Recently, worship has become a widely debated topic in theological circles. This is not the familiar, shall we sing hymns or praise songs, shall we have an organ or a drum set, debate. Leaders are calling for the church to thoroughly rethink how we think about, address and conduct coroporate worship. As a woman who personally worships the Lord and as a mother who models and teaches my children about worship, I think it is imperative to think and pray deeply about this subject. The February Christianity Today contains an excellent article called “9.5 Worship Theses“. I will spare you a summary of it in hopes that you will click on the link and read it. The author, Gary A Parrett, makes several excellent points, 9.5 to be exact, but I believe the most important to ponder is number 4. Parrett states “Many in our churches have their theology formed principally by our hymnody.” Most of us know our theology, our understanding of God, from the songs we sing! Firstly, not as many Christians read the Word for themselves as purport to and secondly, music has a very powerful effect on both our hearts and minds. Melody implants truths in our soul in ways nothing else can, and there are some truths that must be sung in order to be fully expressed. This is especially, vitally important when we think about raising our children. Most of the truth about God you will actually get across to your child will be through a song! Obviously, we don’t want to be singing lies to our children and I think most Christian mothers understand that. What has particularly impressed me lately is that the absence of certain truths and certain depths concerning the life of Faith is a problem in the songs we sing. Are we covering all of the essentials of faith in the songs we sing with our children? Are we teaching them songs to address the various experiences they will feel in life, both happy times and difficult times? I love a Psalty Praise tape I have for my daughter, Elise. It has a variety of very happy, fun songs as well as a few more somber songs that help teach on a child’s level how to seek the Lord when all is not well. Lately she has gone around singing “I cast all my cares upon you, mom”. Two year olds have cares too. Hopefully soon she will hear that the song means God and not me! Please read the article and comment on what you find. In my reading, I have heard many vocal opinions from the men. I am very interested to hear what the fairer sex has to say! I would also love for you to please share excellent tools, resources and songs you have found. When you list an item, please tell us why. That would be very helpful. It is overwhelming to navigate alone the abundance of material out there!
I also have found the “Hide ‘em in Your Heart” series with Steve Green to be wonderful. Every song is a Bible verse, with only the verse as lyrics. From two DVD’s Elise already has 26 verses memorized. The verses chosen for the songs are well suited to a little child’s life. I especially like “Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right!”