Three years ago, Todd Syswerda, professor of music composition, songwriting and music technology, was driving back from the Gulf Coast with his family. During this drive, he would get an idea for a project bigger than anything he had done before, and one he wouldn’t stop thinking about for years to come.
It all started when his daughter asked if they could listen to the “Lion King” soundtrack in the car.
“I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ So we listen, and eight Disney albums later, we’re all singing along,” Syswerda said.
This impromptu singalong caused him to ask, what music is there in the Christian realm that has the same effect on people? What Christian albums tell such a story and appeal to such a wide audience?
That is when the floodgate of ideas opened: What if there was music to teach children the story of the Bible? What if the songs did so in a digestible way for young minds while remaining rich in theology? What if there were animated music videos to bring these stories to life?
Out of these swirling thoughts emerged the idea to tell the whole story of the Bible through a series of songs and animations.
Syswerda reached out to pastors and Taylor faculty for advice on how to approach the theological aspects of the project. He started watching short-form animation videos in his free time.
Considering the technical aspects, Syswerda narrowed his idea down to a roughly four-year project, broken up into four sections. Each section will consist of 15 songs and will convey a specific portion of the Bible story. The project’s target audience is 2-10 year olds.
The dream doesn’t stop there, though.
After the initial four years are up and they have told the whole Bible story via these songs and animations, Syswerda said he would love to go deeper with specific people and stories. He imagines going back and breaking down Israel’s time in the wilderness in more depth, or exploring more of Abraham’s backstory.
Furthermore, what if the animated videos could be translated into different languages one day? What about creating videos that explain the Scripture the songs are based on?
It became apparent to Syswerda just how boundless the project could be.
“I can’t tell you how many times already I’ve prayed, ‘God, this is so much bigger than me. I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to take the steps. I don’t know how to do what’s next. I can’t do what’s next. I’m not an animator,’” he said. “So I’m like, ‘Okay, let’s just focus on the music for now. Let’s get that done.’ So that’s what we did. I mean, we kind of created the bones of the songs for the first 15 moments.”
These 15 “moments” are the events and stories of people occurring from Creation through Jericho. To help him tackle this first section of the project, Syswerda recruited three Taylor students via Taylor’s faculty mentored undergraduate scholarship research grant.
Enter: senior Lua Bleah and juniors Alex Doherty and Hunter Smith.
Syswerda formally invited them to collaborate on the project last fall semester, and they began work this past summer. They spent eight weeks writing songs, Syswerda said.
“It was an everyday thing if we could,” Smith said. “(We worked) mainly in the mornings, and most of the time was split up. So Doc (Syswerda) would meet with each of us individually, and then towards the end of the summer we started kind of mixing up depending on what song we were wanting to work on.”
Collaboration on the project brought to light each of the students’ strengths. Doherty and Smith noted Bleah’s perfect pitch and ability to come up with harmonies on the spot. Bleah recognized Smith’s gift for storytelling, in addition to his ability to adapt and try new things. Smith and Bleah both commented on Doherty’s unique approach to words as a creative writing major, noting how that benefitted the songwriting process. Additionally, they all pointed to Syswerda’s vision and leadership throughout the process.
Despite these giftings, each participant in the project clarified that the project was not being initiated or sustained by human ability.
“I very firmly believe that anything I wrote over the summer was God’s writing. It was not me,” Smith said.
Each day, the team made “leaps and bounds,” progressing at an abnormal rate, they said. By the end of the summer, they had written the 15 songs for the first quarter of the project.
Looking back on the experience, Bleah noted how transformative it was.
“The process was very very spiritual,” he said, “as it was musical and lyrical and structural. That was unique.”
As each of them meditated on Scripture to then convey it through lyrics, they were all given a fresh perspective on the Bible and its message, they said.
Since the target audience is children, the team had to approach conveying the contents of the Bible with this in mind. This was a stark contrast to Doherty’s creative writing background where she said people are constantly saying that writing should be more complex and hard to decode.
“As a creative writing major, everything is about making it as deep as possible and thinking deeper: ‘No, deeper — and now make it deeper, and make it more like a puzzle that your reader has to figure out and can really dive into,’” she said. “I’m always being told, ‘Be more philosophical’ ... So Doc (Syswerda) was always challenging me: ‘Simplify it, simplify it, simplify it.’”
Through this, she realized God’s promises, His character and His commands, are actually very simple.
Syswerda, Bleah, Doherty and Smith were all very determined to keep the focus on God throughout the project.
Syswerda remembers a moment in Summer 2025 when he was driving and sensed God ask him, “Hey, if this project goes forward and your name’s not on it, are you okay with that?”
Syswerda had to grapple with this question and be honest with himself. Ultimately, he kept returning to the conclusion that this project is bigger and more important than himself.
Syswerda views himself as simply a participant in something God is doing.
Syswerda has big aspirations for the future of the project — the songs, the animations, the future videos. Right now, he does not know what people or what funds are going to come along to help carry out the scale of it, but he is trusting in God to carry out another Red Sea moment:
“I really believe God’s already moving hearts somewhere,” he said. “ ... I think somehow I’m going to connect with these people, and they’re going to be like, ‘This is the thing I’ve been praying about,’ you know? It’s a Red Sea moment. It’s like, I don’t know what to do, and God’s gonna kind of come in and be like, ‘ta-da.’”
