ETHNO-WORSHIP

ETHNO-WORSHIP

last friday, one of my favourite former sunday school teachers came to speak to our fellowship about her mission project and where God’s leading her. she spoke about ethnomusicology (the study of different cultures’ music) and how it related to worship. her role in reaching the nations is to study the music of a culture and use that music to bring people closer to Christ.

one key term she used was heart language. she said that while many people in the world can speak another language (eg. english), the gospel is not real and relevant to them unless it is in their heart language. this applies especially to the Bible. people are not as likely to read the word of God when it isn’t in their heart language. this makes sense, because why would you want to worship a God who doesn’t even speak your own language?

having worship music in a people’s heart language is also important because western worship songs might not relate or might give the wrong impression of God. for example, in a small tribe, a missionary once found the people singing “The Wise Man Built His House Upon A Rock” because it was one of the few songs they knew. the catch was, only one person in the whole tribe had ever SEEN a rock! another example: in certain parts of Africa, the word “fortress” has an evil connotation because they used to kidnap tribes and hold them in fortresses until they could be shipped off as slaves. in this case, you do not want to teach the song “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”

these were just a few things that captured my mind from her talk. i’m just so amazed at how wonderfully diverse God created us to be. one verse she also shared with us was from Isaiah 60. within those verses is an astounding picture of multicultural worship. the most beautiful thing is, each people group brings something different to the Throne.