Sunday, August 03, 2008

Children's Music Camp

We had about 25 children from first to sixth graders who participated in a music camp at church this past week. They were allowed to choose among some electives that included guitar, drama, movement, rhythm, set design, as well as spending time learning about worship. Tonight they led us in worship in the evening service, sharing some of the things that they had learned in the individual classes and then presenting a brief musical entitled ‘We Can Praise” that they learned in just 5 days this week. They did an outstanding job and we had a good Sunday night crowd to hear them. We finished up with an ice cream extravaganza downstairs in the fellowship hall for a very blessed and enjoyable evening.

I’m impressed by how quickly children can pick up and learn new music. They had about 2.5 hrs. each morning to do everything—take the elective classes, have a devotional time, and learn the music for the musical. Music is such a great tool for helping memorize different texts and I wonder if we wouldn’t do better at things like scripture memorization if we set more passages to melodies and musical arrangements. A lot of the early praise choruses I learned back in the dark ages (college years) were virtually taken word for word from the Scriptures. The fact that I can still remember many of those today probably reinforces the idea that music is a great aid in memorization.

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