Introduction

1. Are the young people attending Sunday worship joining in with the singing?
2. Does the repertoire used in schools collective worship adequately prepare young people to participate in the sung worship of their church?

Principle Findings

• No, the majority of the young people attending normal Sunday worship do not join in with the singing,
• and no, the repertoire used in schools collective worship does not adequately prepare young people to participate in the sung worship of their church, as there is increasing disparity between the repertoire employed in schools and churches.

1. The majority of young people attending Sunday worship do not join in with the singing.
   The research showed that significant numbers of young people - an average of 65.5% - failed to participate in the sung worship of their church.
   
   
2. The young people miss out on most of the singing that happens in church because they are in Sunday school.
   In seventy percent of the churches observed, the young people are absent for the majority of the singing that takes place in church in the course of normal Sunday worship, and in those churches, the young people have the opportunity to sing two songs or less with the main congregation. On average, the young people miss out on two thirds of the singing in any one normal Sunday service 1.
   
   
3. Young people can't learn to sing what they are not present to learn.
   Routine absence from the liturgy means that in many churches the young people have insufficient exposure to the song of the assembly during normal Sunday worship for them to learn any of the hymns.
   
   
4. Schools are charged with a responsibility for handing on the Christian faith.
   Collective worship is immensely important as a herald of the Christian faith. In a society that is largely unchurched 2, religious education and collective worship bear the greatest burden in maintaining the cultural tradition of Christianity.
   Church schools stand 'at the centre of the Church's mission to the nation' (Archbishops' Council, 2001 pxi). It is not only church schools, however, that are charged with the task of handing on the Christian faith - all maintained schools are legally obliged to provide a daily act of worship that is 'wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character' (Education Reform Act 1988).
   
   
5. The cultural threads between school and church, and therefore between church and wider society, are threatened by the growing disparity between church worship and school worship. As a result, young people find it increasingly difficult to identify with and therefore participate in normal Sunday worship.
   This study has shown that regardless of denomination or churchmanship, what is sung in normal Sunday worship rarely correlates with the repertoire employed in schools, Sunday Schools and Christian holiday clubs. The problem is not that young people do not learn to sing in school nowadays, but rather that what they do learn to sing is of little help to them in church.
   
   Whilst most of the material sung in the schools studied fulfils the requirement that it be 'wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character' (Education Reform Act 1988), there is very little that reflects the great heritage of sacred song that until recent years was so very much a part of this nation and still forms the basis of normal Sunday worship in many churches today. There is, however, a strong case for the re-introduction of the styles of music used in normal Sunday worship into schools' collective worship.
   
   
   'Proper regard should continue to be paid to the nation's Christian heritage and traditions in the context of both the religious education and collective worship provided in schools. The Education Reform Act 1988 offers a framework in relation to collective worship which reflects primarily that tradition, while offering opportunities for the worship of other faiths in a context of mutual understanding and respect' (DfE July 1992 8.2). [My emphasis]
   
   
6. The importance of idiom.
   The problem of non-participation in sung worship is much deeper than young people's unfamiliarity with particular hymns. More important than the lack of common repertoire between churches and schools is the lack of common idiom, for the lack of familiarity with the musical language of the church alienates young people and impedes their participation in sung worship.
   
   Whilst a great many styles of music are employed in normal Sunday worship across the denominational spread, these styles do not include the primary musical genre represented in collective worship in schools 3 - the 'school hymn'- which accounts for 81% of the contents of Come and Praise, the hymn book currently used by every school studied.
   
   
7. The sharing of repertoire between churches and their linked schools can go some way to repairing the breakdown in transferable patterns of worship, in that school children might then become familiar with some of the music employed in one of the churches local to their school. This does not, however, solve the problem of young people being unfamiliar with the repertoire in sung in their own church, as geographically fragmented patterns of attendance (in both schools and churches) limit the effective transfer of a specific body of song from church to school and back again.
   
