{"id":2616075,"date":"2026-06-19T08:58:57","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T12:58:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/i-want-to-be-the-loudest-man-in-church-just-like-my-dad\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T09:05:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T13:05:25","slug":"i-want-to-be-the-loudest-man-in-church-just-like-my-dad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/i-want-to-be-the-loudest-man-in-church-just-like-my-dad\/","title":{"rendered":"I Want To Be The Loudest Man In Church, Just Like My Dad"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fi-want-to-be-the-loudest-man-in-church-just-like-my-dad%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2616075&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>On Easter, Mattias Gugel reflects on how he has come to embody his father, a Lutheran minister known for his loud adn joyful singing. Despite initially resisting sharing traits like his father&#8217;s voice and confidence, he now appreciates inheriting his father&#8217;s passion for hymns and the Gospel. Gugel emphasizes the importance of men singing boldly in church,seeing it as a sign of strength,faith,and identity. He <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/doj-budgets-200k-for-high-quality-arts-program-for-at-risk-justice-involved-youth\/\" title=\"DOJ Budgets 0k for &quot;High-Quality&quot; Arts Program for &quot;At-Risk Justice-Involved&quot; Youth\">cites research showing<\/a> that group singing fosters community and belonging, vital for church life. In a culture that often discourages men&#8217;s expressive singing, he argues that loud, keen singing of hymns is a powerful expression of faith and masculinity.Gugel encourages fathers to sing irrespective of skill or pitch, as their singing teaches children and sustains the church\u2019s courage, ultimately celebrating Christ\u2019s resurrection.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>This Easter, somewhere between the first triumphant blast of the organ, the ring of the timpani, and the procession to the Lord\u2019s Supper, I had an unsettling realization: I had become my father.<\/p>\n<p>We were singing <em>He\u2019s Risen, He\u2019s Risen<\/em>, that battlecry of a C.F.W. Walther hymn, the kind of Easter anthem that does not ask to be sung so much as it demands to be proclaimed.\u00a0Over the congregation, the brass, the organ, the sturdy Midwestern Lutherans doing their best, I heard it \u2014 not just my own voice. No, despite being a few states away, I also heard his.<\/p>\n<p>For years, I resisted becoming my father in all the ordinary ways sons do. I resisted the stories, the habits, the opinions, the little mannerisms that seem quaint when you\u2019re young and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dutch-pm-tells-public-not-to-cuddle-grandkids-as-christmas-is-cancelled-in-the-netherlands\/\" title=\"Dutch PM Tells Public Not to Cuddle Grandkids as Christmas Is Cancelled in the Netherlands\">increasingly familiar<\/a> as you grow older. I especially resisted sounding like him.<\/p>\n<p>Back when every family had one shared landline, I\u2019d answer the phone at our house: \u201cHello, Gugel residence.\u201d And more than once, the person on the other end would launch right in: \u201cHello, Pastor\u2026\u201d They thought I was my dad. As a kid, I hated it.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d cut them off quickly. \u201cNope. Wrong guy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As I got older, I learned to joke. \u201cCareful,\u201d I\u2019d say. \u201cDon\u2019t start confessing anything. I\u2019m not authorized for absolution.\u201d I wasn\u2019t old enough \u2014 or ordained enough \u2014 for the Office of the Keys. But the truth is, as a boy, I didn\u2019t love being mistaken for my father. Yet now, if there is one thing I thank God I inherited from him, it\u2019s his voice.<\/p>\n<p>My father has been a Lutheran minister for almost 40 years. He is also, without question, the loudest singer in any church he enters. He comes by it honestly. He was trained among men in seminary chapels where <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >future pastors half-jokingly competed<\/a> to see who could sing the loudest, strongest, and most confidently. These were men who knew hymns were not decorative but rather theology proclaimed.<\/p>\n<p>My father has always sung that way. He loves music, hymns, and the Gospel. And somehow in him, those things have always seemed inseparable.<\/p>\n<p>Most Sundays growing up, I heard him from the front of the church, chanting the liturgy, preaching the sermon, elevating the Sacrament, and declaring Christ crucified and risen. But on vacation \u2014 those rare Sundays when he sat next to my mother, my sister, and me in the pew \u2014 we got the full force of it. The opening hymn would begin, my father would inhale, and heads would turn.<\/p>\n<p>People would stop him after church. \u201cYou have a beautiful voice.\u201d \u201cAre you in music?\u201d \u201cYou should join the choir.\u201d As a teenager, I was mortified. There is no embarrassment quite like being a teenage boy sitting next to the loudest singer in church. I wanted to sink into the pew, and he wanted to sing the fourth stanza louder. Now, years later, I laugh at the memory because I understand it.<\/p>\n<p>When I listen to the livestream of a service he\u2019s attending, even if he\u2019s nowhere near a microphone, I can still pick him out \u2014 one voice, clear, confident, unashamed. It is not because he wants attention. It\u2019s because he has joy. The Gospel is so deeply planted in him that it comes out when he sings. And I thank God for it.