Singing is one of the glorious gifts of the church. It draws you into the beauty of the kingdom and the power and truth of God. If this is true, what are you as parents doing to teach your children to sing and prepare them for corporate worship? 

In this podcast, Scott Brown and Jason Dohm offer five key scriptural insights highlighted in the book, The Family at Church: Teach your children to sing (1) to teach others God’s Word and (2) to admonish one another; and teach them to sing (3) to God personally, (4) to the unconverted, and (5) to their own souls. Rather than view singing as an option, parents should guide their children to joyfully obey God’s command: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Col. 3:16). 

Today, Jason Dome and I are going to talk about full-blown engagement in singing, but particularly how to teach your children how to sing in the church. God gave a wonderful gift to the church. It's called singing. Parents are teachers of singing, just like the Scriptures teach us how to sing, but on this podcast, we're going to talk about how to teach your kids how to sing and how to let it rip in the congregation. You know, singing is one of the glorious gifts of the church.

It draws you into the beauty of the kingdom, the power of God, the truth of God. It does so much. And, you know, when you're raising kids, you, you, you got to help them see the beauty of it. Right. And, of course, you know, we've been advocates for many years of having your children with you in church, and that includes singing.

And parents are actually divinely appointed singing teachers because they're supposed to bring their children up in the training and the admonition of the Lord, and that means that singing is one of the things that they've got to deal with. Some of your kids, you can't get them to stop. And some of your kids, you hardly can get them to start. Exactly. And so really, we're talking about this.

So if you haven't put your hands on the family at church yet, you should. It's a small book. It's a really helpful book. It's an easy read. What we're talking about today is day 14, page 117 on joyful singing, and then day 15 on teaching children to sing, and there's a lot of helpful counsel in there.

Yeah, the Bible teaches you how to sing, so you should teach your children how to sing. It's kind of simple. Hey, remember when we were preaching through Nehemiah, and there was that amazing section in Nehemiah chapter 12? Where the Thanksgiving choirs are... Yeah, And explicitly the children are there.

Okay. It's really beautiful. Where is it? I have... I quoted in this book, I can't remember where it is.

But Yeah, they're looking back at what God had done and these choirs are going around the walls and meeting. Right, the dedication of the wall. It's a wonderful scene. I love the way you started this in the book with really the flagship verse in the New Testament on it, which is Colossians 3.16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. So we're actually called to this.

This is actually an imperative. This is not an optional thing for the people of God. We are actually called to sing with grace in our hearts to the Lord. Churches sing. That's what we do.

In fact, Christians can hardly stand it. They're gonna sing when they get together. It's so weird culturally though. Yeah, well I think we've been in the church so long that we lose how odd this would be if you were an outsider to the church and you came in and the first thing that happens is you know, the Keyboard starts playing and everyone there is singing. Yeah, what other context do you do that in?

Not very many. Yeah. And it's like medicine for the people of God. It's reviving of the heart. It's re-centering the mind, involving your whole body, your vocal cords, your mind, and then there are the sounds of the people around you and there's rhythm to it.

It's really a full body engagement. God has given us singing as an outlet for grace in the heart. There ought to be grace in the hearts of the believer. Well, what do we do with that? God has given us an outlet.

It's singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. So it gives us a way to sing praises, sing of our thankfulness to the Lord. Yeah. And so, hey, in this book are really specific ways you can help your kids sing, okay? And one of them is your initial impulse is to help them to love it.

Maybe you have one of those children who doesn't like to sing, doesn't wanna sing, refuses to sing. The first thing is that you got to love it. Okay, that... It's often a reflection of parents who maybe didn't grow up in singing homes and they don't feel like, I'm not a good singer, so they're very bashful about it. They really don't like to do it.

And kids pick up on that and do likewise. Yeah, and the second thing is don't let them off a hook. You know, They need to know that God commanded his people to sing. So, how come we're singing? Why are you making me sing?

Well, it isn't actually me. I'm just an intermediary. God commanded his people to sing. Hey, if you're watching the podcast, we wanna wrestle with you to buy that proposition. That singing with your heart engaged is not actually optional for the people of God, but it's a commandment like the other commandments.

God tells us to do this, and like the other commandments, it's actually for our own good. Singing with your heart engaged is for your own good. It's a sweetness that we're not permitted to just exempt ourselves from. Yeah, hey, and how do you teach your kids? Use the Bible.

I mean, we already said, use your enthusiasm, use your authority, say God commanded it, but there's more than that. Use your Bible to teach them to sing. And so that's what we're going to talk about from now on. There are really specific things that the Bible teaches us about singing that your children need to know. And the first is they need to know what they are doing when we sing.

