Before you even begin, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered:

Which foundry should we buy from? How many bells do we need? How should the bells be arranged in the tower? What sort of ringing system should we use? Who’s going to train our bellringers? Should we try to tackle all this on our own, or hire someone else to manage it? Who can we trust?

Starting a ministry of church bellringing is complicated, and requires the interaction of multiple professional disciplines. Buying bells for your church should not be a hassle, and you shouldn’t have to rely on trial and error to solve problems.

Why Church Bells?

Church bellringing is evangelism.

It’s true that church bells highlight the feeling of the liturgical day—think of the joyful peal during the Pascha night procession, or the quiet, contemplative toll before a weekday Vespers service—but this is only a secondary benefit. The primary reason for ringing bells is to call people to prayer who are not already inside the church. This explains why they’re always hung high in a tower, with wide openings to allow the sound to expand over the whole surrounding area.

Church bells have a profound impact on your neighborhood, particularly upon people who don’t believe in God or go to church. Communists of the 20th century appreciated this better than most modern churches, which explains why they violently suppressed church bellringing.

Of all the liturgical arts, bellringing is the most public.

Compared to singing, iconography, or even architecture, bellringing is the only liturgical art that actually penetrates the life of every person who lives and works within earshot of your church. People that don’t even want to look at a church building are still impacted every time the bells ring. Church bellringing is voice of the Church, of Jesus Christ, calling to anyone that “has ears to hear.” Bellringing is not a fanciful musical addendum to Church life—it’s a prayer for every person who hears it. This explains why large bells are referred to as “Evangelists”, and why they’re covered with inscriptions of Psalms and prayers.