Indeed, it didn’t even come from her own lips. The nearly 1,200 attendees to the 2010 conference of the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators in late January broke into roaring applause when announcer, Bill Caruso, educator at First Church, Nashville, capped off the list of her contributions to church and community with the words, “To top it off, Amy Grant sometimes teaches Sunday School.”
Following that introduction Grant struck all the right chords in a “musical welcome” to the conferees. The best-selling contemporary Christian musical artist of all time sang about the word being a “lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” and of how she still yearns to have “my Father’s eyes.”
In the process, she granted glimpses of her faith journey through Christian education.
She reflected on growing old, taking mission trips, being raised in a Church of Christ home where “we went to church 52 Sundays a year, even on vacation,” and raising teenage children. She even asked the educators how many had led lock-ins (just about every hand was raised). A collective giggle turned into a roar of laughter when she recounted the query of her former husband, Gary Chapman, “He called me at 3 o’clock in the morning and said, ‘How much hard time do you think I’d get for killing a bunch of fifth grade boys?’”
Most of all she showcased the educational power of music, especially the music of faith.
The power of music in education was a song sung throughout the conference for educators from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Reformed Church in America, Christian Reformed Church in North America, Moravian Church in America, and the Presbyterian Church in Canada.
In the opening worship, Carla Pratt Keyes, pastor of the Ginter Park Church in Richmond, Va., reminded the attendees, “You can say so much with music. It’s more than word and poetry. When you add the music, you say something deep.” Each day of the conference, Keyes expounded on one aspect or another of the power of music.
Conference plenary speaker Michael Lindvall, pastor of Brick Church in New York City, utilized story-telling to dig deep. Quoting Jonathan Sacks, he said, “‘To be without questions is not a sign of faith but a sign of a lack of depth.’’’
Lindvall spoke into the rhythms of Christian education from the perspective of a New Yorker, with its heavily Jewish population. “One of the things I’ve come to value about Judaism is the unerring practice of doing Judaism,” … especially “… all the routine parts of being Jewish that fall day upon day, week upon week, year upon year. Being Jewish is more a matter of what you do than what you believe.”
Sure enough these church educators peddled fast through more than 130 workshops covering topics ranging from “Live Long and Prosper in Youth Ministry” to “Powerful Ministry on a Teeny Tiny Budget,” and from “Soul Care Using the Arts” to “Singing the Psalms with Children and Youth.”
The singing of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs – many featuring jazz harmonies and rock beats, others holding to the more traditional, classical cadences – set the tone for the Music City conference. For as much as these participants spend so much of their time teaching and training others to teach in Sunday School, their Nashville gathering reminded them that they, like Amy Grant, best celebrate and circulate God’s Good news through the music of faith.
