One of the available avenue to serve God in a church setting is to be a Chorister, this is such a beautiful thing to do anywhere in the world, you bring so much Joy and life to people and to every church service, this plays a crucial role in making the service smooth and create an atmosphere where the spirit of the Lord can move and be able to find expression in the midst of his people.
The life of a Chorister is a beautiful one and I have been one myself since I was a child and to God be the glory for the opportunity he has given me to serve him at various capacity both in Church and while I was on campus, today I will share some important information we need to bear in mind as chorister and why anyone who is interested should become a chorister and serve God in a Church.
It is important we establish the fact that there is no Church or service without the role of the Choir, they play such a crucial role in the smooth running of things in every services. As a matter of fact; there are those who come for service strictly because of the Choir of the church, as they consider their ministration life changing and highly impactful. Thus, making the chorister become a vessel that compels men to the presence of God.
Should I Join the Choir?
If you are thinking of joining the Choir in any church, please go ahead, there is more value and opportunity that this decision will offer you, the choir is always in need of new members as people tend to move from one part of the world to another, your arrival at any time could be the wisdom of God to use you to replace the one that just left so that the work of the House of the Lord can continue to flourish and go smoothly through your contribution in the house of God.
Apart from the beautiful opportunity to serve God using your God given talent and skills, you also get to meet like-minded people, music professionals and those that have gone ahead of you, I can say over the years I have met people in the Choir unit whom we have become best of friends, destiny helper and play very significant role in life and destiny together. The blood of Jesus bond brethren together in Love and Unity and there is almost no benefit that cannot be captured in those relationship, even though this is not the reason why we joined, but it came as a benefit along the way. Serving God in the choir has been a major decision for me over the years and I do not have any regret on this decision till date, To God be the glory.
What are the Spiritual Benefits?
There are so many benefits of being a Chorister, both physical and spiritual benefits, and I will be touching them in details in this Article.
1. It draws you closer to God: being a Chorister can become a major avenue for you to know God the more, because of the privilege of constant fellowship with the brethren in church, prayer, rehearsals, vigil and lots more. It also puts you in a better spiritual posture because you’re ministering to God’s people, so you have been position in a place where you have to behave well and do better as a result of your stewardship. The constant ministration also comes with periodic fasting and prayer exercise, all these spiritual exercise position you in a state of spiritual development on a regular basis, making you fit, sanctified and purged for the master’s use. There is a believe by some people that many Choir members misbehave and are not good Christian, this is not right and it ought not to be, if you stand before the Lord often and serve him, it will reflect in your code of conduct, manner and lifestyle, because serving God in carnality will bring you under divine judgment and you cannot serve the God whom you did not know.
- You Minister Life to Other People: This is yet another major advantage of being a chorister, the life of God flows from you to others who listen and watch you minister I believe this is one of the profound benefit of being a Choir member in any local assembly, as you fast, pray, rehearse and prepare yourself to be a vessel of honour unto God, so many people are blessed and edifies when you minister and lift up your Voice to God in the midst of his people. You may not know but I’m speaking from an experience standpoint, many times when people sing and minister in Church, burdens are lifted and hope is restored to the lives of many, those who feel like quitting or giving up on Life, they regain their confidence and freedom to push forward even more. I have seen cases where someone was about to commit suicide based on the level of pressure he was going through, but fortunately found himself in a Church service, and that was how God ministered to him via the Choir song and that was how hope was restored and confidence came, now he as faith to face the world and overcome the trials and challenges of his life, through the life giving spirit of God that came into him as he listen to the Choir ministration.
