Every year, I take some time off work to attend the two-day Northwest Christian Musician Summit.
Over the years, my goals and expectations of the conference have changed. What started as a way to learn some instrument tips and tricks turned into learning more about Audio/Visual technology and more recently, a focus on worship leadership.

This year, Brian Doerksen, writer of many well-known songs from my youth (such as “Refiner’s Fire” or “Faithful One”) was one of the contributors and gave the last teaching session.

He spoke about the importance of music in our lives and how “What we sing, we remember.” I’ve seen the truth of this firsthand with my own two children, who surprised me by memorizing the books of the Bible through Awana songs when they attended that ministry. The tunes weren’t particularly special (as I recall), but the songs served their purpose. Thank you Awana volunteers!
For those of you who grew up in church, if I were to hum, “Jesus loves me, this I know…”, you’d probably be able to sing the rest of the sentence, if not the rest of the song, with very little effort.

Brian likened singing songs to filling a backup hard drive in our minds. Much later in life, we’re able to recollect those songs. And when we suffer, we have a treasure trove we can turn to.

He referenced the 2014 documentary “Alive Inside” (now free on YouTube), which tells the stories of several people with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Although they’ve lost the ability to communicate with their families or even remember who they are, they can still sing and dance to the songs of their youth. Listening to familiar music had an almost instantaneous ability to modify the behavior and alertness of the documentary subjects. There is something about music that impacts us in a special way.

Sadly, many amazing sermons from the pulpit don’t stick with us as long as they should… but songs do.
If you participate in the worship music ministry – whether writing songs, playing instruments, singing, making audio audible in the room or online, know that you are contributing to people’s God-given backup hard drives in their minds, and your service has a longer-lasting impact than you might imagine. Thank you.

What are you filling the backup hard drive of *your* mind with? Hopefully with songs of joy and hope, with lyrics that remind you of God’s love and goodness that will encourage you long after you’ve forgotten you ever laid eyes on this reflection.