Let's Sing?

Do your Sunday School children sing? Your preschoolers? Your elementary students? Your junior and senior high students?

What do they sing? Hymns? Popular Contemporary Christian Music songs?

To what style of music do they respond? Live piano accompaniment? Live praise band? Full-production recorded songs? With vocals or just accompaniment tracks?

I'd love to really hear your answers to those questions, but I expect I'll have to do a survey to really get the answers. It is enough if I can get you thinking.

The Lutheran Christian congregation spends a lot of time in worship singing! Garrison Keillor says it is one of the things Lutherans do best. He claims Lutherans are trained from birth to sing hymns in four parts.

There was a time when the epitome of Lutheran worship experience was accompanied by pipe organ. My guess is this may no longer be the case.

Thesis: One goal of a child's Sunday School experience should be to prepare the child to enjoy full participation in the worship of the congregation as an adult. (Note the emphasis on enjoy.)

So . . . think about these things:

• Are your congregation's children in worship each week with their parents? If so, they are learning how adults worship and growing into that practice. How can you help them?
• Is the musical experience the children have in Sunday School (1) similar to, (2) complementary to, or (3) distinctly different from the worship experience they will have as adults? If you pick door number three, how will they ever make the transition? Are they going to enjoy full participation in worship as adults?

How you choose to do music and singing in your Sunday School will have an impact on the future worship life of your congregation.

God bless you as you teach His children to sing!