Maybe because I grew up singing in the church choir, I think a lot about that phrase, “Preaching to the choir.”

The funny thing is that the choir needs preaching, too.

And, for that matter, so does the preacher.

And it turns out that Rebecca Solnit wrote a whole essay on “Preaching To The Choir”:

[T]o suggest that you shouldn’t preach to the choir is to misunderstand the nature of preaching. Conversion or the transmission of new information is not the primary aim; the preacher has other work to do. Classically, the sermon is a kind of literary criticism that regards the key sacred texts and their meanings as inexhaustible. Adults, like children, love hearing the great stories more than once, and most religions have prayers and narratives, hymns and songs that are seen as wells of meaning that never run dry. You can go lay down your sword and shield by the riverside one more time; there are always more ways to say how once you were blind and now can see.

Or, this line, which a reader sent me: “We preach to the choir so they’ll sing.”