And when we sing, we're declaring what we believe, we're singing doctrine, we're talking, we're singing about the God that we worship, we're singing about the things that we believe, We're acknowledging what God wants for us. We're praising God. We're announcing God's commandments in our singing. There's so many things that we're doing when we sing. We're not just moving our mouths.

Mm-hmm. Scott, you came over to Sovereign Redeemer, the church where I'm serving. You came over a couple of years ago and actually preached a sermon on singing. And one of the things that struck me out of that sermon was Hebrews 2. Let me just read Hebrews 2 10 through 12 and then I'll tell you what struck me.

For it was fitting for him for whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren." So what's just been said so far is that Jesus is not ashamed to call believers brethren. And then verse 12 says this, and it's actually a quoting of Psalm 22, saying, I will declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly, I will sing praises to you." Here Jesus is set forth as a song leader among the people of God. Jesus says, I will declare your name to my brethren. I will declare my Father's name to other believers, to my brethren.

In the midst of the assembly, I will sing praise to you." So I've never thought of Jesus as a song leader in leading the praises of, the sung praises of God, but that's what Hebrews 2 says. And he says, and here I am among those I redeemed. That's so beautiful. I know. Okay, so there are, oh, how many is it?

Five things? There are five things you should teach your children about singing. And let's just pound through them. Okay? First, teach them to sing, to teach others God's truth.

Colossians 3.16 makes it really clear that when you're singing, you're teaching one another, okay? You're not just singing to an audience of one. That's not what the Bible says at all. It sounds so romantic, right? But actually, when you're singing, you're actually teaching your brethren doctrine and truth about God.

We've done nursing home ministry, and There are people in nursing homes who can't remember hardly anything, but when you start singing the ones who have spent decades going to church can sing along. Hey, this might be the last remembrances that we have or the hymns of praise that we have learned. That's neat. Second, teach them to sing to admonish one another. And in Colossians 3.16, Paul says that we are to sing admonishing one another.

And he uses a Greek word, nithataō, which has to do with appealing to one another. So we're not just teaching. We should be self-consciously aware that we're teaching one another and we're admonishing one another. And children need to just know the richness of the contours of singing. It's not just moving your mouth, it's not just carrying a tune, you're actually doing something in the church.

Admonish one another. There are a lot of songs that admonish. So when you came over to preach that sermon, before that time it had been sort of an unwritten rule was you shouldn't be looking around at other people when you sing. They're singing, you're singing. Look up front.

Since then, a number of us feel like we have permission to actually look around and make eye contact with other people because we are teaching each other, we're admonishing each other. We're not just singing to God, we're also singing the truth to each other. Yeah, that's awesome. Number three, teach them to sing to God personally. Some of the songs are written in the first person directly toward God.

You know, I love you Lord, various manifestations of that. So there is a personal one-to-one aspect, but it's not just that. So, and then fourth, teach them to sing to the unconverted. Romans 15.9 makes that really clear. You've got unconverted and your singing has an effect.

And I think I might've said in your church, hey, look, you know, if you got unconverted in the church, you need to be singing it out. You need to blast it out. Let it rip, man. They need to know how great God is that you really think he is. And you always have unconverted in the church.

Always. And the songs that we're singing have heavy doses of the gospel. So really in a sense singing is evangelism when you're singing gospel truths. Yeah, yeah. And fifth, teach them to sing to their own souls.

Not just to God, not just to the unbeliever, not just to admonish, not just to teach, but to your own, your singing to your own soul. So the Bible actually has a songbook in it. The Psalms are songs. And what you just said made me think of Psalm 103, because it's my favorite Psalm, it starts out with David saying, bless the Lord, oh my soul. So he's actually, it's a song, and in the song he is instructing his soul to bless the Lord.

So he actually, he is singing, David in Psalm 103 is singing to his soul. Yeah. Our souls need to be talked, they need to talking to. Yeah. Sometimes.

Your soul needs to talk to you. You do it. And you do it, yeah. So there you have it. I don't know what else to say, except singing is such a wonderful thing.

Children should relish it. Parents have a duty to teach them. But make sure your children understand the various contours of singing. That it's a rich, it's a rich, you know, highly diverse activity. It's intellectually stimulating, it's personally helpful, it's socially engaging, it's a whole bunch of things.

So you didn't grow up in a singing family. Well that doesn't mean your kids have to grow up not in a singing family. So you lack confidence, you feel like you're not a good singer. So that doesn't change what the Word of God says and all we can, all you and I can do is just exhort people, it's one of the great sweetnesses. Don't lay it aside just because you're not particularly good at it.

Engage in it with a whole heart and you'll probably find that you get better at it or at least less self-conscious and you actually partake of the sweetness of it. Amen. And it'll make an impact on your children. And let her rip. Yeah, let her rip.

There you go. Okay. Hey, thanks, man. Thanks. And thank you.

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