I am thankful for song writers and musicians who are thoughtfully crafting hymns that tell the gospel story, challenge us to think theologically and press us to respond accordingly,” hymn writer Keith Getty shared with the International Mission Board’s Rodney Calfee in June.
Keith and Kristyn Getty — best known for “In Christ Alone” — have been writing hymns together for about 17 years now but there’s been a particular emphasis on the intersection of worship and missions recently.
Calfee asked Keith Getty about that shift.
“Well, obviously we’ve been trying to write songs that explain the gospel in beautiful ways,” Getty said. “And over the years, of the hymns we’ve written that were commissioned for a specific occasion, almost all were tied in with significant missional events. … We’ve really taken a year and a half to think well about the subject and try very hard to write songs that might be good for churches to sing.”
Here’s more of Calfee’s interview with Getty:
Q: You reference worship and music in general as a way to disciple people into a certain belief and corresponding activity. How is corporate worship through song a tool that ultimately accomplishes that goal?
A: I think we have to remember that early in the Old Testament, Moses was commanded by God to teach the Hebrews through hymns (see Deut. 31:19): “Teach this to your children, that it will be a witness against them lest they turn away,” he said. In other words, what you sing doesn’t just affect how you think or how you feel or how you pray. It is presumed that singing will affect how you live your life. In fact, 20 percent of the Bible is songs. We learn from the Word of God that we’re created to sing.
To take that another step further, most Christians probably know more verses of Scripture through singing them than by studying them. That’s not because we’re bad and we don’t study. It’s because we’re fearfully and wonderfully made. This is how God made us.
So, for someone like me who wasn’t gifted in the same ways as my friends who are pastors, discipleship through music uses the gifts that I do have. Every so often, I write a tune that’s memorable and helps let the Word of Christ dwell richly in people as they meet together and sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
Q: You’ve just completed a new hymn project just for kids. Why was it important for you to create a hymnal, as it were, specifically for children?
A: We’ve thought about this a lot and started recording kids’ songs a couple of years ago. I’d like to tell you it was because my wife and I are the most spiritual parents to ever live but it really wasn’t.
Actually we were snapped into it by a really embarrassing moment.
We were in New Jersey to perform a concert and a church requested that we join them that morning to hear their school children sing our hymns because they teach the kids the Bible through teaching them one of our hymns each month. It was really fascinating and quite humbling. So we went along to see them perform the songs.
Of course, our 4-year-old daughter at the time had flaming red hair and was an extrovert and wanted to join in. She got into the middle of the group and they all started singing “In Christ Alone.” Of course, there was only one kid that didn’t know all the words — our daughter — and there was nowhere for us to hide.
The truth was, for us, the moment had come. All parents face that moment when they have to decide to start teaching their kids the hymns of our faith. New England Puritans did not allow men to take the Lord’s Supper on Sunday if they did not pray, sing and read the Bible with their children during the week because they believed those fathers to have neglected their primary duty.
Now that is probably a bit of an overreach of church authority, to be honest, but the point is well taken.
So we wanted to start teaching our children to sing. We want them to understand and share their faith, to grow up with a confidence in the gospel and an imagination that is excited by the gospel. We want it to be natural to express the gospel in the midst of a society that will tell them (a) Christianity is unbelievable, (b) it’s antisocial and (c) you must never talk about it. Worship songs teach them the opposite and can infuse them with truth that helps them counter that flow.
16 languages
The whole album is meant to sing to the Lord in 16 languages with kids.
We’ve always said there are three goals for the kids’ albums. The first is to teach them the Bible and help them understand the gospel. The second is to get them excited about singing. The third is to help them extend their imaginations and creativity, and think about what is happening in the arts and culture around them.
All that said, being parents, we included our own little daughters on the album in a setting of John 3:16. They read and sang the passage. Because of the content and the beauty of the song, nepotism aside (maybe), it is my favorite track on the album. (BP)
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