Guy Penrod: Parenting by Hymns

Guy Penrod’s nomenclature has earned international recognition thanks to his bestselling southern gospel-country music recordings and powerhouse performances. But when Guy is at home, an expansive farm just south of Nashville, Tennessee, the Grammy winning musician is a busy family man, raising eight kids – seven boys ranging from age twenty to eight, and one girl, Lacey, age six – with his bride of twenty-seven years, Angie.

Working to instill their bustling brood with genuine faith in a post-modern culture, Penrod purports hymns are a viable resource in maturing his home crew, and worldwide audience, in Christian discipleship. “If we aren’t careful theology can be overlooked in an attempt to be relevant,” the down-home singer explains. “Thorough theology is one of the strong points of hymns.”

Revisiting historic songs of the faith in a non-liturgical, country music context on his latest recording, Hymns (Gaither Music Group) affords Penrod a platform to pass along his spiritual heritage through the medium he knows best – music. “I’m a pew baby, raised in the church,” he shares. “I love the church. And hymns are an important part of our history as believers.”

But hymns are more than a corporate expression for Penrod, playing an organic role in the singer’s personal spiritual life as well. “This morning, when Angie had to be away and I have eight children to care for, feed and get down to the schoolhouse to start their studies, I’m asking God for help. And these hymns bubble up.”

Guy hopes to induce the same kind of tip-of-the-tongue hymn influence for his children. “Angie and I try to allow worship music like this Hymns record to be present in our home, books that point to the good things of God, instruments lying around so the kids will play them.”

Reiterating these principles are for him as much as his kids, Penrod continues, “As I ingest the Word of God, as I talk to Him in prayer, as I listen to music in the form of spiritual songs, hymns are an ever-present molding, an infusion in my life. I certainly want to do my part in keeping them front and center, to refresh them musically, so they can stay listened to and sung.”