I tiptoed to my eight-year-old boy’s bedroom and put my ear to his door. I could hear him belting out a song, but I just wasn’t sure what it was from all the way in the kitchen. After just a few bars, I could hear what it was: the chorus of “Great is Thy Faithfulness”! Wow… what a blessing and treasure. Even though our eight-year-old did not fully understand the truths of this powerful song, in that moment, our choice years ago to incorporate hymns into our family’s life was solidified: we are successfully building a “Firm Foundation” for our family.
Why should Biblically-Minded Families teach hymns to their children?
1. Participation in Worship
Whether your church regularly uses hymns in corporate worship or not, people sing hymns in many different denominations of churches around the world. They have different tempos or with additional bridges, but hymns are more universal that any other church music that I have experienced. Hymns also connect generations of believers together. Children can sing hymns alongside grandparents and great grandparents. Hymns are part of the Christian heritage, so it is wise for us to learn where we came from.
2. Foundation in Theology
Many hymns are rich in theology, teaching us about God and solidifying those truths into our daily life as we sing them. When we teach hymns to our children, they are memorizing the foundational truths about God and man and burning them into their hearts. A hymn like “Crown Him with Many Crowns” teaches about Jesus and His death on the cross as the atoning sacrifice for sin. What amazing lines for our children and ourselves to treasure in our hearts!
**While many hymns have great theology, make sure you study the lyrics before sharing them with your children. Not every hymn has a correct understanding of God, man, and the Bible and corresponds to your personal beliefs.
3. Coordination in a worship experience
While some modern worship music songs need guitars, pianos, drums, and more, hymns simply just need voices…no need to have to coordinate a big worship service! You can sing hymns anywhere — in the shower, in your room, in the van, outside, in a doctor’s office, under the stars, etc. It is beautiful when one of our children will start whistling a hymn, followed by another child joining with humming, and followed by another singing the words. When we sing hymns as part of our homeschool in the morning, I don’t pull out a guitar or gather us around the piano. We just sing… around the dining table or in the living room. We can also sing using harmony… what a neat thing to teach your children too.
4. Introduction to men and women of faith
When we teach our children hymns, we introduce them to men and women of faith who have seen the Lord and have written beautiful music about the God they have experienced. These writers come from a variety of backgrounds — from pastors to evangelists to teachers to businessmen to mothers and more. Do you know the background story of the famous hymn “It is Well with My Soul”? Horatio Spafford wrote the powerful words to that hymn after he had lost all of his business investments in the Chicago Fires of 1871 and after the sinking of a ship in the Atlantic Ocean which took the lives of his four daughters. Does that give you a different perspective to this beloved hymn?
These men and women have endured much and have an amazing perspective that we must teach to our children. Do you know Fanny Crosby’s story? What about John Newton, the writer of “Amazing Grace”? The backgrounds behind these hymns will grow your appreciation for them and deepen your own faith.
5. Demonstration of good vocabulary and writing
I remember the first time we sang “He Will Hold Me Fast”. My boys almost immediately grabbed each other into a huge bear hug. “Boys, what are you doing? We are in the middle of learning a new song.”
“Mom, I’m just holding him fast before he can get away!”
I had a good laugh at that one, but I knew it was time to explain the meaning of “fast” since it was slightly different than what they were used to. I did not plan for our hymn studies to be a vocabulary-building assignment, but it has been one of the side benefits. We have learned words like “bulwark”, “wretch”, “adulation”, “purge”, “buffet” (and its not a huge line-up of food), and “scorned”. These are rich words which deepen the meaning of the songs.
We have also looked at the writing of the stanzas and choruses to see well-written verses with deeply meaningful lyrics, beautiful poetry, carefully selected rhythmic patterns, and intelligently crafted rhyming words.
How could Biblically-Minded Families implement Hymn study into their family’s life?
1. Add Hymn Study to your devotional times as a family.
If you are already in the habit of coming together as a family, add a hymn each month. Print out a hymn from the list here, one for the whole family or one per person. Read through the words of the hymn together and listen to it being sung. Read the story of how the hymn was created. You can find that information online, but you can also purchase a book like one found HERE. When you come together for devotions, practice the chorus together and build onto that by adding one verse at a time. Pretty soon you will have the whole thing memorized — unless it has 10 verses!
Once we know a hymn we will repeat it on a regular basis. Now that we have years of hymns in our repertoire, we pick a couple of them to sing each time we have our Bible Time at the beginning of each school day.
If you don’t know where to start, begin with a hymn that is meaningful to you or your family or “Amazing Grace”. Even people who don’t know Jesus have heard of that song. It is a special one for you to know as Christians sing it around the world in dozens of languages!
2. Purposefully download a new hymn to your playlist that you play in the car when you are going places.
In no time at all your children will memorize the words to the hymn as they hear it over and over again in your vehicle. I enjoy the musical group Shane & Shane. They have at least two albums which are all hymns. I would recommend downloading one or more of those to your playlist for your family. You can either play through all of the tracks or just pick one that you would like to add to your family’s growing list of hymns. Find one of their albums HERE.
3. Incorporate hymn study into your homeschool.
If you are a homeschooling family, incorporate hymn study into your Bible Time or your Morning Time. Pick a hymn to study, print it out for each child in your family, and read the background of the hymn together. Listen to the hymn being sung. Memorize the hymn by starting with the chorus. After singing it through a few times each day, begin working on verse one. The children will quickly learn it and will be singing it around the house in no time.
In our homeschool we have even used hymn study as copy work. Our children will carefully copy the chorus or a verse of a hymn onto a special piece of paper. This can be saved in their files or hung on the wall as artwork. Copy work is a great way for them to get even more familiar with each hymn!
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