What Could the Church learn from Pub Choir

A month ago, my husband and I attended an evening of music, also known as Pub Choir! A year into empty nesting, we are still trying to navigate this season and finding fun things to do ever so often. His job requires a lot of traveling, so it is not always easy, but when this event popped up on Instagram, I was intrigued!

Quickly purchasing the tickets, I added them to our calendar and forgot about them. The event was on a Monday night, and neither one of us felt like dragging ourselves to Dallas at 7 pm. Given that I work in Dallas, needless to say, the thought of driving back was a tad annoying. But I was committed to the night, and as long as he could pack quickly for his trip the following day, we decided to make it work.

I had a vague idea of what Pub Choir was, having seen a few YouTube videos, but I had not invested time in researching much.

For those who have never heard of it, Pub Choir was created by Astrig Jorgensen. It is an improvised music lesson and audience sing-along. It is entirely improvised, and you never know what the outcome will be like. According to Jorgensen, “Everybody can sing. Like, not well, but literally. Why should being average at something stop you from doing it!? It hasn’t yet… Singing is good for you, it’s EASY, and Pub Choir is here to show you how.”

She delivers this message at the start of every show! All a person needs to do is show up and sing! You never know what to expect! The theatre is filled with a bunch of euphoric strangers who come eager to learn the three-part harmony of a popular song, and by the end of 90 minutes, you are singing it perfectly, hearts filled with joy! It is an experience that I believe everyone should try at least once in their lives because it leaves you exhilarated. At least it did for me!

90 minutes of singing, from start to finish. You spend the first 60 minutes learning your harmony - just three parts - then in the last half hour, you put it together and hear the resulting magic!

Between the two sections, there is a break, and, as most women do in the queue for the ladies’ room, they chatted. The lady in front of me had been to Pub Choir many times before. She and her group of friends managed to attend as often as they could. They were not great singers, but that was besides the point; it made for camaraderie, laughter, and a good time! She went on to say that the group singing made it feel “almost like church”.

This perked up my ears! I asked her if she was a follower of Christ, and she said no, but the communal aspect of group singing made it feel like everyone belonged in that auditorium and we were all one, at least for those 90 minutes.

That gave me pause. A few years ago, when attending the Taylor Swift Eras Tour, I had the same feeling - nearly eighty-five thousand strangers gathered together sang out loudly with the singer, dancing and raising our hands in joy and celebration. It did feel like church for those three hours!

And Pub Choir was the same way. 600 people gathered in a theatre in downtown Dallas to sing in harmony and celebrate the power of music to unify us. Because it was unifying. There were people from all walks of life in that room, and everyone got along! You might not always get the right note or sound, but you could still sing!

I wondered then what the church could actually learn from Pub Choir? You see, what we saw that evening was that people love to sing. Men and women- everyone enjoys singing and belting a song at the top of their voice! There is tremendous exuberance in their singing!

But I do not actually see that on a Sunday morning at church. The last time I heard a group of Christ followers singing with joy was last week at a funeral! Celebrating the life and legacy of a loved one, people raised their voices in harmony as we sang hymns.

So perhaps there are a few things the church could learn from Pub Choir?

1. Choose Simple songs - if you look at the YouTube videos of Pub Choir over the years, you will notice that Jorgensen chooses easy-to-sing, catchy songs. They are not complicated. Yes, these are pop songs, and at church we sing songs with theology and meaning, though they can be simple. It is not just the lyrics. Songs can be sung at lower keys and with a simple harmony. It does need to be a one-person performance on the stage. Simplicity works!

2. The Congregation is the Choir- Pub Choir involves the entire audience; in a church, it means the entire congregation sings. The congregation is the choir! Young, old, male, female - everyone can and must be encouraged to sing!

3. There is a Conductor - Astrid Jorgensen conducts the choir and encourages everyone to open their “Sound Hole” ( her word for mouth) and sing. She arranges the music into a three-part harmony, and with wild gestures, moving across the stage, and a lot of gesticulating and calling people out with humour she makes sure everyone sings! People respond to that. At the said funeral, we had an organist, a gentleman with silver hair, who even thought sitting behind the piano led the singing with great gusto and conducted while playing, asking all of us to lift our voices in praise! It makes a massive difference!

4. Fewer Musicians- Interestingly, at Pub Choir in Dallas, there was only one guitarist for the entire session. Now, in some locations, they sometimes invite local school choirs and high school drum lines to join them, and other musicians are also invited to participate. But most of the time, Jorgensen has only one guitarist, or occasionally an extra pianist. Large sections of the music are sung a cappella, so the audience's voices really come through and are the highlight of the show. This could potentially be another takeaway for churches with major performers on the stage. I am not saying every musician should be sent away, but there is merit to having maybe an acoustic or rhythm guitar, just a piano, and really having the congregation raise their voices in singing.

Now, please do not come at me saying I am attacking worship leaders or church bands. I believe there can be room for all the talent we have at church. But if we really think about it, a lot of people do not sing much at church anymore, and I would even say the majority of the people at Pub Choir might not have been super religious or following any major faith, but they wanted to sing. Good, bad, in tune, pitchy, whatever, they came to sing together, and that’s something for us to consider.

Jorgensen repeatedly tells her audience that being a great singer is not important; we can learn the note and tune from the person next to us, and when the voices of strangers blend, it’s beautiful.

What ran through my mind that evening was - if a group of strangers could come together for 90 minutes and sing together happily, how much better we as a church, the body of Christ, a family, could be? Congregational singing has changed tremendously over the last two decades. There have been many changes for the better, but some have not been helpful. Modern music, tunes, and lyrics all make it hard for those without the gift of singing to sing on a Sunday morning, and perhaps we could consider simpler options to help each other out.

So much more could be said on this topic, but for now, these are some of the musings that came my way as I stood in that theatre with 598 strangers belting out the harmony of Pat Benatar’s” We Belong"!

PS: in the above group picture, look at hubby below the fan:)

Below is the original, unedited version of We Belong performed in Dallas.

For the edited version, including all the US Cities ( over 12,000 people), have a listen here.