Worship Teams
Writing Songs & Books for Kids w/ Ellie Holcomb
Ellie Holcomb joined Matt McCoy to discuss her upcoming album and book! They also discuss the children’s music and books she’s written, and tips for songwriting.
Singing Scripture
Matt: You’re releasing a new book and album All of My Days in April. Tell us about it!
Ellie: On Fridays on Instagram because there’s so much noise, I started sharing scripture that brought me peace and joy. I was inviting people to hold onto truth and I realized it really helps to sing it. I started trying to sing scripture to help my kids memorize scripture because it was so helpful for them. It’s hard though. So I decided to write a song. So we’re singing scripture and more than anything ever on Instagram in the comments people said please put these on a record. It’s been a really sweet thing to get to do that.
The devotional, Fighting Words, is really just an invitation to bring your heart into God’s word and the presence of God and look at what will happen. It’s 100 days of speaking light into the darkness. All of the Psalms in the devotional, will be in the EP All of My Days. What I hope most of all, is for people to burry light and hope in their hearts. So they don’t even have to have a Bible when the darkness comes, it’s just recall.
Writing Songs and Books for Kids
Matt: Why and when did you get into writing songs and books for kids?
Ellie: I was just a momma. My first book is called “You Sang the First Song”. I love how curious kids are and I think sometimes we lose that when we grow up. Kids are so unashamed to ask questions. My little girl at four years old came in the kitchen and asked “Mom who sang the first song?” and then moved on. The question halted me in my tracks and I didn’t know the answer or how I wanted to answer. So I asked her who she thought. She shrugged her shoulders and said “Dolly Parton?” So after that question I sat down and wrote my first book.
Matt: So you wrote the book first before the songs?
Ellie: Yeah I wrote the book first, and then I was driving around in my mini van running errands and the song of the book came to me, so I pulled over and wrote it. The whole thing is we’re all made to sing. Then after I wrote the song for that book, I wrote an EP to help little hearts carry around big truths.
Teaching your kids about God:
Matt: Do you have any practices you do with your kids to teach them about God?
Ellie: There’s definitely seasonal things that we do. Every advent we read from the beginning of the Jesus Storybook Bible through the birth of Jesus. That’s been really pivotal in my kids accepting Jesus into their hearts. We also sing scripture a lot. One of the songs, Ephesians 4:32, I have a song for that and it’s a part of the repair that we practice. The repentance and forgiveness we practice as a family. It sounds more formal than it is, but it is when we’re hurting each other, if it’s tense with siblings, we’ll circle up and sing that song. We also have fruit of the Spirit beads to call and look out for goodness, and the ways that God is growing kindness, patience, peace, in our hearts. I’m trying to teach them to call that out in each other. Those are some of the things that we do.
Click the video below for the full interview!
Be sure to check out Ellie Holcomb’s music and children’s books, including her upcoming album All of My Days releasing on April 12.
