Why Are We Teaching Kids These Songs???

Whenever I visit my home church while vacationing in the summer, I always get to thinking about my growing up years. I can see that front row, filled with deacons and their huge ears. I can practically smell the hymnals. I can CERTAINLY smell the deacons.

This time around, I was reminded of the songs we used to sing in Sunday School: Jesus Loves Me, He's Got the Whole World in His Hands...

I was fairly shocked, though, when I recalled two particular songs that we used to sing all the time...and that seem to have no significance whatsoever.

Useless song number one: Zacchaeus Was a Wee Little Man

While it has a modicum of redeeming social value because it recounts a biblical story found in Luke 19, there is no moral to the story...no practical application for the young lives who are learning to call attention to a person's lack of height.

And it's not enough to say that Zacchaeus was little. No, no, no. He was a WEE little man! Like, hold up your thumb and forefinger about three inches apart. Teeny, tiny, dude. And that's all the song says about him, except that he climbed a sycamore tree that Jesus told him to get out of so they could all go to Zach's house.

No words of praise. No teaching from Jesus. Nothing but the beginning of a story. Well alrighty then.

Useless song number two: Deep and Wide

This was a big hit when I was little because it had fun motions and not a whole lot of words. But now that I'm a fairly mature adult, I positively don't understand why we ever sang it.

The whole thing is a metaphor...something preschoolers and elementary students aren't particularly well-known for understanding. Great googily-moogily, I know a truckload of adults that can't handle figurative language.

Deep and wide, deep and wide

There's a fountain flowing deep and wide

[And just in case you missed it the first time]

Deep and wide, deep and wide

There's a fountain flowing deep and wide

And then, we increase the uselessness by substituting words with hums!

Hmm and hmm, hmm and hmm

There's a hmm-hmm flowing hmm and hmm...

We were never told what the fountain represents or why it was a good thing that it was deep and wide...or really, now that I think about it, there was no reason for us to assume that this fountain flowing was a good thing at all. Maybe the whole song is meant as a lament.

Deep and wide (Nooooo!), deep and wide (Aaargh!)

Maybe Deep and Wide is what they sang on the ark to pass the time. All I know is, it kept us busy while the teenaged helpers were pouring out little piles of Cheerios® for us.