Yesterday I mentioned about how Trae blocked out Sunday's night powerful thunder by turning on her Kingdom Kidz CD. I couldn't remember the website address for the Kingdom Kidz Club yesterday, but here it is if you are interested in Kim Norton's ministry as a tool for your children to "learn God's Word one song at a time."

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While the wives were playing bunco last night, my Associate Minister and his girls came over to play (the girls) and watch the Rangers game (the dads). We were talking about the Kingdom Kidz approach to helping church learn.

Allan asked me, "How many hymns do you know from memory?" Having been in church all my life, I'm guessing I probably know the words to about 500 or 600 hymns. My preference in worship is to sing without a songbook, allowing my mind to truly hone in on the words of the song rather than focusing my eye intently on the notes and music of the song.

But Allan's next question was the one that gave me pause: "How many of those hymns did you intend to memorize?" The answer: None. It was through the repetition of singing those hymns that the words became emblazoned on my memory. Frankly, I can't remember ever sitting down and expressly memorizing the words to a hymn, yet there is an entire songbook programmed into my brain from years and years of singing.

What we sing and what we listen to is incredibly powerful. The words we download into our brains through songs and hymns have the strong effect of forming and transforming our thoughts and intentions.

And that is why I endorse Kim Norton's Kingdom Kidz CD. Through her songs, she is impressing on the mind of my girls things that are "true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy" (Philippians 4.8).

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The majority of Biblical scholarship is virtually unanimous regarding the words of Philippians 2.6-11. The belief is that these words, quoted by the apostle Paul, are actually the words to a first century Christian hymn. It is neat to note that even the inspired writers of Scripture realized the power of hymns and used those familiar, powerful words to draw the minds of the reader back to the story that shapes us.

In God's Holy Fire: The Nature and Function of Scripture, James Thompson says, "If these words (Philippians 2.6-11), with their beautiful rhythm, are actually a hymn, as most scholars believe, Paul is probably quoting words that his readers know, appealing to their memory of the story of Jesus. He knows that the people will never be brought together in harmony unless their minds are united by a common story of the one who emptied himself. The human desire to have one's own way destroys many communities, but the Christian community tells a story that unites the people in respecting the desires of others" (78).