- You fellowship with the Brethren: There is no limit to what God can do in the midst of the brethren, serving in the Choir gives you great opportunity and access to fellow brethren who help you to know God more, build a healthy Christian life and be an effective witness anywhere you find yourself. But beyond that, you also gain access to various opportunities, I have seen where people meet with their life partner right in the choir and this gave them the opportunity to live with another God fearing and God living husband/spouse as the case maybe, the gathering of the brethren brings positive impact and progress to your life in every ramification. It also give you avenue for things like Job and employment, good people to surround you in times of trouble and challenges, those you can easily reach out to when you’re in need. I have been in Choir for long and have seen people get a Job employment opportunity just within the cycle of the brethren, even many more privileges comes from this togetherness, which is one of the benefit of been a Choir in any church.
- It Is a Good Breeding Ground for Destiny: There are many great Musicians in the world today, and Great Pastors who started out as Choir member, even Benny Hinn was a Choir member before, not knowing God was preparing him to become a great Evangelist, look at what God is using him to do globally today, he is bringing salvation, liberation, great reawakening and revival to the body of Christ, but he started out as a Choir member, this is a great opportunity for you to prepare for what God has in stock for you in Life and Destiny, you may not know the full details of what God wants to do with your Life, you may not have a full blueprint of your destiny yet, but keep following God and serving him, God lift people bit by bit, he must prepare you spiritually and in other aspects before he lift you to a greater assignment. As you remain faithful in little, you become qualify for a bigger and greater responsibility, I pray may God find you Faithful in Jesus name.
- It is an Avenue to Kingdom Service: The bible says, “Ye shall serve the Lord your God, he shall bless your bread and water, and he shall take sickness far away from you (Exodus 23:25)”. One of the major avenues to serve God is the Choir, especially if you love Music (which majority of people actually does). If you think you have passion for Music and singing, then don’t waste this potential, go and use it to serve God and his purpose in the Church, God made it clear in his word that there are rewards for those who serves him, he can turn your life around and make you a Voice to your generation whereby heavenly songs and sounds will be coming out of your Life to your generation. Most of the times, what God need is your availability, that is all he needs to show himself strong and do great things in you and through you, you are not wasting your time serving God and his purposes on the earth, it is never a waste of time. We cannot live our lives for ourselves; we must live it for him who created us for his glory.
- An Avenue to fulfill your Calling: You may be designed by God to be a Voice for God and his Kingdom in the Music Industry, like Deitrick Haddon, Nathaniel bassey, Sinach, Don Meon and many more, but you have to start from somewhere, God never unveil the entirety of his plan for a man at the beginning, as you remain faithful and consistent in little, he increase you, he broaden the vision and gives you greater visibility. There are people today with great potentials locked up on their inside, waiting to find expression, being a Chorister can be a great way to give this potential expression, your world is waiting to hear your Voice, and God wants to release great anointed sounds to the world through you, he is counting on you to achieve this great assignment.
- It Provoke the Unction of the Spirit: This is to say, being a Chorister, propel God’s anointing upon your life, as you become a vessel through which God reaches out to many people, the hand of God comes upon you and this makes your song or ministration to be a great blessing to your world, you cannot be ignored because of the hand of God upon you. A very good example of someone that walked in this dimension is David, David enjoyed the anointing of God because he knows how to practice the presence of God in worship and song, he knows how to praise God, he was like a Choir leader, even though he was a King, yet he danced and play instruments to Honor God, he is indeed a worshipper, that is why the hand of God upon David is so mighty and so heavy, he fought 66 battles and lost non because of the hand of God upon his life, I pray for someone reading this, that same hand is coming upon you today in Jesus name. The Bible says, I have found my servant DAVID with my holy Oil have I anointed him (Psalm 89:20), so as long as you remain his servant, your head will not lack the Oil.
