Together!

In my days of teaching church songs to pre-school and elementary school age children at Sunday School, we had such fun!  The young ones would sing with all their hearts!  With all our gestures and movement, they actually praised God with their whole bodies.  We even used Sign Language in a limited way because the State School for the Deaf was in our small town, Danville, Kentucky, U.S.A. Sign language was a part of our town's culture.

The children's attitudes seemed to change about the time they entered middle school, sixth grade.  They were more conscious of how they sounded to others and were mostly shy; they didn't enjoy singing as much.  So I required less singing and more paying attention to the meaning of the words of the songs.  They were much more interested in this approach.

Writing the words of the songs large, on posterboards, and using a few contemporary songs they would recognize also helped with the middle schoolers.  They did well with songs like "We Are The World" (Michael Jackson) and "Everything I Do, I Do It For You" (Bryan Williams).  We could really relate Jesus' sacrifice for us to this last song.

The church sent me to a Children's Music Convention in Scranton, Pennsylvania.  I learned so much and it was such a joy to participate in the services together!  Imagine, everyone in church singing beautifully!

Playing the organ and piano for the whole congregation was more challenging.  It was discouraging, at times, because  everyone didn't sing.  Our music group carefully chose songs which we thought were pertinent to each Sunday's Bible readings, songs that the folks knew.  We decided to not overwhelm them with too many new songs.

I never had the guts to confront the assembly with a thought I had:  Why, oh, why, when I know you can sing our National Anthem at ball games with all your hearts, can you not put a little gusto into singing here?  Oh, well, I guess that God was happy they were giving witness to each other in church.  Nevermind that some didn't even open either the songbooks or their mouths!

When we work or play together, we are so much stronger!  And isn't it more fun!

Lord God, today we ask you to Open Our Eyes to recognize our sisters and brothers, and to Give Us Hearts to Love Them and to Work Together for all you have asked us.