I was asked to be the singing leader for the children in our small country congregation. It was an assignment that scared me to death. I hadn’t had great experiences with public music performances, so I avoided it at all costs. But believing God would help me, I accepted.
It didn’t start out well. After my first attempt, one little girl asked if I was going to be the music leader, and I said yes. “Well, that really stinks,” she said. “You mess us up so bad.”
But then the lady who oversaw the children’s teaching at church and had requested that the congregation leaders ask me to take the music assignment told me that really my only job was to love the children. I thought, “I can do that,” and it changed everything.
I thought a lot about the children. They were country kids through and through. The boys often wore cowboy boots and western-wear shirts to church. The girls often had calico dresses with their cowgirl boots.
So, the next week, when I started the music instruction, I said, “This week we are going to have some fun.” I then told them we were going to sing one of their favorite children’s songs in goat.
They looked surprised. “How do you sing in goat?” one little boy asked.
I then sang the first few lines, vibrating my voice like a bleating goat. The children laughed. Then we started over, and they joined me in a goat herd rendition like no one had ever heard before.
One little boy’s hand shot up, and before I could call on him, he said, “Can we try it in cow?”
We did, and it went well. One girl asked for a chicken rendition. That one took us twice to make it sound reasonable. We attempted horse, but it sounded like a bunch of people all trying to clear their throats simultaneously, so we gave up on that one. But we had so much fun, and the children who had never heard the song before learned it in record time.
I realized that a lot about learning anything for children is fun. And we did have fun. When we sang songs that had the same word many times, every time we said that word we did something. Sometimes we would stand if we were sitting and sit if we were standing. Sometimes we all shifted a seat to the right or left, and the person on the end had to run to the other end of the row.
We sang sacred songs much quieter and with more reverence, and I tried to teach the children that there are times for fun and times for respect. Using music that way was more effective in helping them understand than all the lectures I could give.
One week, as I thought about how I used the differences in the music to teach an understanding of sacred versus flamboyant songs, I realized that my little country children mostly only knew country music. With my wife having a master’s degree in music, my listening library has increased dramatically since we were married. With that in mind, I decided to share different styles with the children.
I filled a paper with many different music styles like jazz, blues, rock, and, of course, country. I told the children that they got to choose the style, then I would choose the song.
One little boy raised his hand. “What does color have to do with music?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You have blues on the list,” he replied.
I laughed. “Yes. It goes like this.”
I then did my best Louis Armstrong impression. The children laughed and joined me on the song. They soon understood many of the styles and would choose their favorites. Then, one day, a little girl chose opera. I sang the opening of a song, and then, as I started over, none of the children joined in. The older ones sat wide-eyed while the little ones fell on the floor laughing.
“Hey,” I said. “You’re supposed to join in and sing with me.”
An eleven-year-old girl said, “If you sing like that, you sing alone.”
So, we sang a song in country western. New is good, but so is the old, tried, and true.