Before placing his hands on the keyboard, Ken Medema turned to the audience in the Nationwide Arena; they had just finished singing “How Can I Keep From Singing.”

“So I had this thought,” he said. “How cool would it be if the thousands of us singing here would walk into the 4th of July celebration singing ‘How Can I Keep From Singing?’”

Not only could Mennonites at the 6:45 p.m. hymn sing not keep from singing; they also could not keep from standing up.

For added effect to a song, Byron Kaufman, the song leader for the evening, divided the arena into two parts for the singing of No. 280, “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today,” and created a call and response. By the end of the song, the audience was standing when they were singing and sitting down when they weren’t.

During the hymn sing, a special guest, Ted & Co., performed a skit, followed by more singing, and then a song by Medema.

“The deal is,” said Medema before the song, “you always sing better when you stand up.” He had the audience stand as they sang “rise up.”

To conclude the hymn sing, Kaufman led singers in No. 118, “in which,” he added before starting the song, “there are places where it is OK to sing quietly.”

The dynamic song was followed by the performance of “The Upside-Down King.”