Sing and Make Music to the Lord: A study exploring how the musical practice of the Methodist Church impacts the faith and evangelism of its congregations

In 2020, the Methodist Church of Great Britain committed to a five-year evangelism strategy which hoped to develop the discipleship of its existing members and re-ignite evangelism within the Methodist Church. As a denomination which has been known for its use of hymn-singing as a way of teaching theology, encouraging prayer and explaining faith, this thesis explores how congregational singing fits into the evangelism of the modern Methodist Church. A study was done on a sample of churches in the Yorkshire North and East Methodist District which explored how congregational singing helps individuals to feel connected to God, ready to serve God and transformed to be missional Christians. them for mission. The project contained two questionnaires: one which collected data from congregations and another which collected information about the musical practice of the participating churches. This research method enabled cohesive exploration of how different forms of congregational singing elicit different congregational responses around evangelism. Whilst the data showed that congregational singing was effective within the church, data analysis found a number of areas which need reflection on by the Methodist church as it continues to invest in evangelism.