I am loving the following Bible chants for teaching basic biblical-theological structures to kids (all of you adults know the sacrifices of Leviticus, right?):

Ox, Lion, Eagle, Man

Priest, King, Prophet, Man

Moses is an ox; David is a lion; prophets are eagles; Jesus is da man (for little kids, this is best done with hand motions – horns for ox, claws and a growl for lion, wings for eagle, erect posture for man)

When God first made the world, it was formless and void, and through the week of creation, God shaped and filled it.  We chant this basic creation structure:

Formless, Empty, Dark (best chanted quietly with the lights off)

God lights and shapes and fills (flick the lights on when you start this, and start shouting)

At the end of the creation week, God has built His house.  Vertically, it has three stories:

Heaven, Earth, and Sea

On earth, there are also three zones, each of which corresponds to a particular human activity and in each of which we encounter a particular person or type of person:

Garden, Land, & World

Worship, Work, & Witness

Father (God), Brother, Stranger

These can be put together as follows:

Garden is for worship; land is for work; world is for witness

And these three zones also correspond to the three offices of Christ:

Priests keep the garden; Kings rule the land; prophets witness in the world

Read the whole first set here.

Ascension, tribute, peace (a grunt here punctuates the chant nicely) purification, trespass (these work best in the chant if the vowel in “tres” is lengthened)

Each offering has a distinctive rite or purpose.  The entire ascension offering is burned (apart from the skin); the tribute offering is not animal but grain; the peace offering is the one offering that the worshiper eats; the purification rite emphasizes the spreading of blood; and the trespass offering is for “robbing God” or sacrilege, so it involves compensation to God.  These can be summarized in the following Levitical “catechism”:

What is the ascension offering? The whole ascension offering is burned (pronounce “offering” as “off’ring)

What is the tribute offering? The tribute offering is made of grain (slight pause after off’ring)

What is the peace offering? The peace offering is what you eat (slight pause after “peace” and “off’ring”)

What is the purification offering? Purification is done with blood (slight pause after “purification”)

What is the trespass offering? The trespass offering pays God back (slight pause after off’ring)

The second set are here.

Update: Part 3, Part 4