A New Song

“Sing to the Lord a new song,” several psalms tell us. The Psalms remind us—in words as well as variety, number, and scope—that our songs can never exceed the greatness of the One we worship.

In addition to adding new songs, Faith Bible Church is cultivating new singers and instrumentalists. If you feel like you’ve seen a lot of young faces in music ministry recently, you’re right.

Over the past few years, leaders have focused on teaching Faith’s children to sing and play music with joy, excellence, and worshipful hearts. The church is enjoying the fruit of those efforts.

“Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day.” (Psalm 96:2)

When he arrived in early 2019, Creative Arts Pastor John Gardner was given a grand commission from Faith’s elders: to equip every generation, in every walk of life, to worship well. Faith already loved music and had many gifted leaders and teachers serving, but the elders wanted consistent programming to encourage worship singing in the home as well as in every age bracket and ministry in the church.

“We want to be a church that’s known for taking art and music seriously,” John says. “It’s very evidently something that the Lord cares about, and so we want to be strong in that area. So, working backwards from that goal, where does it start? It starts with families in the home and it starts with kids in our church.”

First, they wanted uninhibited, joyful singers. In fall 2019, John worked with then-Family Pastor Paul Funchess to incorporate choir into the Wednesday night Discovery program for kindergarten through fifth grade. They also provided resources for families to sing together at home.

Kristi Swanson and Juli White took the commission of leading the new Discovery choirs, which help the kids lay a foundation of basic proficiency and build their confidence and enjoyment in singing. Kristi was new to Faith at the time, but she knew that was where she wanted to use many years of training and experience leading children’s music. “I think God brought all the right pieces in the right place at the right time,” Kristi says.

With the advent of Covid a few months later and the resultant lockdowns, it may not have looked like the right time. But John would disagree. The Discovery team had created a curriculum that went through May 2020, including resources for parents to lead singing and Bible study in their homes. Suddenly, everyone was stuck at home with plenty of time and motivation to do just that. The team also pivoted to creating the Family Hour video series as another resource for worship at home.

“There’s nothing that stops God from accomplishing his purposes,” John says. “We spent much of 2019 praying that God would give us the opportunity to help our families do family worship better.”

Eventually normal Wednesday night gatherings resumed and Kristi’s husband Joe Swanson became the director of children’s programs, including Discovery, in 2022. They and Juli create Scripture songs and other resources for Discovery and for families. Kristi says the music is still primarily a family resource, a way to “get the good hymns of the faith into the minds of our children and also to make a resource that families can use at home to teach their children and to sing together, which is where music in the church begins, in the family.”

While the Discovery choir team also teaches technical music skills, Kristi says she is more concerned about nurturing young worshipers through the power and beauty of the music. “I was discipled by music in a lot of ways. The words of the hymns and the songs of the church have many times come back to me in moments when sermons and fellowship were not able or available to be helpful.”

She aims for the kids to grow into adults who worship without false inhibitions. “I hope that none of them will say, ‘I don’t know how to sing… I’m tone deaf.’ I hope they’ll all be singers in the church, either on the stage or in the congregation, that they’ll enjoy the music of the church, that they’ll all learn to love God as those songs creep down into their souls and hopefully teach them.”

“I hope ... that they’ll all learn to love God as those songs creep down into their souls and hopefully teach them.” Kristi Swanson

Those who were kids in Discovery in 2019 are now in Youth Ministry. John notes that this is the first year when kids coming into youth group would have sung in choir the whole time they were in Discovery. “The culture of ‘this is part of what we do on Wednesday nights’ is there.”

With several requests from the youth themselves, a choir for grades 6–12 gained momentum to kick off this year, rehearsing on Wednesdays before youth group. “You know it’s the right time when the desire is coming more from the kids than the adults,” John says.

The student choir recently sang in Faith’s Christmas concert on a packed-out stage. John says incorporating youth choir—as well as many young orchestra and band members—would have been impossible before the construction of the new stage in 2022. “The way we’re trying to grow required different space, and we have a generous congregation that allowed that to happen.”

“For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods.” (Psalm 96:4)

Hudson and Bethany Thimsen both sing in the youth choir. Hudson, a sixth-grader, sang with the kids’ choirs in Discovery, and he wasn’t exactly excited then to stand in front of church to sing. “I really like to hide myself behind the other people on stage,” he says. Even so, the experience of singing on stage with the choirs helped him get used to it, so that when his sister wanted to join the youth choir he was up for joining it with her.

A sophomore, Bethany didn’t grow up in the Discovery choir, but she has sung with their family at home and in school co-op and was ready to try singing in front of more people. Youth choir has helped her learn more about the abilities God has given her: “I thought I was a soprano because my mom’s a soprano. But I actually found out I was an alto, and that felt really nice because it actually felt comfortable.”

