A Song of Praise: Advent 3 Art Project

Yesterday at our Worship Together service, we focused on the Magnificat.  We learned a song with the words of Mary.  We learned to sign the words.  And then we wrote our own songs of praise.

We used the tune of Jesus Loves Me. It worked so much better than I thought it would. The lyrics were simple and not as specific as my English teacher self would have liked. But it worked well as a group activity. Even people who think of themselves as non-musical could do this.

It was very similar to the Haiku experiment, only with a tune.  Each line needed to have 7 syllables, and ideally to rhyme.  I looked around the room and it seemed that everyone of all ages and linguistic abilities could do this project.  And almost everyone knows the song.  It's good to have a model.

And of course, if you wanted to do something less simple, something with more instruments, that could work too.

Our version didn't take too much time--we were all able to do it in roughly 10 minutes.  It's another experiment that could work well in a variety of settings:  retreat, Confirmation, Sunday School, VBS, worship services of all sorts.  And singing is a great way to internalize the lessons that we want people to remember.