"Children live in a world of dreams and visions; they take chances and create. Until we teach them otherwise, they believe they can paint, dance, act,sing, and significantly, they enjoy doing so. Children openly expose their emotions and learn from experience. They find miracles believable and desirable. They can sense the presence of God, for they live in a world of gifts as well as achievements. They can imagine the Kingdom of God, for they live in seen and unseen world." (John H. Westerhoff, Bringing Up Children in the Christian Faith, pp20-21)
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God's Children Sing reaches out to all adults whose lives intersect the lives of young children, whether in the role of teacher, parent, or caregiver. Through this publication you are invited to re-enter the faith-filled world of childhood. What is this world; how does it exist? How does the child perceive the world? How does faith develop in the life of the child?
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For the young, life is a celebration
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For the young child everyday is new, fresh, exciting, and filled with the new people, things, and events. Events that appear prosaic and ordinary to us as adults are a never-ending source of wonder and engagement for the child. With no sense of time but the present, the child lives each moment completely. The smallest happening is a momentous event for which thee is no precedent in his / her life experience.
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Children's intuitive intelligence is superbly tuned to the living world around them. They posses an extraordinary capacity for assimilation and have an innate ability to observe the tiniest things which hardly even exist for the adult. These capacities of early childhood will never be repeated in life with the same clarity and ease. The child's perception of and identification with all life forms and events will never again be possible with the same spontaneous enthusiasm.
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Every young child has a sense of the sacred; if it is part of a parent / family model, it has a chance to blossom. the gift of faith is given to the child as well as to the adult. The spontaneity, creativity, and openness of childhood allow the child to experience God intuitively in relationships with others and with the natural world they encounter. Through these relationships, the child grows in knowledge of God and the child's faith grows as it is experienced with significant adults and in the Christian community.
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Sharing Our Faith Provides the Central Theme for the Activities
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God's Children Sing draws its central themes fromt he sharing of our faith with children and aims to bring the family into the music, movement, and faith experience. John H. Westerhoff set forth the following five guidelines for sharing our faith with the children in his book Bringing Up Children in the Christian Faith:
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"We need to tell and retell the biblical story - the stories of the faith - together.
We need to celebrate our faith and our lives.
We need to pray together.
We need to listen and talk to each other.
We need to perform faithful acts of service and witness together." (p.36)
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Through music, movement, story-telling, and praying experiences of parent and child together, the faith of both can be strengthened, enhanced, and enlivened. Opportunities for sharing the life of faith can be encouraged through songs, dance, and creative expressions, which are such a natural part of the young child's world.
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Coming to know God as the Creator and Sustainer of all living things is encouraged through hand-on experiences and encounters with nature. To "know" a child must "touch". A child's natural sense of wonder at plants, birds, animals, and insects leads him/her to explore and discover the world in which he/she lives and the God who created it.
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This program is designed to promote musical development in young children withing the context of nurturing their life of faith. Through joyful participation in songs, stories, music-making, movement activities, and moments of worship in each lesson, young children will become more aware of God's love for them and for all of Creation. As a result of these musical activities experienced in a Christian community and family, children will grow to give voice to their developing musical expression, faith, and praise of God.