At all levels, leaders are teaching kids what worship music is ultimately for: glorifying God. Titus 2 provides a model in which older, experienced people disciple younger ones to “adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.” That works in music as well as in other ministries.

David McGuire took the reins of the Youth Ministry student band last summer. He plays and sings regularly with the Sunday morning worship team, but leading a group of young musicians for Wednesday youth group was a new challenge and a stretch that answered a question he had started to ask himself.

“As I realize how much [God] loves me, it starts to feed a desire to do more for Him. I used to ask, ‘Have I done enough?’ … The question I should be asking is, ‘Can I do more for Him?’”

Building on the foundation of basic proficiency the teachers are giving the kids in Discovery, David wishes to model genuine worship in music, which includes a creative freedom that he started to learn around their age. “I don’t play music conventionally. I don’t match note for note what’s on the recording.”

Still, organizing young musicians who are building their skills and confidence requires patience, letting go of improper ideals—“the lovely sound that I hear in my head”—in order to model and teach giving everything they do have to the Lord. “I can’t lead them in doing that if I’m not doing it myself.”

“I hope that what I say about worship will stay with them the rest of their lives.”David McGuire

Working with the youth is mostly planting seeds and trusting God for growth, David says. “I don’t know what that growth will look like in the future, but I hope that what I say about worship will stay with them the rest of their lives. Is this actually worship, or is it fake?”

“Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.” (Psalm 33:3)

Now 20, Eli Thiry was a young teen in youth ministry when his youth leader Andrew Davidson led music there. During youth worship music, Eli would play the cajon for rhythm along with Andrew playing guitar. “I was really, really bad,” Eli says with a grin, “but he gave me a lot of mercy in that and I got better playing with him.”

When Andrew left with the group planting Trinity Church, no one else was available to lead music in youth group. Eli’s classmate and friend Sam Parker had learned the viola and played a few times with the church orchestra. Sam and Eli missed live worship singing in youth group, so they got permission to lead music as well as they could. 

“I bought a guitar and started learning,” Sam says. “My singing was something next to atrocious and so was my guitar-playing, and yet there were these merciful, gracious people who are loving Christ and willing to worship nonetheless, and it was just the best place to foster those skills to lead.”

The Swansons’ daughter Lily had also helped get Sam and Eli involved in leading music with her in the Children’s Ministry classes on Sunday mornings. The kids love it when youth get up front during music, Kristi says. It’s a great opportunity for teenagers to get experience and learn how to lead others.

Stephen Dougherty, a few years younger than Sam, Eli, and Lily, joined them as a seventh grader, at first leading singing and hand motions with the kids. He remembers how his mom and Erika Long made Sunday School music fun when he was little, plus how much he still looks up to the young men who were his leaders then. It helped him get over the natural teenager hesitation about looking cool up front. “I loved it as a kid, and I know they’re going to love it,” he thought.

Kristi and Erika encouraged Stephen when he started playing guitar with them in Children’s Ministry, continuing after the other teens moved on to other ministries. Stephen admires how the older leaders use music to teach kids truths from Scripture. “Mrs. Long is a second-grade teacher, and the way she’s able to explain and connect with the kids … even though we’re singing these fun songs, she’s still clearly representing the gospel.”

Now 17, Stephen wants to continue serving in Children’s Ministry as long as he can, glorifying the Lord through music. “It’s sweet to get to be part of that … and seeing the next generation come to the Lord.”

“Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples.” (Psalm 96:3)

Sam and Eli are both now in college and leading Doxa music with a few other students. They’ve also led music with other students for Sunday morning services a few times. Neither of them are music majors. In fact, none of the young people interviewed for this article plan to make a career out of music, but they still intend to continue using music to serve the church.

John is encouraged by the gifts and skills he sees God developing in young people at Faith, and he knows many of them will be a blessing beyond Faith. “Healthy churches equip and they send,” he says, pointing to Faith’s long history of equipping and sending pastors and elders to plant and lead other churches. “We could be doing that for folks leading worship as well.”

As hard as it always is to send beloved brothers, sisters, sons and daughters in Christ to serve elsewhere, God also raises up their replacements. “Being an equipping church means you keep generating those kinds of people,” John says.

Whether as a future music pastor or elder or just a church member and worshiper, Sam says, “I want to be able to serve in any capacity that I may be called to … If God is making room in the church or the community for me to serve, I want to be willing and able to step into that role.”

John says, “I’m grateful for all the amazing people that are involved at every level, as well as those who came before us and paved the way. The elders are excited for what is in store as this work continues to bear fruit down the road.”

Lynn Yount

Lynn and her husband, Doug, lead a Growth Group. Lynn serves as a writer and editor for Living Faith magazine and other church communications.

View Resources by Lynn Yount