In the past week, it’s suddenly become commonly accepted wisdom that congregational singing is dangerous. We’ve been told that singing together in church could lead to a “super-spreading event.” We’ve been warned that if we sing together in worship, we will expose ourselves to higher risk of contracting COVID-19.

Except that none of that is verifiably true.

Does singing together spread COVID-19? The correct scientific answer is: possibly.

We have anecdotal evidence of people being infected after a choir practice. We have a study from 1968 on tuberculosis. However, a causal link between singing and the spreading of COVID-19 has not yet been scientifically established.

But you wouldn’t know that from how pastors and church leaders are talking about it.

Two weeks ago, TGC posted an article with the click-baity title “Is Congregational Singing Dangerous?” (Implied answer: yes.) This week, an article by Houston pastor Steve Bezner has been making the rounds. In it, Bezner claims: “Some studies have suggested that singing—yes, singing—spreads respiratory droplets further than coughing.”

Notice the key word: suggested. Apparently the mere claim that “some studies have suggested” is enough to count for empirically verified science in some circles. But hold on a minute… when you actually drill down into the details to learn what science has established, a different picture emerges:

• We know from the CDC that “the COVID-19 virus is thought to spread mainly from person-to-person… Through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or talks. These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or possibly be inhaled into the lungs.”
• We know from a 1968 tuberculosis study published in the American Review of Respiratory Disease that singing aerosolizes more particles than merely speaking.
• We know that members of three choirs in three different countries contracted COVID-19 this spring after rehearsing together.

So, just line up the data: COVID-19 spreads through respiratory droplets; singing produces aerosolized particles, which are even smaller than droplets; choirs have gotten sick after singing together; therefore singing is dangerous! Case closed, right?

Except that’s not how science works. Correlation does not equal causation. As a researcher quoted in the Guardian article points out: “The evidence for a link with singing and spreading the virus may look compelling but is still anecdotal… Without data from comparably large groups who interacted in the same way but didn’t sing, it’s hard to be certain that the singing was responsible.”

In private correspondence, a pulmonologist who runs the COVID ward at his local hospital made the same point: “We know from news reports that churches have been identified as areas where concentrated transmission has taken place. Singing? Close proximity? Fellowship? We cannot tell which one is responsible.”

At least one researcher, in fact, claims to have evidence that singing ISN’T the cause of the choir outbreaks. Professor Christian Kähler of Military University Munich told the Guardian: “I have been studying how droplets and aerosols behave for decades, and I was very doubtful that musicians and singers were spreading the virus. So I decided to measure just how strong was the airflow from them… We studied singing in low and high frequencies… And based on the flow analysis we did of these performances… [we] found out that singing is quite safe. It was not the cause of the outbreaks of Covid-19 at these concerts. Air was only propelled about half a metre in front of a singer, and that is not far enough to cause the infection levels of these outbreaks.”

Now: we’re learning more about COVID-19 every day. It’s possible that further research will establish a definitive link between singing and spreading. But we shouldn’t act as if such a link exists when it doesn’t.

Some authors on this issue have done a fair job hedging their bets (“While the data is still coming in, it appears the path forward is wise caution… singing may generate more risk than normal speech,” writes Ken Boer at TGC). But others have made outright false statements (“the virus spreads through singing,” Steve Bezner claims). Part of the dynamic at play in this moment is the proliferation of secondary sources (blogs, Medium posts, Twitter threads, etc) where reputable sources (epidemiologists, biologists, infectious disease specialists) draw inferences and make their own conclusions in an attempt to offer their “expert opinion” on what we should do. Though at times these insights can be helpful, they’ve created a nebulous universe of pseudo-science where hasty and unverified conclusions are shared with frightening speed and presumed authority. For instance, in an article linked by Bezner, Erin Bromage, a Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, flatly assumes that the Skagitt Valley Chorale became sick through singing: “Deep-breathing while singing facilitated those respiratory droplets getting deep into the lungs. Two and half hours of exposure ensured that people were exposed to enough virus over a long enough period of time for infection to take place.” Bromage claims to know that “deep breathing while singing” caused the infection in the chorale members, despite the fact that this has never been established. As the L.A. Times reports: “There is still much to learn about the choir outbreak, starting with the original source of the virus… the county official said she hoped that a study would be conducted someday to determine how the infection spread.”

