Church Musicians' Participation Perceptions: Applications to Community Music‪.‬

Church musicians' participation perceptions: Applications to community music Churches are important community enterprises that have the potential to benefit individuals' quality of life. Spirituality has been cited as a positive aspect related to healthy aging (Brunk, 1996; Gall, et al., 2005; Hembeck, 2007; Hylton, 1981; Kahn, 1997; Levkoff, Chee, & Noguchi, 2002; Manheimer, 2000) and Cutler and Danigelis (1993) found that membership in church-affiliated groups was related to life satisfaction. Community music studies have also cited perceptions of improved quality of life issues (Olson, 1997; Rohwer & Coffman, 2006) as well as musical enjoyment (Belz, 1994; Coffman & Adamek, 1999; Faivre-Ransom, 2001; Jutras, 2006; Pike, 2001). Studies specific to both music and spirituality have documented a perceived impact of music participation on spirituality for adult band instrumentalists (Kahn, 1997; Reed, 2008) and adult pianists (Jutras, 2006), however in one study, non-band members were found to have higher spirituality scores than band members (Rohwer & Coffman, 2006).