Choir Is On Sale! Act Now!

When I get one of those “special offers” in the mail or email, I always ask myself one question: how is this guy making money? What’s the business model? Ultimately there’s someone, somehow, who’s going to make money from this. How? The answer to that question plays a big part in how much thought I give the special offer (well, that and also whether I really need to have a new job working from home making $2000 or more a week, brand new windows for the whole house, a monthly membership to the local gym, or a screamin’ deal on some red hot leggings).

The thing is, these guys need me to take them up on the offer.  They don’t really care of those leggings make my eyes pop.  They’re just saying that to get me to buy them.  Because if I buy them, they make money.

Like this one time a guy came to our house to sell us a high-end vacuum cleaner.  Mind you, it was obvious from the state of our house that we could use a vacuum at that point in our lives, but this guy didn’t care about that.  He just wanted us to spend $1200 on a vacuum cleaner and was willing to say anything he could to get us to do it.

via GIPHY

We didn’t buy the vacuum. Or the leggings.

Do you know where else this dynamic plays out?  Every. Sunday. Morning.  I go out into the congregation while the Chancel Choir is gathering themselves to head into the loft, and I talk to folks.  I invite them to choir, because that’s what I do.  They run my invitation through the “special offer” filter, and they think I’m asking them to come to choir for my own gain. There’s a real sense in which they’re right, too.  More people in the choirs does make me look like a more successful music director.

That’s not why I’m inviting, though.  I’m inviting because I genuinely believe they will benefit from participating, and I believe (sometimes out loud in these conversations) that if they were to try it and find they weren't benefitting from it they definitely shouldn’t do it.  Life’s too short to spend an hour and a half in rehearsal for choir if it doesn’t do anything for you!  I’m confident, of course, that it will.  Anyway, I usually wind up spending a lot of these conversations trying to convince people I’m not inviting for my benefit; I’m inviting for theirs.

This is why I say an invitation from you means more than an invitation from me. Since it isn’t your job, you have a lot less clear self-benefit in inviting people to be a part of choir.  But make no mistake.  You do have an angle here, and your invitation is run through the same “special offer” filter that mine is.  If your friend (or the person you just met at church, or the person behind you in the line at Kroger) thinks you want them to do this for your own benefit rather than theirs, your invitation is going to get left on the shelf right next to the exclusive pictures of celebrities without makeup. Fortunately there are ways to get through that filter, and it’s way easier for you to do it than it is for me.

1. Be honest with yourself.  Why do you want this person to come to choir?  Is it because we need altos, or is it because they need it?  (It can be both, but don’t lead with the first one!).

2. Be able to articulate the reasons choir is important to you.  Why do you show up?  What do you gain?  Maybe it’s about the music.  Maybe it’s about the fellowship.  Maybe it’s about how comfortable the chairs are or that the twang of the parlor piano reminds you of your grandmother’s piano that you always wanted to learn how to play. Maybe you hope that...one day...I’ll wear leggings.

3. Find the reasons choir may be important to the person you’re inviting.  If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say, “I love music, but I’m not a good singer,” I’d be retired and living in Tahiti (it’s a magical place).  You don’t have to be a good singer to enjoy participating in the choir or to enjoy being in a group of people who know you and care about you and miss you when you don’t show up. It may be some reason you haven’t though of yet.  Just have a conversation about it.

4. Take “no” for an answer, but don’t leave it at that.  Maybe your invitation does get left on the shelf next to the scary celebrity pics.  No problem. Insisting probably won’t change their mind.  But reminding them from time to time of what choir can be for them can’t hurt. Just plant some seeds and water them now and then. Maybe they’ll grow.

In the end, what we are trying to do here is create the kind of community Jesus called us to create—one where people care about each other; one where we walk through life together.  We succeed together or fail together.  We endure together and laugh together. Everyone needs a place like that, especially if they don’t already have it.  And that’s what we’re offering.  For the low, low price of $39.95 plus $4.00 shipping and handling.

via GIPHY

—John