Hymns: A 5-Day Devotional With Tasha Cobbs LeonardSample

The Church I Grew Up In

“…be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 5:18-20 (NIV)

I often find myself walking around the house singing songs from my childhood. Songs that my mother and grandmother sang. Songs that I first learned in church.

The melodies that come to mind are far older than my mother and grandmother. Some of them are hundreds of years old, steeped in tradition, and passed down from generation to generation. Because the truth is, long before I was ever writing and recording Gospel music, many people were doing it before me. I stand on their shoulders today — the shoulders of songwriters who had their faith tested but lived to tell about it through song. Songs of suffering, yes, but also songs of enduring hope.

When fragments of those songs come to my mind, I return to the little white church I grew up in in Georgia. Wooden pews lined with red-covered hymnals. A choir dressed in robes of blue, stained glass in every color of the rainbow, but it was the songs we sang, standing there in our Sunday best, that I remember most vividly.

That small church is where I discovered God loves to hear us sing. It’s where I learned songs about Jesus that can really touch your heart. And it’s where I found my voice.

So now, when I find myself humming lines from songs I should have long-since forgotten, I start thinking about my children. So much of my faith was founded on the faith of my parents. So much of my walk with Jesus was rooted in that tiny church. So much of who I am today rests on the songs I learned to sing before I could even talk in complete sentences.

I want that same kind of faith for my kids — the kind of faith that grows in the oldest of melodies. And that’s why I decided to make a record of hymns.

Through the process of making this album, I realized hymns do three things.

They preserve history.

They help us remember.

And they build the church.