As parents, we desire to equip our children with the wisdom and fortitude needed to navigate the many different waters of life. We know all too well that they will encounter gentle streams as well as roaring rapids, but we never want them to feel isolated in their journey. Our children must be empowered to respond with reflection, hope, and endurance no matter where they are in life. Compiling a body of life-giving songs for your family is one way to strengthen and guide your children’s decisions and reactions on their voyage through life.
A few years ago my husband and I became aware that our singing as a family was special, but it was very scattered in focus. As a couple involved in church music, we were constantly learning new songs to lead on Sunday mornings, and our children kind of caught those songs from being in rehearsals. We would just pull a random song from our hat for our evening singing one night and pull another one of the freshest songs out of the hat for the next night. We assumed that our children “knew” the songs because they could sing along with us, but we realized we could do so much more to disciple our daughters through this nightly tradition. So my husband suggested that we actually start building a family library of songs to carry in our hearts and minds. We call it our family corpus of songs.
We have spent some time curating songs we believe will strengthen the faith of our children and give them words to express the many emotions life will draw out of them. We continue to add to this list as we come across new songs. Just as we hide Bible verses in our hearts to incline our affections and lives toward Jesus, we also fill our hearts with scripture-saturated songs to flood our thoughts and inform our actions for every season of life. Because song uses poetry and music to adhere to our memory, a song learned in our youth can be retrieved in adulthood to minister in a powerful way.
My husband experienced this in a profound way when we found ourselves in a time of great sorrow. “Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow…” from “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” permeated his thoughts as he faced his grief. Oh! the comfort he experienced as he meditated on those life-giving words. Those few lyrics ministered to him in a way nothing else could, and we wanted to give the same line of defense and inspiration to our children.
We began by choosing impactful songs to sing during our evening singing time, and we spent several nights on each song to familiarize our daughters with the words. We also talked through the lyrics informally as a part of our day. We did not want to suck the joy out of our singing by being too dogmatic in our treatment of the songs, so the conversational approach has been very effective yet organic in feel. Now we can pull from these songs as needed, and the girls are starting to make their own connections.
As we have learned the songs as a family, we have added them to our songbook (Watch for a whole post on this!) both as a review tool but also as a sort of singing log and journal. Now we have a special book to catalogue the important songs of faith that have been dear to our hearts. It is a wonderful source of family devotions, song ideas for family worship, and memories. It is, indeed, the keeper of our family’s corpus of life-giving songs.
As my husband and I remember old songs and discover new songs, we keep adding to our songbook. We have a visual reminder in this book of the songs we hope to teach to our children, and we can keep a record of truths that we have covered in the songs we have already learned. Much like working through a catechism, we are working through these songs in an organized way. Because we believe singing will enable our children to store these truths deep within for a lifetime of encouragement and wisdom, the tool of the songbook has been a fantastic assist in a methodical approach to discipling our children as well.
So what would be in your family’s corpus of songs? How do you compile your songs, and what criteria guide your choices? I would love to hear from you as we grow our songbook.
Next week, I’m looking forward to opening our family’s corpus of songs as we walk through putting a songbook together. If you are crafty, you are going to love this next post! If the thought of crafting gives you hives, no worries; this is your family’s book and can be whatever you want to make of it. Singing with your children will create life-long connections and memories with them, so be intentional in the songs you sing and get to singing! Your children may not care if your house always passed a white-glove test, but they will cherish all the hours you logged singing with them.
Come Sing Together 