Suffer the Little Ones

The local Nashville newspaper recently carried an article about an eight-year-old girl who would be preaching the sermon in her United Methodist church that Sunday. That article, along with the end of the public school year and the children's choir year, has caused me to think about my own experiences with children's choirs.

One church pastor, not much of a singer or musician himself, asked me once why we spent so much time and money on the children's choirs. At that time, I had five singing choirs and three handbell choirs for the children and youth of that church. He was not the most supportive pastor I've had the pleasure to work with. His question comes back to me today, and here's a response that is more thoughtful than the one I shot back at him twenty years ago.

Why do we have children's choirs in the church? Here are some reasons:

1. Child Care: On a practical level, the children's choir can serve as quality, worry-free, cost-free childcare. Parents can bring their children to the church for a snack, recreation and exercise time, and singing, all under (we hope) qualified and loving adult leadership. Churches that want to take their childcare service up a notch and REALLY serve the parents use the church van or parent drivers to pick up the children at their schools and bring them directly to the church.
   
2. Evangelism and Hospitality: Not only a ministry to our own members, children's choirs can also be an effective method of outreach into the community. Parents whose children join our choirs have a natural connection to our church. Children who practice with the choirs and bring their parents and friends with them, whether they sing or not on that Sunday, give us the opportunity to share the gospel message. It is a way we can demonstrate open hearts and open doors.
   
3. Christian Education: Think of all that children learn through the songs they sing and their participation in offering music in a worship service: memorization and internalization of Scripture; theology; history; liturgy and worship practice; service and ministry. Children's choirs are at least as effective as Sunday school in the spiritual formation of children. I have had many letters from former children's choir members, now adults, who have said they don't remember much else about their church training during those years, but they still can sing word-for-word many of the songs we learned together.
   
4. Baptism Vows: When an infant or child is baptized, the parents, family, and the entire congregation promise to take seriously the raising up and training of that child in the ways of the faith. Children's choirs are one way to be faithful to those vows.
   
5. Music Education: There are many educational benefits of children's choirs: note reading and musical skills, discipline of working within a group, self-control, seeing and striving for a goal beyond self-gratification, service to the community . . . skills also learned in public school music settings, many of which are disappearing as these public programs are cut back.
   
6. Music Ministry Support: As children participate and grow up in the choir, they move from one choir to the next older choir. The children's choir naturally feeds, supports, and promotes improvement of each choir's effectiveness.
   
7. Fun: The experiences associated with choir practice and Sunday worship singing provide an enjoyable time of fun, learning, and socialization for children: snack and play time, end of the year picnic, a trip to the beach or a theme park, even traveling to another church to present a musical program.
   
8. Positive Musical Experiences: Many children's experiences with music are limited to what they hear on the radio, CDs, and television. Children's choir is an opportunity to engage other musical forms — hymns, songs, choruses, anthems, instrumental music, classics, and real live instruments — percussion, handbells, and chimes. In addition, children experience singing with organ, piano, praise bands, and other instruments.
   
9. The Value of Children: The time, money, care, concern, and love we show to children in our choirs is a powerful witness to the value and importance we place on their presence as full members of the family of God.

One of my earliest memories of participating in church music is a Sunday school Christmas program in one of my Methodist pastor-father's first churches. Thinking back on it now, I'm not sure how old I was, but it was probably 3 ½, and Truman was still President of the United States. I remember toddling up the sanctuary's chancel steps on hands and knees, standing in front of the piano keyboard, and having to reach up to play a two-index-fingered, one-note melody of "Silent Night." The second verse was the same two fingers but in mostly parallel thirds — parallel sixths were still unknown to me. The applause made me smile. The kisses from the old ladies after the program made me embarrassed. But experiences and opportunities like those in my young years led to church music as a calling and life vocation. In addition to all the previously mentioned reasons for having children's choirs, another reason is that they are a way for us to follow Jesus' command: "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me; for such is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 19:14, KJV).