What "Teaching Our Children" means
Mark Schultz sits in the Christian contemporary tradition that has consistently tried to hold family and faith together without sentimentalizing either. "Teaching Our Children" is a generational song, the kind that rises from a parent or community elder who looks at the next generation and feels the weight of what they carry. The lyric is not primarily about curriculum or Sunday school methodology. It is about the transfer of lived faith, the kind that gets passed down through dinner tables and car rides and bedtime prayers rather than through formal instruction. At 85 BPM the song moves with enough energy to feel purposeful without being urgent. The key of F gives it a warm, mid-range quality that suits its reflective nature. The life-transitions tag is accurate: this is a song for moments when a congregation is marking something generational, a dedication, a graduation, a legacy-building season in the church calendar. It connects to the Deuteronomy 6 tradition of the Shema, the command to teach the next generation diligently and in every context of life, not just in the sanctuary but in the ordinary moments that make up most of existence. That ordinariness is part of the song's texture. It is not a song about formal religious education; it is a song about the thousand small acts of witness that constitute a life handed to the next generation.
What this song does in a room
It activates the latent concern every parent and mentor in the room carries for the generation behind them. That concern is usually quiet and private. This song names it publicly, which gives it somewhere to go. When a room hears a song about handing faith to the next generation, the response is not uniform: some parents feel the weight, some young people feel seen, some older congregants feel the legacy dimension of their own faith in new ways. The multi-directional impact means the song works in intergenerational settings particularly well. It tends to create a reflective quiet even at its most melodically active. People who came in distracted find themselves in the middle of something worth paying attention to because the song names something they care about deeply but rarely say out loud.
What this song is saying about God
God is the source and sustainer of the faith being passed down. The song assumes that what the parents or community carries is not self-generated; it was given to them, and they are stewards of it for the next generation. That stewardship theology is quietly countercultural: it resists the idea that faith is purely personal and private, insisting instead that it is communal and transmitted. The God of this song is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who identifies himself generationally, who keeps covenant across family lines and decades. He is the God who was faithful to your parents and who will be faithful to your children, and the act of teaching is a participation in that faithfulness.
Scriptural backbone
Deuteronomy 6:6-7: "And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." Psalm 78:4: "We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done." Proverbs 22:6: "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." 2 Timothy 1:5: "I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well."
How to use it in a service
Baby dedications, graduation Sundays, and family-focused sermon series are the natural home for this song. It also works in a service where the congregation is naming the church's responsibility to the children and youth in its care. It is a good follow-up to a sermon on legacy or intergenerational faith. Avoid using it in a context where the theme is purely personal devotion; the song needs a communal frame to land with full weight. A misplaced use of this song, in a service with no generational frame, will let it pass through the room without doing what it is capable of doing. The song is a prayer with an address; make sure the service has created the context for that address to be heard.
Things to watch for as the worship leader
This song carries emotional freight for parents and grandparents in the room. Be prepared for a longer-than-expected emotional response. Don't rush the ending. Also be aware that this song can feel exclusionary to people who are not parents or who are estranged from their families of origin. A brief framing word about the broader community of faith as family can open the song to a wider range of people without diluting its core meaning. The church is a community that teaches its children, not just individual families doing that work in isolation. Name that frame and the song becomes bigger than it would be otherwise.
A note for the team behind you (techs, vocalists, band)
The arrangement should feel warm and intimate rather than anthemic. Acoustic guitar and piano are the right instruments here. If you have strings, use them sparingly and keep them underneath rather than out front. The song does not need a wall of sound; it needs the kind of sonic warmth that evokes a living room rather than an arena. Vocalists, blend matters more than projection. A single well-blended harmony line is worth more than three vocalists competing for space. Tech team, keep the vocal in the center of the mix and resist the urge to add effects that make it feel polished beyond recognition. The song's power is in its texture of ordinary faithfulness, and a production that is too clean will sand that texture away. Keep the sound real and the room close.