   
8. Singing in both churches and schools is weakened by the influence of the performance culture.
   It is not just today's children that are unused to community singing - this is increasingly true of the adults around them. We now have a whole generation of younger priests and school teachers who do not remember the days when everybody sang, and have lived their whole lives in the context of the performance culture. Thanks to advances in media, the whole of British society is burdened by the expectation of the 'perfect performance,' and this has lead, both directly and indirectly, to a shortage of people sufficiently confident in their musical abilities to lead young people in singing.
   
   Consequently, more and more schools and churches are resorting to singing along to CDs, either the karaoke-style backing track type, or worse still, CDs essentially intended for listening that constitute a complete performance in themselves and actually require no input from the congregation at all. Sixty percent of the Sunday Schools in the churches observed and seventy-seven percent of the respondent schools use CDs in this way - some schools now use no live music at all in collective worship. The use of CDs to accompany song in schools, Sunday schools and churches serves only to reinforce the performance culture, and to alienate young people further from the musical norms central to the worship of the adult assembly 4.
   

Guideline Recommendations

1. Invite your young people to sing
   Most children's early experiences of churchgoing include being told - repeatedly - to be quiet. Be sure to make it equally clear when you would like them to sing!
   
   
2. Make sure they can see the words.
   If the church uses hymn books, give all the young people a hymn book, even if they are only in church for one hymn. Give children who are learning to read large print hymnals (where available). If the church uses an over head projector, ensure that the children have an unobstructed view of the screen. Best of all, have the whole service, hymns included, printed on a single sheet of paper.
   
   
3. Offer help and encouragement.
   If the children do not sit with their families in church, have sufficient adult helpers on hand to help them to find the right page in their hymnbooks (and service books) and to point to the words to help them read if necessary.
   
   
4. Where a hymn is too long and wordy to expect children to be able to learn or read all the words, teach them the chorus or any repeated element.
   For example, the chorus of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel 5 or Thine be the Glory; 6 or the alleluias that come at the end of each verse of Rejoice, the Lord is King 7 and Ye Sons and Daughters of the King; 8 teach the refrain of antiphonal psalms.
   
   
5. Do not make the young people perform to the adult congregation.
   If 'children's songs' of any kind are to be sung, then they should be sung by the whole congregation and without making any kind of display of the young people.
   
   
6. Go easy on percussion.
   Do not make the mistake of trying to include the young people by randomly handing out a variety of percussion instruments for them to play. They might succeed in making a joyful noise, but that is all it will be. Twenty children indiscriminately bashing away throughout a hymn does little to enhance the worship for anybody. Moreover, young people are less likely so sing when they have an instrument to concentrate on.
   
   
7. Enable young people to make appropriate, respectful musical contributions.
   Any musical contributions should be carefully rehearsed and complimentary to the liturgy (e.g. to accompany a congregational hymn or as an introit, or to allow people to move from one place to another, etc.), rather than an adjunct included for its own sake.
   
   
8. Keep music live.
   CD backing tracks are the musical equivalent of microwavable ready-meals - they are readily available, and require no skill or preparation on the part of the consumer. At best they lack that certain something, at worst they are plain nasty. Recorded accompaniments tie their users unbendingly to music of a predetermined mood, length, and instrumentation; all possibility of spontaneity is lost; moreover, the only serve to reinforce the performance culture that is so destructive of worship. No pre-packaged commercially produced recorded performance can substitute for the real, live worship of the people present in that time and space.
   
   
9. Make sharing the culture of church worship a priority.
   Churches need to be proactive in educating their young people in the culture of church worship; this means teaching them not only the central tenets of the Christian faith, but also the tools of its practice. Rebuilding a repertoire of songs common to normal Sunday worship and Sunday school is of major importance in aiding young people's participation in the worship of the church. This work of sharing the culture of church worship can then be extended to the wider community though church-school links. Clergy with responsibility for churches linked to Anglican schools have a particular responsibility in this area:
   
   
   'The incumbent will encourage the school to see that the children become familiar with the main liturgy and reciprocally see that the ministry to the school is on the agenda for meetings of the Parochial Church Council' (Archbishops' Council 2001 p54). [My emphasis]
   
   
10. Do not try and 'sing something the children know,' even though this might seem like the obvious way of including them. Instead, show them you value their participation by actively teaching them the songs that will enable them to worship alongside the adult congregation. Teach the young people a variety of songs that are suitable for use in normal Sunday worship and then ask them which ones they like best. There is little point in quizzing young people about their musical preferences until they have had sufficient exposure to a wide range of songs on which they can base their choice.
    