In Bezner’s defense, he’s likely taking Bromage’s word for it and treating his assertion as an established scientific fact. But Bezner would have been wise to check the primary sources himself. And this is the problem I’m trying to address: a telephone game that’s leading to great confusion among church leaders. Bromage on his blog draws an unverified conclusion; Bezner on his blog assumes and amplifies Bromage’s assertion; a church planter I know reads Bezner’s blog and shares it with his church; and the average person in the pew walks away convinced that congregational singing is dangerous.

I recently spent a couple days with four pastor friends. All of us are in our 40s. All of us planted churches in our 20s and 30s. And all of us have been leaders in the Acts 29 Network for over a decade.

We love what Acts 29 stands for, and we love the history and the sense of brotherhood we share because of it. But as we reflected on the past decade, we observed that the early years of Acts 29 were marked by an energy and momentum that the later years have lacked – especially in North America. The question is: why?

Statistically, the “boom years” of Acts 29 were 2007 to 2012. During that five-year period the movement grew from 140 churches to 424 – a stunning 200% growth rate. Over the most recent five-year period (2012-2017), the movement’s growth rate has held at a much more modest 45%. Now, by any standard, a 45% growth rate is still a stunning success! But compared with the boom years, it represents a three-quarters reduction in the rate of growth, as well as a reduction in the actual number of churches planted (284 vs. 195). The data affirms our intuitive discernment: momentum has slowed.

Certainly Acts 29 has seen its share of organizational challenges during these years – most notably Mark Driscoll’s descent from leadership and all its attendant chaos. But in spite of this, Acts 29 today is more structurally sound than it’s ever been. And Acts 29 churches are more tangibly committed to church planting than ever. All Acts 29 churches give 10% of their internal giving to support church planting efforts, and many of them either host or support regional church-planting residencies. Organizationally and logistically, the movement is on firm footing.

So what accounts for the slowdown? Here’s my hypothesis: Acts 29’s boom years were fed by a leadership pipeline that no longer exists.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, church planting was not the vocation of choice for young leaders. Most men who felt a calling to ministry looked for opportunities as interns, youth pastors, associate pastors, or campus ministry staff members. That all began to change through the influence of two men: Tim Keller and Mark Driscoll. Though many other voices were sounding the call to church planting, Keller and Driscoll were the ones gaining the attention of younger leaders. Keller’s call to urban renewal resonated with many who were troubled by the megachurch’s suburban captivity. And Driscoll’s sanctified irreverence challenged the saccharine sentimentality of the evangelical subculture. Both men blended Reformed theology with missional innovation in a way that resonated with young pastors everywhere.

The church planting candidates that flooded Acts 29’s boot camps and assessments in the mid-2000s were youth pastors, college pastors, and church staff members – in other words, men with real church ministry experience. They’d preached sermons, done evangelism, discipled new Christians, and learned to submit and serve under someone else’s authority. In a sense, these leaders were ready-made church planters: they were already committed to God’s mission, they were experienced and fruitful in ministry, and they felt called by the Holy Spirit to step out on their own and lead missionary church-planting efforts. They didn’t need to be trained, equipped, and prepared; they just needed to be sent.

No longer is that the case. Are there still youth pastors and associate pastors mulling a call to church planting? Sure. Some of them are reading this post. But they are not nearly as plentiful as they once were. Ready-made leaders who are theologically mature, missionally fruitful, self-aware, and ministry-experienced are harder and harder to find. No longer is there a glut of church staff members and campus ministry leaders who have put in 5 or 6 years in ministry and are starting to dream about church planting. Now, church planting has become a first option for many seminary graduates. Denominations and agencies and networks are pushing church-planting much more aggressively. The guys who used to aspire to youth ministry or campus ministry now aspire to be church planters. And many of them lack the patience to serve on a church staff for five or ten years before launching into church planting.

