The very best part of sharing time, for me, is when we sing the primary songs. The day came in my life when I was called to be the Primary Chorister – now, here’s the cool part. When I lead music my hand tends to stutter, meaning I lose the count and then my hand stutters in trying to get back to where I’m supposed to be. Did you know that little kids just don’t care about that? How cool is that?
Let me tell you how I went about getting the children to learn songs I didn’t have time to teach them. You know those great old songs from the Primaries of yesteryear. Songs like “Jesus Once Was a Little Child,” “Tell Me the Stories of Jesus,” “I Think When I Read That Sweet Story of Old,” or even “Primary Colors.” Those were great songs, but with the way they have Sharing Time structured these days there is no time to teach the old songs, because the children are too busy learning the new. So I devised a plan to get the little darlings to show some initiative.
At the beginning of the month, during singing time, we would sing one of the old songs, once. Then I would tell the children that if they would go home, work with their parents, and learn the song in its entirety before the end of the month I’d give them a reward. They had to come into the Primary room at the end of church on the last Sunday of the month and sing the song to me. If they did that, I would bake each one of them a cake. The first month I ended up making over eighty cakes as child after child came and sang the chosen song to me. Yes, I was busy. Yes, I don’t care if I never see another teddy bear cake again. However, the joy that filled my heart as the children learned song after song, month after month, was tremendous.
I did bribe them. I don’t care. They can all sing those songs to this very day.