I am a big fan of music. I do have one criteria when it comes to the music I choose to listen to though – it has to be good. That criteria applies to my kids’ music as well. If they want to listen to bad music when they are by themselves, that’s fine. But, if we’re all going to listen to it together, it has to be good. I love to listen to music of all kinds. I think music plays an important role in our relationship with God, and consequently, I really enjoy praise and worship music. I also think it is important in discipling kids that we teach them how to worship and praise God through music, so I am constantly looking for good kids music to use on Sunday mornings. That was why I was excited when I heard about Seeds Family Worship who make music for kids that adults can enjoy listening to.
God’s Word + Great Music = Seeds Family Worship
I listen to enough praise and worship music that there are numerous passages in scripture that I can’t read without a line from a song popping into my head. In my family, we have routinely used music as part of memorizing scripture as well. When my son was four and five, we used to work on memorizing scripture verses together for his AWANA program, and we would make up simple songs to put the scripture to in order to make them more memorable. So, whether it is music meant for kids or parents, I love and appreciate good songs which include direct quotes from scripture. That’s why, when I first saw a video from Seeds here on Ministry-to-Children, I was compelled to find out more about them. Since then, I have featured a number of their songs on Dad in the Middle. Here is a sample from their YouTube page.
I love how the lyrics of this come directly from scripture. Each song is based on a particular verse (or verses) from the NIV translation of the Bible which are sung to original music. Mind you, there is a significant amount of writing that goes into making the song as well. It is not just someone reading a verse with some background music. The song is actually built around the scripture. Furthermore, the songs are simple enough that they will help kids to memorize scripture and engaging enough to keep parents interested. I can’t tell you how many times my entire family has listened to Seeds while driving somewhere in the van jamming to the song “Crushed” or or singing “Do Not Be Anxious” at the top of our lungs. The music spans a wide spectrum of styles, and you are bound to find numerous songs on each album that you will love.
The idea for Seeds Family Worship was birthed when worship leader Jason Houser was asked to write some songs to help kids at his local church memorize scripture for a summer Bible school program. We all have whoever asked Jason in the first place to thank for some great music that was born out of that original request!
The group has released five albums thus far including:
- Seeds of Courage (Vol. 1)
- Seeds of Faith (Vol. 2)
- Seeds of Praise (Vol. 3)
- Seeds of Purpose (Vol. 4)
- The Power of Encouragement (Vol. 5)
There 6th volume comes out some time later this year and will be titled, Seeds of Character. You can help to speed up the release of the next album by pre-ordering a copy (or copies) of it here. All of the albums are available for download from ITunes, but one advantage of actually buying physical copies of the CDs is the unique packaging. Each package comes with two CDs inside. One CD is for you to keep, and the other is to give away to someone who would benefit from Seeds’ music. They describe their buy one, give one packaging as follows:
We’ve taken inspiration from God’s perfect plan for seeds dispersal and designed packaging intended to facilitate the spreading of Seeds. Each package of Seeds of Courage album includes two identical full-length CDs.
If you are looking for music for your church, music to help your kids memorize scripture, music to help you memorize scripture, or just music that you can site back and enjoy, I encourage you to check out Seeds Family Worship. You won’t be disappointed. I mentioned earlier the number of times I find myself reading the Bible and having songs pop in to my head. What I didn’t mention was how often those songs are from Seeds.
You can even invite the group to come and do a live event for your church.
The people at Seeds Family Worship were kind enough to give me a free copy of the first five volumes when we saw them at the CM Expo last week. Well, actually they gave them to Tony, and he was nice enough to pass them along to me. For the record, that in no way influenced the contents of this review but only solidified my opinion of what great people they are. 🙂
Here are some more of their videos that I’ve posted on my blog. Psalm 55:22 (Seeds Family Worship) | Philippians 4:6-7 (Seeds Family Worship) | 1 Timothy 4:12 (Seeds Family Worship).