Should we encourage teenagers to sing? It’s a question we all know the answer to, but most of us are in denial about how to do it.
I’m on the verge of being a father to a teenager, so this is something that has become more applicable on a personal level, especially for him, as singing with his parents in church feels more and more ‘not cool!’
Moses recited a song to God’s people in Deuteronomy 32, and then said to them, ‘Take to heart all the words with which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law.’ (Deuteronomy 32:46). It’s clear from this verse that Moses would say a resounding ‘Yes!’ to the question posed at the beginning of this article, though he doesn’t go on to say when, how often, and what form that singing should take.
What’s clear, however, is that within the community of believers singing truth about God’s work and word is an important part of nurturing the obedience of faith in our children, whatever their age.
Five reasons to Sing!
Keith and Kristyn Getty have written a little book called Sing!, which gives some good ideas about how we might encourage our young ones to sing with us, but here are some other pointers which I hope will be encouraging without being legalistic.
• Don’t worry if you feel the songs or hymns that are sung in the congregational gathering aren’t teen-friendly. Deuteronomy 32 is hardly a ‘kids’ song’ in the way that we tend to define kids’ songs today – I don’t think even Colin Buchanan has written a song that captures the essence of verse 41: ‘I will take vengeance on my adversaries and will repay those who hate me.’. However, we never need to patronise teenagers by dumb-ing down the content of what we sing.
• Singing is a great way of hooking truth into hearts and minds, but it’s not a biblical imperative that all Christians should sing every time they meet. It’s the same for teenagers. In fact, sometimes it may be more appropriate for teenagers not to sing. A youth group with only three members of mixed sex, who are all painfully self-conscious, and where there’s no-one with any musical nous may not be the best setting to sing as a group. However, Moses very possibly spoke the song in Deuteronomy 32 rather than sang it (Deuteronomy 31:30), so presumably music isn’t always necessary. The key thing is finding ways of communicating and remembering the word of God – whether that word is spoken or sung.
• Many worry about their teens going off to youth groups and events where the music is great, but where the teaching of God’s word is weak. We must retain our own confidence in the power of the Spirit to work by God’s word, whatever the standard or style of music in our home setting. We can’t stop our teens being attracted by worldly values, but we can work hard to build their foundations on the word in a loving home and church environment when they are younger to help them be more discerning when they grow older. And we can pray! The Lord will keep those who are His.
• If teenagers stay in with the adults for the whole church meeting, don’t worry if they just want to hang out with their friends on the back row looking at their shoes during the songs. Our job is to focus our own hearts on singing God’s truth with joy and conviction. This will be much more attractive to them than feeling the weight of disapproval from adults whose hearts may actually be further away from the Lord than theirs.
• Invest money by sending teenagers on a Christian holiday party. This is where I learnt to sing solid truths with other teenagers and with leaders who I respected as Christian role models. Some of the songs I learnt from those days still dwell in my heart today.
Those are just some pointers, which I now need to put into practice with my own teenager-to-be.
