Leading Singing with Children

When leading children in singing, we need to consider:

• Accompaniment – that’s about using a live instrument or pre-recorded music
• Choosing songs
• Using actions
• Teaching new songs.

But you may ask- why bother singing with children in the first place?

Children love to sing. And children especially love to sing songs with actions. And more importantly songs help children remember the bible.

Good songs with good lyrics get into our heads. We can remember songs we sang as children when we’ve forgotten loads of other stuff – so here’s a great way to get Bible truth in to children’s minds.

And of course singing praise to God can be a great way to respond to what we’ve heard in the Bible talk.

Accompaniment.

The most important thing to do is to provide a CONFIDENT lead. If you’re confident then the children and leaders will be confident. Then they’ll sing more confidently and it won’t be you looking a complete banana at the front.

In our programs, my wife and I like to have the children sing WITHOUT musical accompaniment. We also like to include children in the leading of the songs.

We put song lyrics on songboards and choose a couple children to hold it for everyone to see and sing from. Children LOVE to help upfront.

Asa bonus for us, we always emphasize that we pick the children that are doing what they are supposed to be doing. This encourages good behavior trough the entire program.

Acapella singing allows the children to hear other children singing and that encourages them to sing along. It also allows us to have contests when they are singing, like this side sing certain lines of a vers and the other side of the room sing the other lines. Then we give team points for participation.

A lot of children’s workers feel they need music, and will have a piano player or a CD or MP3 player.

Now, there’s a number of factors in that. For example, the music needs to be LOUD enough to give confidence to you, the children and the leaders to sing up.

One of the most common mistakes is to use a CD player that’s far too loud and then nobody will want to sing because they can’t hear themselves singing.

Then there’s EYE CONTACT. You need to lead the children. That means looking at them whenever you can – that increases confidence because it also enables you to guide them – they’ll look at you to know what comes next in the song.

They’ll also look to you to see whether you’re praising God with this song, or just mumbling your way through it.

And you also need to PLAN WHAT YOU’RE DOING you can’t just wing it.

With recorded music they are other considerations, too:

• You need to know what introduction there is and what the arrangement of verses and choruses is.
• Are you gonna use all the verses?
• What will you do if there’s an instrumental break in the song?

And a quick word about LIVE VERSUS PRE-RECORDED MUSIC – Live music (e.g. guitar or piano) is great because it enables you to dictate the arrangement of the song…it enables you to repeat bits, miss bits out and interact with the children in a way that is much more difficult with pre-recorded music.

If live music isn’t an option, pre-recorded can be very useful- but be aware you won’t have that flexibility. One other thing.

You might be thinking that you’re tone deaf and leading singing is just not your gift. Well, remember that primary-aged children aren’t too discerning about such things so it’s amazing what you can get away with.

Don’t assume that just because you think you sing out of tune during congregational singing in church services doesn’t mean that you can’t lead children in singing.

Children’s Bible songs usually have simpler melodies, you won’t have a mix of confusing harmonies coming at you from the singers at the front and also, you’ll probably use a much more limited set of songs than you’d have in a church service.

Therefore, you’ll be much more familiar with the song (especially if you’ve chosen it…) and so you’ll be more confident. I’ve seen a number of people lead singing with children perfectly well with the children totally engaging…and yet those same people would describe themselves as tone-deaf in any other context. (I’m one of them.)

Enthusiasm goes a long way when leading children in singing.

One amazing bonus, is we invite parents and adult church members to our VBS programs. We have found people that will barely sing in church will sing loud and happily inthe VBS program with the fun songs we use.

Choosing songs.

Well, here’s the most important principle. Don’t give them songs that are Biblically misleading.

Those words will get stuck in their heads and then it’s much more difficult to unlearn them. So, be careful and check those lyrics first.

In some cases it’s possible to change the lyrics of a song to make them more Biblically faithful.

One other thing on lyrics. Be careful with songs that talk about ‘Our God is…such and such’. As adults we understand what that means but children will take it much more literally and that plays into the multi-faith ethos of our day – your god is, our God is…their god is…So be careful with those ones.

What about how the songs are musically? Well, it’s pretty obvious when a song works and when it doesn’t. And songs which aren’t good musically will quickly be ditched anyway.

If you enjoy singing them then probably the children will enjoy them.

And of course the vocabulary in children’s songs should be simpler than in adult ones. But don’t worry too much about whether the children understand every line – if it’s truth from the Bible then it’s good to get it into our heads by singing it.

There are a lot of prerecorded sing-along songs out there and even “sing & dance along” videos for children’s ministry. I hate them.

That is a personal opinion, and if you are comfrotable with them, go for it.

I like songs that are bouncy, but easy to learn. Songs like “Deep And Wide,” “Jesus Loves Me,” “God’s Not Dead,” and other more old-timey songs.

Kids love them. Don’t make the mistake of thinking your songs should resembly modern pop music. God’s music ought to be different and children will find these songs fun and refreshing.

What about actions?

Well, personally I think they’re great. And in the context of children’s ministry even adults will enjoy them.

Actions help to engage; they help those over-active children to be doing something with their limbs and they also help to reinforce the lyrics.

Some songs use proper sign language as well. These are even more powerful and can, of course, be especially helpful to some children with additional needs. A lot of children know the sign language for “Jesus Loves Me,” and adding them makes for a great action song.

TEACHING NEW SONGS

Let’s imagine you’ve decided to teach a new song. What to do? OK, first thing you do is to make sure you know the song.

Then you need to get the children familiar with the melody and the words.

Many of the songs we use have familiar melodies. Just different lyrics song to the tune of “I’v Been Working On The Railroad,” and “Shortening Bread.”

Because we use songboards for so many of our songs, the lyrics are right there for them. You may also put them up on a screen.

The easiestway to familiarize the children with the song is to sing it once yourself. Then the children can join in.

We have twin daughters and often they will sing the song and do the actions the first time. They are even leading more and more songs for us.

Modern melodies are usually in repeated patterns so it’s easy to say ‘The next bit is the same tune, try that…’. And some chunks can be much bigger than others – especially catchy choruses.

The important thing is not to worry if they don’t get it first time. By the time you’ve sung the whole thing a couple of times they’ll be pretty familiar with it.

Children learn really quickly.

For ‘leading singing with children’ we’ve thought about how we do the accompaniment, choosing songs, using actions, and teaching songs Whether we’re tone-deaf or a gifted musician we can all encourage the children in our groups to praise our wonderful God!