Practical Implications for Music Ministry:
1) We should not have merely graded music for the different stages of life, trading in nursery songs for praise choruses for hymns as the members of our congregation age.
For either Scripture or hymns to have binding power over our lives, the power to integrate the many parts of our past with our present, they must span time and be spoken, sung, and memorized over a lifetime.
It doesn't matter whether we understand all the words or can sing the difficult parts perfectly at first. We grow in understanding as we grow in faith.
3 comments:
Our daughters attended worship service with us every sunday of their lives, barring sickness or occasional traveling. We never left them in the nursery, and yes, at times it was difficult. We spent part of many services in the "cry room" at the back of the church-but, we were still able to hear and participate in the service because it had a speaker and a one wall was a large window into the sanctuary.
They are now college age, young women. They attend church regularly in their college towns.
When they come home and worship with us they sing the most hymns without even having to open the hymnal.
What a deep well of prayers, comforts, and assurance of faith they have on the tip of their tongues whenever the need arises.
Like Your point in Intro 2, they are not empty repetitive words, but treasures that will reveal their value as the years pass and they grow and meet all life's joys and sorrows.
One of my favorite pastors when I was a teenager used to pause whenever a baby cried during the service, and say, "Let's take a moment to thank God for the presence of little ones. What a blessing to us! May they grow up into the fullness of the faith." He was a Presbyterian.
By keeping them in the service, they had a fighting chance of growing up into the fullness!
I like the idea of keeping children in for the singing and prayers, and then dismissing them before the sermon so they can have a age-specific lesson.
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