    
11. Do not assume that because a certain song is sung in your linked school all the children will know it (especially if that song is not included in Come and Praise).
    This study found that of the churches observed, each church has young people attending an average of seven different educational establishments, with no single school being responsible for the education of the majority of the young people in any one church. Therefore, if the minister goes to their local school saying, 'please can you learn such and such a hymn', even if the school complies with the request, it will only impact on a small proportion of the young people in that church's congregation.
    
    This means that the problem of young people's unfamiliarity with the repertoire sung in churches cannot be solved merely by the vicar drawing up a list of the parish's favourite hymns and entreating the village school to learn them (though this, of course, will help). What can be achieved via this approach is the reintroduction of a repertoire representative of the idioms favoured in church worship, and this would be a valuable achievement indeed.
    
    
12. The church needs more highly skilled musicians, especially animateurs.
    Hire the best musicians you can and commit funding to provide for their ongoing training and professional development.

1. Be discerning of the quality and content of the songs you sing.
   Singing shapes what we believe and forms part of our dialogue with God. People learn more theology from what they sing than from what they hear preached; indeed the songs learned in childhood are our primary theological referents.
   
   
2. Do not patronise young people with irritating ditties.
   There are plenty of songs short and simple enough to be learned and enjoyed by even very small children that can also comfortably be sung by adults. Try chants from Taize, Songs of the World Church and the Iona Community's Shorter Songs for Worship (see recommended reading list below).
   
   
3. Sing music that was designed for congregational use.
   Some music is complicated and was not composed for a congregation to sing. Leave the fancy stuff to the choir or worship group.
   
   
4. Children have hugely eclectic musical tastes;
   do not be scared to teach young people music that is not popular in mainstream culture. Take the trouble to introduce them to as many styles of Christian music as possible. Help them learn to appreciate those forms of sacred music that are not so easy to sing - the great oratorios of Bach and Handel, plainsong, choral anthems, and those modern worship songs that work better as performance pieces than as congregational songs. What inspires one will be loathed by another and vice versa. All kinds of music have a place in worship.
   
   
5. The repertoire must embrace the whole emotional spectrum.
   Teach children songs that will enable them to express how they feel to God. Do not offer them a one-dimensional faith limited to jolly praise songs.
   
   
6. Include songs that, between them, tell the whole Christian story.
   Be sure to sing not only of Jesus' life and death, but also of his promise of salvation to all believers, of God's unending love and his purposes for us all. The songs we learn in childhood stay with us all our lives, and in this way, when we teach a child a Christian song we are in fact preparing them to meet their Maker.
   
   
7. Make sure the songs you choose are appropriate to the occasion, the congregation and to the skill level of the musician/s scheduled to facilitate the music.
   The broader the repertoire, the easier it is to choose music that is genuinely appropriate.
   
   
8. Start working with what you have got.
   Don't underestimate what can be achieved with the resources you already have. Everybody can sing. The parable of The Feeding of the Five Thousand (John 6:1-14) illustrates just what can be achieved with the most meagre resources when God is in charge.
   
   
9. Don't be frightened to sing unaccompanied.
   There is a wealth of material that can be sung without the need for accompaniment of any kind. A repertoire of unaccompanied song is liberating - this is the music you can sing on the move without the feeling that something is missing. It can revolutionise work (for instance, washing up after coffee time), travel (from liturgical processions to singing on coaches to leading a class in from the playground) times of sadness (at the graveside) and times of fun (Sunday School picnics).
   