The surge of interest in church planting is a great thing. But it comes at a cost: a longer gestation period for potential church planters. In the boom years, Acts 29 spoke of planting 1000 churches in 10 years – and that seemed realistic based on the surge of ready-made leaders pouring into our ranks. But as my investment advisor always says, “past performance is not indicative of future results.” Turning a seasoned youth pastor or college pastor into an effective church planter is a two-year project; doing the same with a young seminary graduate is more like a ten-year project. The pace of church-planting must slow accordingly.

In one sense, Acts 29 is already adapting. During our re-organization in 2012, we realized that we had basically been an “attractional” movement, using events and podcasts and platforms to attract young leaders toward church planting. What we hadn’t done well was to grow our own leaders from within. Our marketing materials spoke of “churches planting churches,” but in reality we were more like a fraternity of church planters. So we began to build residencies and training programs and new initiatives that would develop leaders from within, enabling our existing churches to plant new churches by raising up leaders internally.

In my opinion, our rhetoric still needs to catch up with reality. Sometimes the rhetoric of church-planting movements (not just Acts 29, but others also) can create the expectation of continuous exponential increase. Acts 29 speaks of “planting churches that plant churches that plant churches” – and indeed, that is what we want to be about! But underneath this rhetoric, we need to acknowledge that this may be a ten- to fifteen-year process. Statistically, only 26% of existing Acts 29 churches were planted out of another Acts 29 church, and only 7% are third-generation plants. My own church, Coram Deo, has finally reached “grandfather” stage – having planted a church (Providence Austin) that has planted another church (Trinity Church Austin) – but even that was by attracting leaders from outside and then developing them. If we’re talking about real missional church-planting… if we’re talking about moving a man “from pagan to planter…” then we’re talking about a decade or more of discipleship, spiritual formation, and leadership development. The conditions that spurred the growth of Acts 29 in the boom years simply do not obtain anymore. We must adjust our expectations and our methods accordingly.

In my opinion, the ongoing flourishing of missional church-planting in North America will require three important shifts:

• A shift in strategy: church planting networks need to slow down the pace and expectation for church planting. They need to focus on slow growth rather than exponential growth, and on long-term leadership health rather than short-term results. To say it another way: planting 100 churches this year does not guarantee 100 healthy churches 5 years from now.
• A shift in rhetoric: church planting networks need to speak honestly in order to create appropriate expectations. Americans are addicted to “vision,” and in the evangelical world, vision often means hype. Church planting networks should resist this temptation and instead cast a realistic vision focused on long-term influence. Keller’s wisdom is instructive here: for years, he has spoken of moving New York City from 1% evangelical (1990) to 15% evangelical (still a distant hope – right now it’s at 5% evangelical after almost 3 decades of work). This kind of long-term vision builds an expectation of slow, steady progress rather than immediate results – and it encourages seeing church-planting as a lifelong calling.
• A shift in aspirations: young leaders who think they want to be involved in church-planting need to aspire to work on a church staff for 5-10 years as a first step. Most aspiring church planters I meet are impatient. They don’t know who they are; they don’t have an accurate assessment of their gifts; and they don’t have the wisdom and seasoning that comes with maturity. Moving men like this into church planting too quickly is a recipe for instability. I tell young leaders they should expect to serve in ministry for a decade before they’re ready to plant a church. Data from Fellowship Associates reveals that the best church planters are in their early 30s, with 7-10 years of ministry experience and some type of theological training (seminary or equivalent). There’s a reason for that.

Local churches need to adapt as well. Most of our church-planting residency programs within Acts 29 have been designed as one- or two-year “finishing schools.” Which is to say: they’re still designed for the kind of leaders we were attracting in the mid-2000s. They are built for leaders who are theologically mature, missionally fruitful, self-aware, and ministry-experienced, and who require only some final preparation in order to plant a church. In addition to these sorts of residencies, we need diverse theological and leadership training initiatives within the local church to equip leaders at all stages of maturity. We can’t expect ready-made church-planters; we need to pray, work, and labor to move people from pagan to planter.