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Trying to think of some missionary-themed hymns to sing? Give the ones in this post a try!
Our family has been memorizing a hymn a month for nearly a decade. At the beginning of each school year, we sit down together and plan which ones we will learn. Then we work on one hymn each month, trying to commit it to memory.
Over the years, there have been some repeats. For example, songs we first learned eight or nine years ago have been sung again more recently, so our younger kids can also learn them. If you want to see some of the other hymns we’ve memorized over the years, you can find several posts with them here.
12 Missionary-Themed Hymns
Now that you know more about how we learn hymns, here are some missionary-themed hymns you can work on. We’ll be memorizing several of these this year!
- Send the Light by Charles Gabriel
- Rescue the Perishing by Fanny Crosby
- Christ Receiveth Sinful Men by Erdmann Neumeister
- Jesus Saves! by Priscilla Owens
- I Love to Tell the Story by A. Catherine Hankey
- Around the Corner, Around the World by Ron Hamilton
- Bring Them In by Alexcenah Thomas
- All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name by Edward Perronet
- Little Is Much When God Is In It by Kittie L. Suffield
- Onward Christian Soldiers by Sabine Baring-Gould
- Bringing in the Sheaves by Knowles Shaw and George Minor
- Go, Tell It On The Mountain adapted by John W. Work (a great missionary-themed hymn for Christmas time!)
How We Memorize Hymns With Kids
Over the years, we’ve learned a few tricks for memorizing hymns with kids. Here are a few of the things we do.
Get Hymn Books For Home
We have a variety of hymnals at our house! When we first started picking hymns to memorize, we bought a couple of the ones our sending church used. In the first few years, we picked one song from each section of the hymnal to memorize. That way, the kids who couldn’t read yet could participate more easily in the congregational singing.
We’ve added to our collection over the years. The yard sale here at Missionary Acres almost always has some old hymnals. And we’ve found others at thrift shops or on Amazon.
It’s always fun to compare the lyrics between different hymnals. For example, one of ours has five verses to the hymn, I Stand Amazed, while most of the others we own only have four. In some other hymns, we’ve also found a few word changes.
Take It One Line at a Time
The first week of the month, we only sing the first verse and the chorus. This keeps it from being too overwhelming, especially for the little ones.
Then we add the second verse, and so on. The pattern of one line a week works well for many songs. If it has more verses, we simply cut the time to add a new one by a few days, to sort of squish two into a shorter time period.
And if it’s shorter, we just get more practice singing the whole thing!
Add Music
Music isn’t a gift that most of our family has. So to help keep us in tune, we’ve learned it’s best to memorize the hymn while listening to the music. When Jayme was still home, she played for us on the recorder. Now that she’s in college, we typically pull up an instrumental version on YouTube to have the tune to accompany us.
If we can’t find an instrumental version, Bryan scans the hymn with his phone and uses an app to turn it into a piano playing. That’s been very helpful!
Pick Songs With Choruses
Choruses help everyone quickly learn at least part of the song. Our young kids typically pick up the chorus throughout the month, even if they don’t completely learn the hymn.
While not all of the songs above have a chorus, many do.
Be Consistent
If we don’t sing the song, no one learns it. So, we try to sing the hymn of the month at least once a day. Ideally, we’ll do it twice – once in the morning and once at night – but sometimes life gets busy and the evening doesn’t happen.
To help us learn the song, sometimes we even sing in the car! This has gotten more challenging as our vehicles have gotten larger, as it’s much harder to hear each other. But we still try!
Missionary-Themed Hymns
No matter how often you sing them, the missionary-themed hymns above are great for encouraging people to tell others about Jesus!
So whether you’re looking for a few hymns to sing during your church’s mission conference, or trying to memorize them with your family, try them!