<\/p>\n<p>In a culture increasingly uncomfortable with unapologetic expressions of masculinity \u2014 and in churches increasingly content with male passivity \u2014 we need more fathers like that. Not fathers who sing well, but fathers who sing loudly. Fathers who make known what they believe without embarrassment. It matters so much more than many churches realize.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.neuroscience.ox.ac.uk\/news\/the-power-of-singing-and-dancing-together\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">University of Oxford<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gold.ac.uk\/news\/popchoir\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Goldsmiths, University of London<\/a> have found what Christians have long known instinctively: Singing together binds people together. Their studies found that group singing increases feelings of social closeness, even among strangers, and can even raise pain thresholds, a common sign of endorphin release. In one study, singers in groups ranging from 20 people to a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC4856205\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">megachoir<\/a>\u201d of 232 reported greater feelings of inclusion, connection, and joy after just 90 minutes of singing side by side.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, singing makes people feel like they belong. Doesn\u2019t that sound a little like what Sunday morning is supposed to do?<\/p>\n<p>Men have always understood this. Soldiers sing marching songs, and fans chant in stadiums. Workers once sang in fields and factories. There is a reason armies chant, protest movements sing, and authoritarian regimes fear songs they cannot control. Song forms identity. Yet in church, many men fall silent. Why?<\/p>\n<p>Part of it is cultural. Modern American Christianity often asks men to choose between two equally unappealing options. On one side is a polished, performative worship culture: stage lights, skinny jeans, fog machines, and emotionally manipulative bridges repeated until everyone feels something. On the other is passive disengagement: men standing silent while women, children, and the occasional elderly bass-baritone carry the congregation.<\/p>\n<p>Neither one forms men. Historic Christian worship offered something sturdier. St. Paul tells Christians to \u201caddress one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.\u201d He tells them to \u201cteach and admonish one another\u201d through song. A hymn is theology ordinary people can memorize. It\u2019s a sermon the congregation preaches back to itself. The great hymns of the church are not sentimental whispers. They are victory songs and resurrection anthems.<\/p>\n<p>Lutherans know this. We sing <em>A Mighty Fortress Is Our God<\/em> like men storming the gates and <em>Lift High the Cross<\/em> like a procession into glory. On Easter morning, we sing <em>He\u2019s Risen, He\u2019s Risen<\/em> like death itself has been dragged behind Christ\u2019s chariot \u2014 because it has.<\/p>\n<p>Now every Sunday at church, Marcie, the widow who sits in front of me, turns around and tells me how much she loves hearing a man sing loudly behind her. It reminds her of her late husband. He loved church. He loved the hymns. He sang loudly. Years later, his voice is gone, but the memory of it still comforts her. That matters.<\/p>\n<p>Children are formed liturgically long before they are formed intellectually. Before they understand theology, they understand what Dad does when the hymnal opens. I understood. And this Easter, I heard it so clear in my own voice.<\/p>\n<p>For years, I resisted becoming my father. Now I thank God for the parts of him I am inheriting: his courage, his joy, his refusal to be embarrassed by the Gospel, and his voice. I hope someday my own children hear me sing and know what I believe. And if they hear his voice in mine, all the better.<\/p>\n<p>So, fathers, sing. Sing if you are off-key. Sing if your voice cracks. Sing if the old German melody is hard. Sing if the organist takes it too fast. Sing because your family is listening. Sing because your children are learning. Sing because your wife needs to hear conviction. Sing because widows remember. Sing because the church needs courage. Sing because Christ is risen.<\/p>\n<p>And sing loudly enough that one day your children might thank God they became their father.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Mattias Gugel is director of state external affairs at National Taxpayers Union. He was formerly a policy advisor at the Wisconsin State Senate and is a graduate of Northwestern University&#8217;s Medill School of Journalism. Follow him on Twitter at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mattiasgugel\">@mattiasgugel<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This Easter, I realized I had become my father<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3798,"featured_media":2616076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Congregation-Worshiping-Church-Service.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[5643,3881,50761],"class_list":["post-2616075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-church","tag-family","tag-inspiration-2"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Congregation-Worshiping-Church-Service.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3798"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2616075"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2616079,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616075\/revisions\/2616079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2616076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2616075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2616075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2616075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}