About My Songs
I am a teacher by vocation. I’ve taught children from kindergarten through eighth grade, young college-age adults, and older graduate students at the master’s and doctoral levels. I love helping people learn new skills and ideas. Trying to teach others gives me opportunities to learn too, and that turns me on.
I am also a musician. I started to learn to play the trumpet when I was ten years old. When I was in eighth grade, I started taking piano lessons. In college, I majored in elementary education and minored in music. During my teen years, I had marvelous opportunities to play trumpet and piano for various choirs and singing groups. I’ve kept at it and continue to play for churches and community events. I love to make music.
Lately, these two passions – teaching and making music – have intersected, and I’ve been hearing children’s songs in my mind. I don’t know where they come from. I start thinking about a topic, and the next thing I know, there’s a song rolling around in my head. When I hear a song in my head, I write down the words, work out a melody line, figure out the chords, and there it is – a song.
I don’t know how or why it happens, but it’s been happening a lot over the last year or so, and now more than a dozen songs have popped out of my head. There are still a few more rolling around in my head. As long as they keep coming, I’ll try to keep on writing them.
My Beliefs about Songs for Children
Being a long-time teacher and musician, you might suspect that I have some strongly held views about both, and you would be correct – I do. Actually, all of us have personal assumptions and perspectives that we bring to everything we do. I think it is valuable for us to examine our assumptions and lay them on the table to help others – and even ourselves – know “where we’re coming from.”
My approach to writing Faith-building Songs for Children is guided by several important assumptions. I want to share those assumptions with you so you know “where I’m coming from” and have a sense of the larger goals I am trying to achieve with the songs I write. I hope the thoughts that follow are helpful and will, perhaps, encourage you to examine and articulate your own assumptions about the role of songs in building the faith of children. Here goes . . .
Children are theologians.
Very young children explore and manipulate objects in their immediate environment to help them make sense of it all, to begin building a comprehensive, systematic understanding of their world. This active, ongoing construction of understanding extends to their spiritual lives as well. When we adults stop talking and start listening carefully, children’s questions and statements reveal the spiritual ideas they are wrestling with in their own minds. Faith – building songs for children should present spiritual ideas and Biblical truths that address questions and issues that children care about in ways that are meaningful to them and developmentally appropriate.
Faith – building songs should be based on scripture.
Faith – building songs should be grounded in the truth of scripture so that children (1) construct accurate representations of God’s character and the Gospel message, (2) are challenged to build their faith ideas on the truth of scripture, and (3) have ample opportunities to commit portions of scripture to memory.
Faith – building songs should speak to children without talking down to them.
Songs should challenge them to think more deeply than their current level of thinking and understanding. A well-crafted song shared by a knowledgeable, caring adult should be able to meet children where they are and extend their knowledge and understanding to new levels. Consistent with the developmental perspective of Vygotsky, a faith – building song should provide a sturdy scaffold within the zone of proximal development from which children can stand and construct new understandings that they otherwise may not have been able to construct by themselves.
Faith – building songs should be fun for children to sing, with engaging melodies, interesting chord progressions, and catchy rhythms – all in service to the truths the song is attempting to teach.
Gratuitously “fun” or “silly” features of songs are disrespectful to children’s search for truth. Songs should be meaningfully fun without being meaninglessly silly.
Faith – building songs should resist the temptation to mimic the songs, rhythms, beats, and movements associated with pop culture.
Pop culture increasingly pushes children to grow up way too fast and exposes them to ideas and temptations that they are not prepared developmentally to understand or assimilate. In the face of enormous popular pressure to do otherwise, Faith – building songs attempt to teach Biblical truth in a way that respects and values the innocence and simplicity of childhood.
Faith – building songs should be elastic.
That is, children’s understanding of the words should expand and grow as they continue to develop. Songs should lay a foundation of basic understanding upon which children can continue to layer on levels of increasing depth and complexity as their experiences with the world around them broaden their perspectives and challenge them to think about new theological and spiritual questions. The words to “God is Near,” for example may first speak to a young child’s fear of the dark. In later years, the song may help a child grapple with the death of a parent or grandparent and serve as a springboard for attempting to understand how “God is near” to us in our moments of deepest pain and despair. In other words, children’s understanding of God’s “nearness” can change and grow in complexity as their lives change and grow in complexity.
Faith – building songs should serve as a springboard for teaching children Biblical truths. Toward that end, each song is accompanied by a page or two of resources that may be helpful in the teaching-learning process. Those recourses include scripture references, strategies for extending the main points presented in the songs, ideas for connecting the songs to various aspects of children’s lives, and creative connections to other performing and visual arts and children’s literature.
I hope you and the children with whom you minister like the songs and enjoy singing them. Have fun with them! Sing them with joy and enthusiasm! But please remember that the music is not an end in itself. Most importantly, never lose sight of the ultimate goal: building the faith of children.
Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.
Colossians 3:16
Many blessings to you as you make music with children!
A Word about Song Prices
Faith-building Songs for Children is a ministry, not a money-making business. I believe the songs I write are gifts from God, and I cannot charge money for gifts I have been given freely. I want you and the children you serve to have my songs regardless of your financial means. However, there are expenses associated with making my songs available to you (e.g., website construction, website maintenance, audio recordings, publicity, musicians, instruments, and so on).
If you appreciate the songs and resources you are able to download, I invite you to donate an amount of your choosing to help me continue to write, record, and publicize Faith-building Songs for Children. If you are not able to donate any amount at this time, please download the songs you like anyway. I will be blessed to know that you like my songs and children are singing them, and that blessing is priceless.
God is Near
All of us – both children and adults – have fears and worries. Through common childhood fears such as fear of the dark, being alone, and making mistakes, children are reminded that God is always with them and they can talk to Him whenever they feel afraid.
If You Know that Jesus Loves You
This is a fun action song with lots of hand clapping, knee slapping, foot stomping, hand waving, shouting, and smiling – all while the words remind children of the simple but powerful truth that Jesus loves them.
My Good Shepherd
This is a song that encourages children to think about the many ways that Jesus, their Good Shepherd, cares for them as good shepherds tend to their sheep and meet their needs.
Praise God! Doxology for Kids
Here is a lively song that takes the major themes of the well-known “Doxology” (Praise God from whom all blessings flow . . .) and puts them into kid-friendly language with a catchy calypso beat!
Salted Speech
Based on Colossians 4:6, this song helps children think about how “salting” their speech can make their words “taste” good so that others are blessed and encouraged by what they hear.
Think Before You Throw
This is a toe-tapping song about the importance of being good stewards of God’s creation. The words remind children to stop and think before they carelessly litter or harm the natural environment that God created.
More songs are on the way!
- When I See a Rainbow
- Look What Small Can Do
- Christmas in My Heart
- Enough for Me
- Be a Berean
- Inside – Outside
Song Credits
With much gratitude, I extend my sincere appreciation to the following individuals who help with the music.
Jane Piper, vocals
Chris Prough, vocals
Josh Hill, vocals, guitar, banjo, harmonica
Bridget Allen, upright bass
Matthew Aurand, percussion
Kevin Zook, piano, trumpet, flugelhorn
Jordan Krepps, recording and mixing
Special thanks to Elizabeth, Anna, John, and Jeremiah Stegeman for generously providing their outstanding shouting voices!