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 Congregational singing, like many worship elements, shows that what the people do often means more than what is done for them. |
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Pablo Sosa on Congregational Singing
Songs put words in people’s mouths, knowledge in their bones, and conviction about whose voice counts. Songs shape how a community lives out its faith. That’s why Pablo Sosa thinks congregational singing is so important.
If you’re lucky enough to be led in song by Pablo Sosa, your first impression—unruly white hair, energetic arms, rumpled sweater and pants—might not clue you in to his worldwide reputation.
But that doesn’t matter to the Argentinean minister and composer. Within the first verse, Sosa will have you where he wants you…breathing deeply, singing your heart out, smiling at people around you. Even if it’s not your custom, you may find yourself swaying or moving your feet, dancing almost.
Pablo Sosa has a gift for getting congregations to sing. Worship leaders in many cultures and traditions say that Sosa’s methods and insights work. You can use them to help your congregation sing and worship more consciously as members of Christ’s body.
 Pablo Sosa often refers to worship as "the fiesta of the faithful." |
Step back
At a recent Calvin Symposium on Worship, Sosa shared an image that’s helped him rethink his approach to congregational singing.
He told how an indigenous Qom man said, “If you look at your hand too closely, you will not see it. You have to hold it away from your face to really see it.” Sosa says this insight reminds him that you need aesthetic distance to see what’s working in worship music.
Like many professional worship leaders and musicians, Sosa grew up within a particular aesthetic tradition. He was educated in Argentina, the U.S. (Westminster Choir College), and Germany. For years he pastored a large Methodist congregation in Buenos Aires, while composing songs, leading choirs, editing hymnals, producing religious broadcasts, and teaching liturgy and hymnology at a seminary.
Meanwhile, life in Argentina pushed him to question his assumptions about what’s best for congregational singing. During Argentina’s “dirty war,” two young women from his church were disappeared, possibly for working among the poor. As Catholic and Protestant churches hesitated whether to speak out, remain silent, or support the government, many people lost faith.
Economic meltdown after the war plunged many middle class Argentinians into poverty. They’ve had to compete for jobs and resources with the always poor and with minorities and immigrants.
Sosa’s growing social awareness widened his vision for “lifting up hope with a song.” He often describes worship as “the fiesta of the faithful,” where all are welcome and all music is seen as “part of the ‘song of the earth,’ which answers the psalmist’s call ‘Sing joyfully to God, all the earth!’ (Psalm 98:4).”
 Where’s the line between leading worship and performing to those attending worship? |
Let the people sing
Sosa understands the power of congregational song. Songs put words in people’s mouths, knowledge in their bones, and conviction about whose voice counts. Songs shape how a community lives out its faith.
His first principle of congregational song is to let the people sing. “In our church, we never had anyone standing in front conducting our music. Worship is not we having to watch his face while he reacts to the music,” Sosa explains.
Bob Batastini says, “Pablo Sosa has a great ability to engage a congregation, like John Bell does. John Bell uses the same technique. He sometimes leads music without opening his mouth. With Pablo, too, as soon as people take ownership of a song, he backs off.
“A lot of people who try to lead congregational songs never let the congregation sing. You get the idea it’s all about the guy, or group or ensemble, up there with the microphones.” Batastini arranged for GIA Publications to publish Sosa’s Éste es el Día (This Is the Day) CD of congregational songs, along with translations and bilingual choir editions.
 Indonesians lead a pre-service song at a Calvin Symposium on Worship. |
Welcome the Other in the other
Sosa began writing worship songs to find his own voice. “I knew my hymnals, but I wasn’t able to find my voice there. I only found my voice when I realized it was the oppressed in Argentina who were keeping the treasure of who we are alive,” he explained in a Reformed Worship article.
“We use one-sided terms—folk music, old, strange—to evaluate someone else’s culture and music. The sacred/secular distinction is mainly a power issue. If something or someone threatens our own position, we declare it ‘not sacred,’ that is, not adequate for God’s worship,” he adds.
Songs in his Éste es el Día (This Is the Day) collection let him introduce forgotten, or even disdained, subcultures into church. “Miren qué Bueno (Behold, How Pleasant),” based on Psalm 133, uses chamarrita, a rural dance-song form. African syncopation, tango, and bombo drums mark other lively Sosa songs.
He also uses congregational music from other cultures, such as “Ososo,” a Korean prayer for unity, and a Pakistani Kyrie.
“Sosa invites us to accept the gift of difference, of Christ coming to us in the other and as the Other. We need this experience of the other. Otherwise we think of worship as meant to make us comfortable,” says C. Michael Hawn, who traces Sosa’s global influence in Gather into One: Praying and Singing Globally.
