The world has seen some interesting things the last week or so. Earthquakes have rocked New Zealand and Italy. Floods have occurred in Cape Breton, many American states and in Europe while other parts of the globe are in a drought. Our weather patterns seem to be changing, too. Some folks say it is a result of global warming. Other folks say it is part of the normal weather pendulum and things will go back to the way they were a half century ago at some point. Still others say that the world has always been this way and the only reason this seems to be a trend is because today we have almost instantaneous communications and hear about everything as soon as it happens.
Things are changing faster than we can adapt. Hotter summers, colder winters, wetter deserts and glaciers that all seem to be shrinking, along with the polar ice cap. And our kids… they’re changing pretty fast, too. Their normal is not the normal of my youth, or my parents’ or grandparents’ youth. Kids, at least in North America, are more likely to be on a computer or electronic device chatting with their friends than they are to be playing outside. Electronics have invaded and now pervade our lives. Everything changes, sometimes on a daily basis.
I guess that’s why I like gospel music. The songs I heard sung as a kid still hold truth and I can sing them today. The words to some of the old hymns that we don’t sing any more were the way I learned about the Bible, and about everything from eschatology to hermeneutics, although I didn’t know what those big words meant because they weren’t in the songs. But I did understand the words grace, love, forgiveness and faith. So, if you’re a parent, try to teach your kids the old songs, hymns, and choruses. Look in the hymnbook, not on the projector screen. Before we had computer projectors, or even before we had hymnals, people sang. They learned by rote, and taught songs by singing them. It was part of our church oral history. Why not take a step back in time? Have a hymn sing (and sneak in a few new choruses). Let folks choose their favorite old hymns. I think you’d be surprised what a good old sing in can do to make people feel like they’re part of something special…