“Beer & Hymns” and Congregational Song: Participatory Sing-alongs as Community

Christian Congregational Music: Local and Global Perspectives

CCMC, Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford, England, July 31, 2019.

Material from this paper was published in “ ‘Beer & Hymns’ and Community.”

Abstract

As a loosely-organized institution, “Beer and Hymns” started at the Greenbelt Festival in England in 2006 and migrated to the Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina in 2012. Local Beer and Hymns gatherings meet at bars, breweries, clubs, and pubs across the U.K., the U.S., and around the world. Most are not affiliated with a church or Christian denomination, instead relying on the energy of independent local organizers. Some attendees are regular churchgoers, other are not, but all find community in these sing-alongs—congregational singing, that is, outside of traditional congregational contexts. Beer and Hymns is exactly what it sounds like: we raise our red Solo cups and lift our voices together to sing hymns, spirituals, praise songs, and folk songs together. The conveners accompany on whatever acoustic instruments are available, provide songbooks, and lead the songs, but are quickly subsumed by the larger group: the sonic emphasis is on the participatory nature of the sing-along, and not necessarily on proper intonation, rhythmic precision, or vocal blend. At Wild Goose’s Beer and Hymns, song choices include both secular and sacred selections, and the nightly gatherings attract participants from a variety of theological backgrounds, many of whom have an ambivalent or troubled relationship with Protestant Christianity (including mainline and non-denominational evangelicalism). Our voices entwine, and often our arms do, too. And by the end of the night, as our singing reverberates in the night, we emerge unified by our singing, even if only for one night.