   
10. Offer snippets of background information to contextualise the songs you sing.
    Placing a song in context gives it life and meaning, making it both accessible and memorable.
    

'It is worth stating as a point that the law on daily worship that applies to schools without a religious character, that it should be 'wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character' taken over the term as a whole, does not apply to Anglican schools, in which the law expects the daily worship to reflect Anglican beliefs and traditions of worship' (Lankshear & Hall 2003 p99). [My italics]

• Play Christian music as background music - not just children's songs, but traditional hymnody, choral anthems, plainchant, masses, gospel, songs of the world church, songs from Taize and Iona, and modern worship songs. This could be while children gather for Sunday School, as they come into school assembly, during school lunch time or as children are working quietly in class.
  
  
• If you want to expand your repertoire but do not have the resources or the confidence to do so, get help. A good animateur can facilitate the singing of simple songs of the world church, Taize chants, spirituals, antiphonal psalms and alleluias. Workshops such as these can be done as special events involving the whole church or school, or in smaller groups (either as part of the RE curriculum within year groups, or with the school or church choir). Songs learnt in this way can then be confidently repeated.
  
  
• Invite local schools to church events - particularly free afternoon concerts (a retiring collection can raise considerable funds without excluding anybody from attending).
  
  
• Invite the choir of your linked school to learn a piece and join forces with the church choir to sing together one Sunday (maybe on Education Sunday).
  
  
• Create a treasury of song - find out the congregation's top fifty favourite hymns/songs/mass settings/psalms (etc.). Include all the music one would need to know to comfortably worship at a normal Sunday service in your church. This can then form the basis of the songs to be actively handed on to the younger generations.
  
  
• In every family service, pram service and youth service include at least one item that would be used in normal Sunday worship.
  
  
• Make the most of mission opportunities - identify the most child friendly songs within your treasury of song and incorporate them into any youth initiatives (e.g. Lighthouse/Backpackers/Jigsaw). This can help to bridge the cultural gap between holiday club and church, making it easier for young people who decide to attend church as a result of the mission to integrate into church worship.
  

Recommended music and resource books

1. Bell, J.L. (ed. & arr.) (1990) Many & Great- Songs of the World Church Volume 1. Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications
2. Bell, J.L. (ed. & arr.) (1991) Sent By The Lord - Songs of the World Church Volume 2. Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications
3. Bell, J.L. & The Wild Goose Worship Group (1994) Come All You People -- Shorter Songs for Worship. Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications
4. Bell, J.L. & The Wild Goose Worship Group (1998) There is One Among Us - Shorter Songs for Worship. Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications
5. Songs and Prayers from Taize (1991) London: Geoffrey Chapman Mowbray
6. Inwood, P. Children at Heart - A Collection of Ritual Music for Children and Adults. Portland, Oregon: OCP Publications, 1997
7. Lamont, G. (ed.) (2001) The Assemblies Resource Book - High Quality Assemblies for Primary Schools. London: SPCK
8. Lamont, G. (ed.) (2003) Assembly Resources Through the Year - More Primary School Assemblies from www.assemblies.org.uk. London: SPCK
9. Seaman, A. (ed.) (2004) Be Bold - Inspiring Primary School Collective Worship. London: Church House Publishing
10. With Cheerful Voice - Hymns for Children (2nd edition)(1969) London: A&C Black

End List References

1. Archbishops' Council (2001) The Way Ahead: Church of England Schools in the New Millennium. London: Church House Publishing
   [This report is commonly referred to as The Dearing Report]
2. Education Reform Act (1988)
3. Department for Education (1992) Choice and Diversity: A New Framework for Schools. HMSO
4. Marshall-Taylor, G. (compiler) & Coombes, D. (arranger) (1990) The Complete Come and Praise. London: BBC Educational Publishing
5. Lankshear, D.W. & Hall, J.R. (2003) Governing and Managing Church Schools, 2nd ed.. London: Church House Publishing