Kids' Singing in the Congregation #5

At the end of March next year I will be co-presenting a workshop at the CCOWA Perth Children's Ministry Convention. The topic for the 2009 conference is "Music with Meaning" and my workshop is titled "Integrating children's music and church music".

This is the last Tuneful Tuesday. I am posting my workshop draft in dribs and drabs in "Tuneful Tuesdays" and whoever wants to comment and help me improve the draft before it becomes the final version will be welcome and appreciated for their efforts. (See here for previous Tuneful Tuesday posts.)
---
II. Making congregational music understandable and meaningful

2. Children from different backgrounds will come to church with vastly different levels of biblical and theological understanding.

A) Children of Christian families may have been brought up by parents who diligently work to discipline them in the Christian faith. They may have been taught knowledge of biblical stories and also had Christian words explained so that they may already understand many of the lyrics. On the other hand, children of Christian families may also have been brought up with little or no deliberate discipling.

> Try not to use too many Christian words in any one sentence. If a child does not understand more than one part of the explanation, they won't understand the whole explanation either. The meaning of some words can be worked out from the context, but the more unknown words there are, the harder this is.

> Don't be afraid to re-explain a word that was explained a few weeks ago. Words such as sin might need to be explained many times with different words before they are grasped well by children, even if they are in common use in family conversation.

B) Children from non-Christian and unchurched families will often have little familiarity with Biblical events and perhaps no understanding whatsoever of theological terms. Have you ever heard the word “manger” used other than in a re-telling of the Christmas story or in the song, Away in a Manger?

> Try not to use Christian words other than God and Jesus in any explanation, except for the word you are explaining. This is very, very hard! So make sure you plan exactly what you will say before hand, and do not try to add to the explanation on the day. You will probably just confuse the issue.

-> HAVE A GO:
Think about the first verse of the well-known song, Give Thanks (with a grateful heart) by Tony Williams.
First, introduce this song to the person next to you in the way you would if you knew most of the children in your congregation had been actively discipled in the Christian faith, such as an Easter Friday service. Remember not to use any words longer than three syllables.
Now, introduce the same song to the person next to you in the way you would at a service where there will probably be many unchurched families with children who have little or no biblical knowledge, such as an Easter Sunday service. Remember not to use any words that are only ever used by Christians, and especially not those you would only use at church.