Where did all the church choirs go? How the music stirred the faithful

Miami-Dade County admin August 21, 2026 0 Comments

Where did all the church choirs go? How the music stirred the faithful

There is nothing like a church choir to get the congregation ready to worship. Growing up, I remember my mom singing in Choir No. 1 at Ebenezer United Methodist Church in Overtown. The building at Northwest 11th Street and Third Avenue is a community center.

When I was 11, and decided that I wanted to sing — along with my friends Willie Mae and Barbra Ann Stephens — in the Junior Choir at New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Liberty City, I joined the church. And when I was 13, I was baptized by the church’s founding pastor, the late Rev. James Brown, whose daughter Shirley was the pianist.

By the time I was 16, the heavenly sounds of five choirs singing and the great hymn “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” lured me to St. John Institutional Missionary Baptist Church in Overtown, where the late Pauline Dunn was the choir director. There was just something about the sound of the choir mingling with the voices of the congregation that made my soul rejoice and my heart sing.

Later in the service, the choir would sing a foot-stomping, hand-clapping rendition of a gospel song that set the tone for the preacher to follow with his gospel message. When it was time for the benediction, you felt like your soul had a bath.

Nowadays, there aren’t too many churches around with choirs. Rather, there are Praise Teams, featuring four to six of the church’s best singers. Kind of like a concert.

Sometime during the performance, the congregation is invited to sing along with one or two of the praise songs. While the words and the tunes are pretty, and the beat of the music can get you clapping, or waving your hands like you really do care, I still miss the old-time hymns and the choirs that led the congregation into worship, and lost souls to salvation.

Melba Randolph Pompey, director of music at The Church of God Tabernacle (True Holiness), where a once 30-voice choir has dwindled to as few as eight singers on any given Sunday, still believes in the church choir.

“There is just another element to the service when there is choir music,” she said. “I do believe that praise teams have their place, but there is something about the communal essence of a choir lifting songs of Zion in worship to God. There is just a different atmosphere in church when that happens. Sometimes there are small congregations where there is a need of a choir, but not enough people in the congregation to form one. Choirs just bring about a different element to the service.”

Because many churches were closed during the COVID pandemic, some people blame the virus on the disappearance of many church choirs.

But Walter T. Richardson, the pastor emeritus of Sweet Home Missionary Baptist Church and considered by many as an expert on church choir music, said that while COVID played a part in the closure of some churches and the loss of some church choirs, it isn’t the reason they are disappearing.

“Choirs have been going out of style long before COVID,” Richardson said. “First, there is a lack of choir directors and/or musicians who have the time to work with church choirs. Then, there is the financial situation. A lot of churches don’t have the financial means to pay talented and efficient musicians — especially keyboard players — to work with their choirs. It has also become a challenge to get people to join church choirs. Choir singing is a demanding role that calls for dedication and a commitment to long rehearsals to learn new music.”

He went on, listing more reasons:

“Also, many churches have additional musicians such as bass guitar players, drummers and even horn sections. This costs money, and many churches are struggling just to stay alive and can’t afford this,” Richardson said. “Yet, church musicians are in such demand, that many musicians play for multiple churches on any given Sunday. I know several musicians, who play for four different churches every Sunday.

“Not only has the choir gone out of style for many churches — especially Black Baptist, Pentecost, and Full Gospel denominations — choir music in many churches, except for the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), which still sings the long-revered hymns the whole genre of gospel music has changed, especially in the Black church. And congregational singing has almost disappeared,” Richardson said. “Then, there is the younger generation to consider. Many of our youth are not familiar with the old-time, gospel choir singing where you have a leader and a choir of voices as backup singers. They are not interested in processing into church wearing robes, as was the custom with some church choirs.”

Even so, Richardson said some mainline denominations like the Presbyterian, Episcopal, and Lutheran still maintain their choirs with trained musicians.

Gene Towsel likens the drought in church choirs, especially in the Black church, to biblical times.

Towsel studied choral methods, techniques composition and voice at Florida A & M University. He also founded the National Workshop on Church Music for the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, and is the founder and director of the International CME (Christian Music Enterprise).

“Has the Black church choir become like the ‘dry bones in the valley’ as described in Ezekiel 37:1 in the Old Testament?” Townsel asked. “Or is it because the leadership in many of our churches view music as mere entertainment, rather than the spiritual organism of the church? If we view church choir as mere entertainment our Black churches will stay in the valley, so to speak. The question is, can church choirs be revived; can these voices sing again? If God wills, the answer is ‘Yes’,” Townsel said.

Townsel’s advice is for churches to remember the role choirs played in the Bible. “There are examples of how the choir was used to confuse opponents in battles, usher in the Holy Spirit and stir and edify the souls of those who hear it. One example that comes to mind is in Second Chronicles, 5:13-15:

“The trumpeters and singers joined in unison, as with one voice, to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instrument, they raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang: ‘He is good; his love endures forever.’ Then the temple of the Lord was filled with a cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God.” (NIV)

Townsel said he would like to see a revitalization of church choirs.

“I don’t know about anybody else,” he said, “but I miss hearing and performing the powerful Bible-based choral works that edify and inspire God’s people. I believe God has given me the charge of speaking to the singers of the choir society who have allowed themselves to fall into the allegorical ‘valley of the dry bones.’ It doesn’t matter that your voice is no longer what it once was; God can and will revitalize your voice if you put it in His hands to be used for His glory.”