Kelsey Kramer McGinnis argues in “The Best Hymns Are a Chapel and a Classroom – Christianity Today” that the hymn “There Is a Redeemer” has served as both a sanctuary and a teaching space in her household, using the song as a concrete example of what a great hymn can do.
McGinnis writes that the piece appears in Christianity Today’s November/December 2026 issue and that the hymn, written in 1977 by Melody Green and popularized by her husband Keith Green, became the author’s family bedtime song and a prompt for early theological conversations.
The article opens with an interview anecdote: while reporting on a different hymn anniversary, McGinnis asked worship artist Matt Redman why certain songs endure. She records Redman’s reply: “The best songs are both a chapel and a classroom.”
“The best songs are both a chapel and a classroom,”
Matt Redman, quoted in Christianity Today
McGinnis says she has sung “There Is a Redeemer” to her children at bedtime and that its lyrics sparked their first questions about the Crucifixion and the Trinity, turning a domestic ritual into theological instruction.
The essay frames hymns not only as corporate worship tools but as texts that form faith at home, a theme McGinnis develops across the piece and that she returns to when describing songs that combine doctrinal clarity with comforting melodies.
Readers interested in the author’s other work will find the piece listed on Kelsey Kramer McGinnis’s Christianity Today author page, which groups her reporting on worship music, contemporary Christian music, and related cultural threads.
Sources
- Christianity Today — the article “The Best Hymns Are a Chapel and a Classroom,” published in the November/December 2026 issue, including Redman’s quote and McGinnis’s family example
- Christianity Today — Kelsey Kramer McGinnis author page, listing the essay among her recent pieces
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