The story continues ... Lift Your Voices, Deepen Your Faith
Text by Joan Huyser-Honig
Photography by Steve Huyser-Honig
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Don’t miss the bonus story about the story behind Sosa’s song “Éste Momento en Punto.”
Listen to the audio of Pablo Sosa’s talk on Just Worship. Order his music from GIA Publications and OCP Publications. Attend Pablo Sosa’s session (Spanish and English music and rhythms) at the National Association of Pastoral Musicians convention, July 9-13, 2007, in Indianapolis.
Listen to brief audio interview excerpts of C. Michael Hawn on:
- How Sosa connects songs to life (4:41, 4.29 MB)
- Being culturally sensitive or unaware with worship music (5:35, 5.12 MB)
Learn a lot more about Pablo Sosa by reading C. Michael Hawn’s Gather into One: Praying and Singing Globally. Invite a group to discuss that book and Hawn’s One Bread, One Body: Exploring Cultural Diversity in Worship. Whet interest by sharing his tips for enlivening African, Asian, and Latin American music in worship. Another good choice is Diverse Worship: African-American, Caribbean & Hispanic Perspectives by Pedrito Maynard-Reid.
Bonus hint from Hawn: “Don’t Victorianize it. Don’t try to make everything sound like ‘Abide with Me.’ ”
Read the story of the first evangelical tango (p. 8, We Have Hope) and how songs can bring reconciliation. The Pakistani Kyrie is in the Asian hymnal Sound the Bamboo. GIA Publications sells the most recent version of Sound the Bamboo.
Get specific ideas for including justice in worship, along with suggested congregational songs, many from Sing! A New Creation. Listen to audio files from Sing! A New Creation, such as #59, “Perdón, Señor” (Forgive Us, Lord) or #116, “Gloria, Gloria, Gloria” (by Pablo Sosa).
Brian Wren talks about worship music and hymn texts, including his own “In Christ We Live.” Greg Scheer describes polarities in church music history. His book The Art of Worship: A Musician’s Guide to Leading Modern Worship has a great section on how worship teams can encourage, not undermine, congregational singing.
Paul Westermeyer’s hefty hummable Let the People Sing: Hymn Tunes in Perspective and his brief, powerful Let Justice Sing (Essays in American Liturgy) are easy to read and discuss.
Preach on the biblical basis of congregational singing. Order this DVD for organists, The Art and Craft of Playing Hymns. At Ethnic Harvest, explore links to bilingual hymnals and songs in many languages. Jorge Lockward explains that sometimes learning a song from another culture makes worshipers feel more free to move (pp. 6-7).
Read accounts of Christians discriminated against by other Christians (Appendix A, pp. 1-22) followed by songs for healing (Appendix B, pp. 23-32); about Word Made Flesh, missionaries who serve Christ among the poorest of the poor; and Wiconi, a Native American witness to other indigenous people.
Browse related stories about African American church music, global music from the Iona Community, music identified with worship communities, musical theology, and worship aesthetics.
Feel free to print and distribute these stories at your staff, council, worship, or music committee meeting. These questions will get members talking about the role of congregational song.
- Churches have different reasons for needing aesthetic distance to evaluate worship. Do any of these ring true for you?
- Why should we in the pews sing? We pay people for that.
- Our choir is the center of the liturgy.
- That kind of music (or instrument) doesn’t belong in a church sanctuary.
- Moving like that isn’t worshipful.
- I don’t like that song.
- This is a church that values congregational singing, so how dare he sing another solo? Call and response? Taizé cantors? What’s that?
- What is congregational singing for? Is it mainly to warm up people and set the stage for the sermon? How do the congregation’s songs function in your church’s liturgy or service order?
- What’s different or the same about songs meant for performance and songs meant for congregational singing? Which do you use more often in your church? Describe differences in the songs themselves and in the way they’re presented or led.
- Which issues do your members pray or worry about but never sing about? What does this gap say about Christ’s relevance to their lives?
What is the best way you’ve found to deepen your congregation’s experience of singing as members of Christ’s worldwide, age-old body? Please write to us so we can identify trends and share your great ideas. Whether you do these or any other things, we’d love to learn what works for you:
- If you introduced new forms of congregational music in your worship, did you move toward something more simple or complex? How did you explain this change to worshipers? What results did you see?
- Did you create a seminar or education series to help people recognize nuances in global worship songs? Did you explain who sings it in its original context, how they accompany or move with it, and what it means?
- If you’ve noticed that your congregation sings songs of people or cultures not visible in your worship services, how have you responded?
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This article was first published by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, http://www.calvin.edu/worship/stories/.