behaviour. It would not have been possible to film secretly.
All were confident that, using the same methods, similar data would have been gathered by a different team of researchers observing the same services we observed using the same method. (It would not necessarily be exactly the same as some taller people can see children the shorter researchers can't, so the 'can't see' category would be most likely to vary).

Thanks research team and close the meeting

David commented on the high calibre of the research team.
Elspeth thanked the team and closed the meeting.

Elspeth Chantler
22nd November 2005