Why we sing: how Christian singing shapes prayer, community and meaning

The useful part

Music, spirituality and the search for meaning Obianuju Mbah 26 September, 2026 07:32 BST (Photo: Getty/iStock) Singing is a practice so deeply embedded in Christian worship that it can easily be taken for granted. "Since singing is so good a thing, I wish all men would learn to sing," Byrd wrote in 1588.

How it works

• Former Bishop of Kingston, Richard Cheetham, similarly argued that singing can help people engage with truths that cannot always be adequately expressed through analytical language alone.
• Kate Fawcett, a musician and music therapist working in paediatric palliative care, also reflected on the spiritual significance of breath.
• June Boyce-Tillman, professor emerita of applied music at the University of Winchester, similarly emphasised community over musical perfection.
• Singing, Spirituality and the Search for Meaning,' a two-day conference at the University of Birmingham that brought together theologians, musicians and researchers to explore the physical, social and...

What to take from it

Composers, he said, can engage listeners "not simply to retell the story, but allow them to enter into the mystery itself". Recalling his own journey through science, philosophy, ordained ministry and, more recently, choral singing, he said Christian song had taught him that music engages "the head and the heart and the body. Drawing on Byrd, he argued that singing brings together "breath, body, intellect, emotion and attention".

Example or evidence

• Opening the conference, organisers and University of Birmingham research fellows Dr Katie Bank and Dr Rebekah Wallace turned to the 16th-century Catholic composer William Byrd, who argued that singing...
• "The singing itself may become prayer that gives way to transcendence." Michael Glover, a priest and theologian whose research includes sacred music and the transmission of faith, argued that sacred music...
• Centuries later, the conference returned to many of the same questions: what happens when people sing?
• "The voice is the embodied person made audible," she said, noting that singing brings together breath, hearing, language, memory, imagination and intention.

Details worth keeping

What, then, does singing make possible that speech alone cannot? Why has Christianity placed such importance on it? How might singing shape prayer, faith and community?

Related coverage

• Psychologytoday: In a world where physical time and space are increasingly compromised, we can find the artistic expression to respond in multiple ways.
• Blogspot: Worship, Ministry, and Life of the Church As you read the Old Testament, particularly the Book of Psalms, you will come across numerous verses about offering thanks and praise to God in song, declaring...
• Ncronline: After a Brandi Carlile concert, and with her own son learning an instrument, one mother reflects on the holiness of sharing a collective experience with other human beings.
• Desiringgod: We tend to study what delights us.