- It is a Ministry that continues in Heaven: This is another incredible benefit of being a Chorister, do you know that angels in Heaven worship and adore God on a regular basis? It is recorded in Isaiah 6:3. Also the 24 Elders bow down to Worship God on a consistent basis. You see, one of the reason why we feel the majestic presence of God in worship and praise during Church service is because it attracts divine presence, angelic ministration joins with ours on the earth, I remember I had a friend at a time who told me, he always had nightmare and bad dream, I gave him one of the Worship songs of Dr Pastor Paul Enenche, I told him, listen to this song before you sleep at night and that was the end of nightmare, he began to have divine visitation in his dream, he also begin to receive divine direction in his sleep, because the spirit of God has saturated the atmosphere. This alone was his deliverance. So there are just too many numerous benefits of being a CHORISTER, it is a ministry that continues in heaven, when we see our master Face to face, all we will continue to do is to worship and adore him, and you must desire that the way you sing for him on Earth you will sing to him in heaven. The way God is using you to set people free here; you will also end up seeing the master face to face at the end of your journey on the earth.
- It Opens the Heavens: If you have been a Choir member in any church for a longtime, you wil agree with me that one of the things we enjoy is Open heaven, because the Unction of God that comes mightily on you when you minister does not depart from you, even sometimes during rehearsal, the spirit of God will be released, that spirit goes with you to your workplace, your home, your marriage, and everything that concerns you. Whatever doesn’t seems to align with God is being uprooted because the mountain always skip like ram before the presence of God (Psalm 114). Another reason why Choir people enjoy Open heavens Is because they are always Joyful and thankful, there is a regular consistent Praise atmosphere around them, there is almost no down time, no matter what they may be going through, by the time they observe one or two rehearsal, the spirit is renewed and well able to handle the confrontation of Life. It is important I add this point that; Choir/Chorister is the Pastor for their “Pastors”. The way Pastors ministers and bless the people, it is the CHOIR that minister and bless the Pastor, they are the one that always induce and provoke the Unction of God upon him, that is why in most churches, the Choir ministration comes before the Pastor’s sermon, it is to prepare the ground for the spirit of God to move and find expression in the midst of God’s people.
Before I end this article today, there are important things that you must bear in mind as you choose to serve God in a Choir setting in a Church or even as a Music Minister and I will list them below, these things must be in place in order for the service to be acceptable unto God and bring profits to you and God’s people as a whole;
- Live a Life of Holiness and Consecration: This is not negotiable, if you must be a Vessel worthy of use by the master, you must live a life of Holiness and consecration, in order for the ANOINTING of GOD to rest upon you and in order for the Life of God to flow through you to many others, you must be a sanctified Vessel.
- Have a Prayer LIFE: You can’t do much for God without being in touch with God on a regular basis, as a matter of fact you cannot live a sanctified life if you are not prayerful on a regular basis, The bible says, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil (Matthew 6:13), this two is only possible as we stay in prayer regularly, there is no other scriptural condition that can make for the fulfillment of that statement other than Prayer. Anytime you come out to minister, the strength of your prayer life and secret place with God will be revealed, so if you have a strong prayer life, you will be a transmitter of the Life of God to others around you.
- Fellowship with the Holy Spirit: This is not just prayer now, but deep worship, adoration and spending Quality time with God, this is a state whereby, you don’t only sing when you want to rehearse or minister in church, but you do it on a regular basis between you and God when nobody is there, It was Pastor benny hinn that said, he always spend the first 7days of the year alone with God without any mortal man, this is some of the secret of their GREAT GRACE.
- Embrace Excellence and Skill: The Choir should be a platform to sharpen yourself in Skill and Excellence, to become better in whatever you do, whether it is singing or playing the instruments, you cannot compel the attention of this generation without Musical excellence, a good example of people with great Excellence is Hillsong, it was their excellent spirit that attracted me in the first place, our world is designed to appreciate excellence in every sphere.
- Know your GOD: Don’t just serve God, don’t just sing for God, know your God (Dan 11:32), have a stand and a walk with God that is obvious to both God and man, don’t be occupied with the activity, be spiritual indeed and maintain your connection to God always, don’t let the activity take away your devotion, bible study and commitment to God, may the Lord grant you grace to serve him effectively in Jesus name.
Written by Pastor Matthew Akanni.
