Success in a Time of Pandemic

Measuring success is hard.

In part that's because good metrics are elusive. Consider education. Most educators will tell you that standardized testing isn't an effective way to measure the progress of students. The ACT and SAT, once near the top of the list for admission and financial aid consideration for colleges, are moving down the list, with some colleges disregarding the exams entirely. I'm certainly not an authority on why this is, but I can confirm from my own experience that the ability to fill in the correct bubbles on an exam administered over a period of multiple hours or days may struggle to gauge accurately an individuals mastery over content. It is more a measure of how well an individual takes tests and problem-solves. As an example, I have a horrible memory for facts, but I'm quite good at reasoning. I test much better than my knowledge base really supports. But I know people who are just the opposite. Very knowledgeable and highly competent but less good at taking tests.  Maybe that's why a big part of any test-preparation service will focus on "test-taking strategies," which are more tricks to helping you perform better on a test than they are infusing you with the required knowledge.

Why, oh why is part of my mind filled with strategies to do better on a standardized test?  I could use that brain space for something more productive like memorizing lyrics to funk tunes from the 1970's.

Something is inherently lost in translation when you convert from the qualitative world to the quantitative. In 1964, Justice Potter Stewart attempted to describe his threshold test for obscenity in Jacobellis v. Ohio.  He said, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that." Still, William Goldberg argued that "In effect, 'I know it when I see it' can still be paraphrased and unpacked as: "I know it when I see it, and someone else will know it when they see it, but what they see and what they know may or may not be what I see and what I know."

We'll let the courts sort out the legalities and take instead the broader point: much of our world (including much of what we would very much like to measure) is subjective and simply defies numerical description. This has profound implication for, well, everything, but at the moment I'm thinking about the church and in particular church music. Riddle me this: in the context of church music, what does success look like?

That's not an easy question to answer even in normal times. Does it look like a choir perfectly in tune on Sunday morning? Does it look like a bell choir that can ring 16th notes evenly and gracefully (and even crescendo while slowing them down)? Can you measure success by the number of rear ends planted in the pews at concerts or the number of dollars they leave in the basket on the way out the door? The budget approved by the finance committee? The pay of the director? The number of staff people?

Some people might say yes. But I would argue those are all merely symptoms of something deeper and more important. Pretend for a moment you could go to a church lagging by all those metrics, snap your fingers, and instantly change them. 

Would the ministry be more successful after your finger snap? I'd argue no. Because in my mind (what I see and what I know) is that music ministry should be about community and connection and relationships. Don't get me wrong, I want my bell choir to play even 16th notes, and when I'm standing in front of them I will jump up and down and whine if they aren't! But successfully navigating measure 65 isn't a sign that we've achieved what we set out to achieve.  If it is, we didn't set our sights high enough.

Good thing, too, because back in March the world got turned on its head. The profound effects of the pandemic pervade all facets of daily life, but for the moment I just want to consider my corner of the store. If I measure success by butts in seats or donations or flawless performance, I began failing miserably on March 15, 2020 and I have yet to recover. Right now we have two options: we can gather together outside in smallish groups and sing the best we can in the open air (and the cold, and the dark), or we can record ourselves in our own homes with phones and sync all those videos together to try to make a choir.

I'd like to think we're actually getting pretty good at this, which is a testament to the determination of the singers more than anything else. Still, I think everyone would agree that in absolute musical terms each of these solutions leaves something to be desired. They pale in comparison to the music ministry each person pictured here signed up for.

But if our measure of success is instead community and connection and relationships...we are far from failing. We are forming lasting memories with each other. Struggling together and succeeding together.  We continue to answer the call to enliven services of worship by offering our voices in song even in these difficult circumstances.

This reminds me of a movie, We Are Marshall.  It begins with a tragic plane crash that killed 37 members of the Marshall Thundering Herd football time as well as five coaches, two trainers, and the athletic director. It's based on a true story. In fact one of my singers several years back was attending Marshall when it happened.

In the movie, the university president is inclined to suspend the football program, but is instead persuaded to reconsider. He hired Jack Lengyel, played by Matthew McConaughey who, with the help of one of the surviving coaches, sets about running a football team made of only 18 returning players and walk-ons from other sports.

They lost the first game, and the surviving coach wonders if this is really a way to honor the memory of those who were lost--or if it is instead destroying their legacy.  But in one of my favorite scenes in the movie, Lengyel makes the case that, at least right then, it isn't about winning.  It isn't even about how they play the game.  It just matters that they play.  It matters that they keep the program alive for the sake of the town and the school.

Start at about 45 second in...

I've never liked singing outside, and I've never been into virtual choirs. I never in a million years would have dreamed I'd be making 2-3 virtual choir pieces a week in addition to recording small groups to round out the worship experience.  A few months ago I had never edited a single video.  Now stitch together something like 75 videos every week. We have not given up. We will overcome all obstacles to answer our call to lead in worship.  And just as important, we will overcome all obstacles to be there for each other--to hold each other up just as we did before the pandemic and just as we will after it.

You can't measure it, I don't guess. You can't put a number on it or mark it with a number 2 pencil.  But I know it when I see it. I see it on each masked face on the grand lawn, and I see it on each face in a little square in the virtual choir. This absolutely is what success looks like in a time of pandemic.