Rector's Note: Please hold your applause- 10.16.25

Our Worship Committee meets about six weeks before each church season begins to anticipate liturgical changes in the season, make adjustments and ensure that the various liturgical ministers are on board with what’s to come. They also bring up issues to make liturgy better, such as how to stay safe during the COVID pandemic or how to reinstitute intinction.

Of late, we’ve had a few conversations about how to address the tendency to applaud after anthems and other special music. The direction coming from our worship leaders is: please hold your applause.

First let me say that the desire to show appreciation is a good one. Spontaneous applause can reflect what’s going on inside of us when someone’s artistic expression leads to a swelling of gratitude that wants to get out. We applaud to show approval, lend encouragement, acknowledge effort. When our plane landed in Puerto Rico last summer, the passengers, most of them from the Island, burst into applause – and it had been a smooth flight! We applaud after speeches, at the end of concerts and between acts in plays. Occasionally we applaud at the end of movies. At the same time, symphony goers remind us that there is a time and place for applause even there – never between movements, for example.

To applaud at the end of a performance, no matter its quality, is part of the secular culture. And this is where the Worship Committee, especially the musicians in the group, wanted to draw a distinction. Liturgical music, from hymns to anthems to postludes, are offerings of prayer and praise to God. They can be beautiful, breathtaking and moving acts of prayer, to be sure. But the offering is to God, and the intent is to draw our hearts and minds deeper into that relationship of wonder, love and praise. In these moments, applause can feel jarring to liturgical musicians, who don’t want their acts of prayer to be confused with acts of performance. And it also disrupts the quiet space of contemplation, reflection and feeling that musical offerings of prayer help create in the liturgy.

Another issue to consider is the mixed message that applause can send. Thunderous applause means one thing. Smatterings mean another. In our liturgical practice at St Peter’s, I’ve noticed that sometimes we applaud and sometimes we don’t. It often has to do with where the musicians are standing. We have tended to applaud music that is offered from the front of the church and can be less sure of whether to applaud when it comes from the loft. We sometimes applaud solos and ensembles and other times are quiet after choir anthems. In these instances, I think we often fall back into the polite practice of performance audiences.

However, as we know, worship isn’t a performance but an act of praise directed to God, and a celebration of our life with God and one another as the Body of Christ.

So my suggestion is, let’s find other means to express our appreciation for the beautiful and stirring offerings that bless our liturgy. A full and appreciative silence, a hand on the heart, a deep breath, a quiet prayer of praise to God – these can also express that we are moved and that we have shared something beautiful together. We can invite acknowledgement of the gifts of our musicians at the end of the liturgy, when appropriate. And by all means, mention to the musicians how much their music moved you after the liturgy is over.

Is clapping ever appropriate? Yes it is! Sometimes our liturgical music invites us to participate with clapping, movement, shouts and dancing. It would be impossible not to clap during and after the spirited Gospel music of Jazz Sanctuary. Don’t try to hold me back when they play the Saints. But this is different than the applause that acknowledges a fine performance. Rather, this is the sound and energy of praise in action. I think we all know the difference.

Sometimes we are just so moved by an artistic contribution in liturgy, so caught up in the experience that applause leaps from our hands, the best way we know to radiate the joy we feel in the moment. I love it when that happens in liturgy. But let these be rare moments, led by the Spirit, rather than social conventions or expectations. As a general practice, let’s allow full, generous and appreciative silence to enter the space as the music fades away. Filling this rich moment with wonder, love and praise may be the best compliment that a liturgical musician can receive.