Singing for heart and mind, small and tall

A New Heart: Songs of Faith for Small and Tall.
Bryan Moyer Suderman. SmallTall Music (SmallTallMusic.com), 2009.

Reviewed by Dave Rogalsky

Many have pegged Bryan Moyer Suderman of Markham, Ont., as a children’s performer. But many of the songs on A New Heart, his fourth CD on his SmallTall label, cover themes, use vocabulary and conceptualize in ways that make them adult material.

“Infiltrating the World,” done in a bossa nova style that shows the influence of his time with Amós López, a Cuban Mennonite pastor, at Sounds in the Lands, lulls listeners into “declaring who we follow, pledging our allegiance, enlisting in the cause, of the One who was crucified, infiltrating the world with the love of God. So welcome to the body, the body of the Lord, this ragtag band of misfits.” Not your usual hum-along music.

The CD is full of songs carrying good theology of the church and missions that are for adult participants of the body of Jesus Christ. In “Listen Up People,” Moyer Suderman sings, “Worship and justice go hand in hand.”

He notes that a number of the songs on A New Heart are prophetic, challenging the church to be the people of God in the world. To convey his messages, Moyer Suderman uses many styles.

But songs like “What Do These Stones Mean?”, with its children’s voices, are clearly directed towards children and their parents. The humour of “It Takes All Kinds, with lyrics like, “I can’t really tap with my behind,” will have children giggling and singing along, learning of the giftedness of each person in the church.

This is truly a CD of “?‘songs of faith for small and tall’ . . . songs for the church . . . which is an intergenerational community.” Moyer Suderman writes.

This strength might also be a weakness, limiting the range of Moyer Suderman’s audience. Perhaps it’s time for him to produce a CD for “small” and another for “tall.”

Dave Rogalsky is the Eastern Canada correspondent for Canadian Mennonite.