By Colin Kroll
You hear the lyrics to “Fast Car” rise from a nearby basement. But if you chose to investigate further, you might find something surprising: a diverse gathering of strangers who have come together around their love for making music to learn, practice and rehearse a vocal arrangement in community.
What can 188 young adults singing Chapman’s greatest hit teach us about building communities, congregations and cultures where all voices, gifts and callings matter?
“No auditions, no judgment, no commitment. Just the magic of human music-making.” This is Gaia Music Collective (GMC). Founded in 2021 by Matt Goldstein in Brooklyn, GMC organizes experiences for people regardless of their skill-level, background or identity to gather for a few hours with strangers to form a one-day choir.
“When I found myself in the city,” Goldstein reflects, “I found myself missing this musical community. I had just left a professional ensemble that I was singing with, and I was like, ‘Do I start an ensemble here? How do I scratch this itch of being in musical community with people?’
Then I realized that everyone in the city is kind of busy and ensembles are so much commitment and rigor and auditions. It’s really intense. I just wanted to be in a room rehearsing and singing with people. I don’t even need to be performing with people necessarily. I just want to be in the music,” Goldstein said.
When COVID vaccinations became accessible and it felt safer to gather, Goldstein began reaching out to some close friends to just come together to sing. “I knew so many people in New York City who also missed this thing, who had also been in musical community their whole lives, but who now were like, ‘I’m a paralegal, but I’d love to sing sometime,’ or, ‘I’m a professional musician, but it’s all really intense and I would just love to relax and make fun music sometimes.’”
These gatherings soon expanded beyond Goldstein’s close friends. Drawing inspiration from Bobby McFerrin’s Circlesongs project, Goldstein worked with others in the community to plan one-day choirs and other experiences around the city.
Meeting in locations like basements, abandoned gymnasiums and parking garages, participants spend several hours in playful vocal exercises, learning arrangements and rehearsing. The beauty of these gatherings has captured the attention of millions as rehearsals are shared across social media platforms.
For many participants, GMC offers the priceless opportunity to reconnect to an experience central to their identity. Some haven’t sung in a community since they graduated from high school while others haven’t been in a choir since they left their church feeling unwelcome.
But in GMC’s temporary space, people have the opportunity to share their gifts, their voices and a moment in the pursuit of something beautiful.
I wonder what we might hear from GMC beyond just the music they produce. Can we also learn something about what it means to foster a culture of calling with young adults and young professionals?
Can we be reminded that a culture of calling is not identical to a culture of competency?
Goldstein’s earliest GMC participants weren’t the best singers he knew. They were paralegals who missed making music. They were interns that missed having a voice. People don’t gather for try-outs to prove who has the most talent. They gather because what they create in that community is an expression of their own deep sense of identity and calling.
Therein lie two challenging truths for our communities and our congregations:
- We can’t foster this culture if we don’t take time to know one another.
We can’t create a culture of calling in our congregations by simply assigning people to committees that most align with their careers or education. Instead, we foster a culture of calling by inviting people to reflect on who they are and to consider how they can contribute to the wellbeing of the community.
Unfortunately, many of the questions we ask are more concerned with assessing competency than discerning calling. We ask, “What do you do for a living?”, but we must also learn to ask, “When do you feel like you’re most living into who you are created to be?” We ask, “Would you feel comfortable singing in the choir?”, but we must also learn to ask, “Where do you feel like your voice can help shape our community’s story?” We ask, “Can you help pack bags for backpack buddies on Wednesday night?”, but we must also learn to ask, “Who are the people or communities you love most, and how do you hope your life will impact them for the better?”
This work cannot be delegated to ministers or focused on individuals. This culture is created when we learn to value and support the expressions of calling that exist in our neighbors. To use language that may be more relevant to GMC, it’s great for you to learn that you are an alto, but we won’t create something beautiful until we learn to sing along with the basses and the sopranos.
- We can’t foster this culture if we are possessive of how calling is expressed.
While churches likely will not (and should not) model their practices of gathering around GMC’s approach, we should examine the method. GMC’s gatherings are not intended to recruit people for a recurring choir practice or a recital. Instead, GMC invites people to reclaim their voice in a safe community and then share it with confidence and joy in the world. A culture of calling is missional.
A culture of competency exercises control over the strengths of individuals for the benefit of an organization. A culture of calling commits to empowering the agency of people to live into who God is calling them to be even beyond its walls.
A culture of competency is focused on recruitment and conditioning. A culture of calling is focused on redemption and commissioning.
We must be diligent to ensure that the ways we talk about calling are not so contextualized to our church programs that we establish the point of vocation solely within the experience of church membership.
How heartbreaking will it be if a lawyer in our church discovers that his commitment to mercy and mentorship makes him an excellent Sunday school teacher if we do not also encourage him to explore how those same redemptive gifts might transform the way he practices law? How much will we miss if we affirm a church member when she applies her business acumen to a fundraiser but don’t stand by her when she dreams of launching a start-up that would benefit our community?
This spring, we profess that the music of redemption is still rising from the ground around us. May it be our challenge to seek every source of this song with curiosity, imagination and celebration.
Colin Kroll serves as the CBF Young Adults Ministry Manager.