Last updated 31st October 2024
Choir Church is a model for new worshipping communities, built around children’s choirs in schools, led in partnership with local churches. It offers worship, musical excellence, and spiritual formation designed to build and grow congregations, working for social justice. While it is principally school-based, its worship is open to the wider community of parents, teachers, neighbours and friends.
Bishop Philip, Acting Bishop of Blackburn and Choir Church sponsor said, “This is a passion project for me as it’s no secret that I came to faith through the choral tradition myself. Music can lift the soul and inspire people in so many ways and we now have the opportunity to test how the choral tradition, with its grounding in sacramental worship, can be adapted to a ‘planting context’; connecting home, church and school in fresh new ways.”
Local school Choir Church builds a new congregation around a children’s choir based in a school, which may or may not be a church school
Eucharist A children’s choir sings in a Eucharist which is open to all – parents, teachers, and neighbours, including a ‘planting team’ of existing worshippers
Choral excellence Children learn a wide range of liturgical music, with the English Choral Tradition at its heart, equipping them musically for worship and life
Social justice The congregation is built and developed using the practices of community organising, so it can work with its neighbours to act on Jesus’ command to challenge injustice
Choir Church is an innovative project that has the following focus:
The Christian choral tradition is a powerful tool for evangelism among children and their families. We want to test how the English Choral Tradition and its grounding in sacramental worship can be adapted to a planting context in the faith, home, school triangle as part of a mixed-ecology church.
Questions we are asking include:
During the course of the project, we will be posting our findings.