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Edgar Moyana Christian Entertainment
How often do our gospel artistes these days compose songs or whole albums entirely dedicated to young children? These are the same kids who are constantly bombarded by secular entertainment. Many a times, our gospel artistes are blind to the spiritual needs of young children as they mainly produce albums or songs meant only for mature audiences.

African-American song writer, James Weldon Johnson who wrote lyrics to children’s song titled “Dem Dry Bones”, is a good example of a musician preparing something for young listeners. .

The song, adapted from a bible story in Ezekiel 37:1-14, talks about the creative power of God as shown in His ability to breathe life into hopeless situations.

In the story, the prophet Ezekiel was carried by God’s spirit into a valley which had been a battle ground, and was full of dry human bones.
Upon seeing the bones, God commanded him to speak to the bones commanding them to listen and obey His instruction to live again so that they would know that He was God.

As the story continues, in verse 7 the bible says a loud noise came about with shaking of the ground and the dry bones which had been disjointed and heaped in different places in the valley began to find each together and flesh covering over them.

The last part of the miracle was that God gave a second command instructing His prophet to prophesy to the wind commanding that it to blow over the lifeless bodies so that they could live as human beings again, verse 9.

The result was that wind or rather breath of life giving air blew over the lifeless bodies and the valley  upon which Ezekiel stood, which was once littered with dry human bones, became populated by a huge army of people of Israel who had once been killed in war.

Now, Johnson in his song “Dem Dry Bones” applied his creativity in capturing the full picture of events in the valley.

His lyrics capture the sound of movement in the valley, together with the wind blowing as Ezekiel spoke words of prophesy to the lifeless dry bones.

As one sings along to the song, one can even visualize the prophet as he watched in wonder, while God put to display His amazing power of creation.

The lyrics to the song read as follows:

“Ezekiel connected them, dry bones, Ezekiel connected them dry bones, Ezekiel connected them dry bones, I hear the word of the Lord.

“Your toe bone connected to your foot bone, Your foot bone connected to your ankle bone, Your ankle bone connected to your leg bone, Your leg bone connected to your knee bone, Your knee bone connected to your thigh bone, Your thigh bone connected to your hip bone…”

The song is so beautiful in that even adults can appreciate and enjoy its sound or tune. It’s a song that teaches the all important biblical subject that says the dead shall rise to live again at the end of time.

Children are trained, through songs such as these to appreciate the power of God who alone wields control over life and death.

This song is also very good in as far as it trains children to identify different parts of the human body and understand how they are inter-connected.

Such lessons have the ability to prepare children to grow up with a complete appreciation of the uniqueness and sophisticated nature of the human body.

Such knowledge and understanding makes it possible for kids to see God differently as their creator and as one who cares and looks after them during their lifetime or when they die at a later stage in their lives.

Now the song “Dem Dry Bones” is an example of how songs can be used by artistes or song writers to impact young children’s lives by training them to understand God and grow in His favour.

Our artistes today must therefore take advantage of songs and music to groom young lives, which are still vulnerable to influences of evil by composing songs and music that appeal to the young mind.

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