Keys to Congregational Singing
Howard Stevenson
Although the chancel choir, the soloists, and the instrumentalists are all vital contributors to the music of worship, our most important choir is made up of the men and women with untrained voices who sit in the pews.
—Howard Stevenson
One of the most magnificent and impressive "choirs" I ever heard had never rehearsed. It was the vast audience that gathered in Anaheim Stadium one night during the 1985 Billy Graham Southern California Evangelistic Crusade.
I had been selected as the chairman of the local music committee and so assisted in the recruitment and direction of a 10,000-voice crusade choir, the largest crusade choir ever assembled in North America, according to Cliff Barrows. A magnificent sea of voices stretched along the entire third-base line.
Yet as mighty and moving as that choir sounded, the most powerful music that night came not from the third-base line, but from the huge, 85,000-seat stadium.
The sound still echoes in my mind, a memory that remains electrifying and overlaid with emotion to this day. As Cliff was leading the stadium in singing the gospel song "At Calvary," I slowly walked out to center field, behind the platform at second base, and standing in the middle of the stadium, I watched the moon rising over the second deck as the power of that great hymn cascaded over me.
"Do you hear this. Lord?" I heard myself saying. "Do you hear the praise of these people?" I was thrilled as I listened to the unified testimony and thanksgiving that filled the air.
To this day, whenever I sing the words of that hymn, I see again the image of that great, golden moon and hear those tens of thousands of voices singing: "Oh, the love that drew salvation's plan! / Oh, the grace that brought it down to man! / Oh, ...
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