Growing up in a Christian environment has significantly shaped my hobby in music as well. I involve a lot of emotion when listening to, as well as when playing music. Although a lot of modern Christian songs are musically on the simpler side, they have the power to generate an immense atmosphere of emotion when played right. If truth be told, half of the reason I listen to some Christian music is not for the devotion through lyrics, but for the expressiveness people can have when playing it.
This specific Sunday school song, Walking with Jesus, is a childhood song of mine. It has a really simple melody with very simple 1, 4, and 5 chords for the harmony. Generally, the simple a song is by default, the more fun it is to play around with without essentially completely rewriting it.
Since the only thing that stays the same in this arrangement is the melody, that's what I started with. You might notice it has a different rhythm — that's because I was following the Indonesian lyrics instead of the English ones.
// melody
The next thing I went for are the rhythms for the melody. In my opinion, having a rhythm decided before anything else helps with developing the rest of the music; everything else builds on and follows the rhythm.
// rhythm
// what it sounds like so far (melody + rhythm)
What this needs next are some chords, but chords aren't just when and where on the piano that notes are played, even in this simple arrangement. It also has its own rhythm, a rhythm that has to build on the actual rhythm section of the music. I see the exact same thing being done in an actual band setting too — each musician closely follows and adapts to one another.
// chords
// what it sounds like so far (melody + rhythm + chords)
Creating a line for the bass to play is my favorite part; it's because while it's true that at this point there are relatively a lot of rhythm and feel to follow, you still have almost all the freedom in the world to go crazy with the bass. This is the same reason for my decision and avidity in becoming the bassist in my high school band. And with the bass line in, this becomes a pretty solid fundamental arrangement.
// bass
// final result