A forum featuring Ken Reynolds, Gail Song Bantum, Nikki Lerner, Jeff McCourt, Stefanie Kelly.

A close friend once told me a long time ago, that in order to do multi-cultural, multi-ethnic church ministry; you have to be called to it.  I didn’t understand what he meant at the time.  But now I understand.  Being involved in ministry is rewarding and challenging at the same time.  And once you accept the call to multi-cultural ministry, it gets even more ‘fun’.

The issues facing worship leaders are:

Feeling the need to ‘please’ everyone from the Pastor to the occasional visitor.

It’s impossible to please everyone.  As a worship leader myself, I have to put the needs of the congregation before my needs.  That can be difficult.  Especially when we’re the ones selecting the music.  The first thing to do is get a clear understanding of the Pastor’s vision.  Then discuss the type of atmosphere you can achieve in the services.  Then discuss the style of music would best achieve that goal.  If you do it in that order, you’ll have a better chance at success.

Deciding how or when to adjust or change the music style of your services.

There’s always compromise involved.  When trying to move in a different musical direction, there are ways to do it successfully.  Make sure to share the vision with your worship team, be willing to weather any storms, and be prepared to go the distance.  Move slowly by adding one, no more than two songs of a different style into the services at a time.  If it’s a style you’re not strong in, find someone who is.  The goal is to do it well.

Working at including people of diverse races and cultures on the worship team.

When the platform is filled with people of different races, barriers are broken.  The church automatically becomes more inviting to visitors from different backgrounds because they see people involved who look like they do.  Sometimes, you have to be intentional in recruiting, but it pays off in the end.

These are just a few of the challenges worship leaders face.  But as long as the Pastor and worship leader are unified in vision, the church can move forward without looking back.

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In reflecting upon the hope, possibility, and challenges of multi-cultural worship, we must be mindful of the ways any particular visions of faithfulness can limit our own necessary transformation. In my ministry experiences within multi-cultural settings, I have found that the three foremost issues many worship leaders/pastors are confronted with are the notions of preference, purity and participation.

Our preferences in life be it friends, food, careers and so on, are the driving force behind many of the decisions we make, often making difficult our ability to exist inside of or fathom a reality apart from our own desires. We prefer what we know and what satisfies our needs and we often try to determine how those needs ought to be met. So it is with our worship. To receive the proclamation of the gospel from a preacher with a heavy accent, to offer a song of praise in a language we do not fully understand or can even articulate forces us to struggle and be vulnerable.

Closely woven inside of preference is an underlying notion of purity, which is often in tension with multi-anything. What is pure? What is authentic? Who is pure? Why must something remain in order to retain its pure form? Why can’t the hymns have drums? Why should the only African-American sister in our choir have to sing the gospel solo? Notions of purity keep us at the buffet line with many choices and options, options we determine for ourselves and for the other. However, worship exemplifies a being bound to God such that there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female (Galatians 3). Worship is a life of gift and reception. In this way, ideas/people/practices that we deem pure, if truly engaged with others, cannot remain without the possibility of transformation.

If multi-cultural worship is akin to a banquet with God and God’s people, it is a partaking that must be about more than appreciation. Worship must be about participation. Worship as participation presses us to engage in concrete and honest ways in order that we may participate in God’s life and grace and in the lives of one another. To appreciate is to eat and consume but to participate is to taste and savor with the possibilities of being transformed in its taking. Christ did not die in order that we appreciate what Christ did on our behalf. Rather, Christ died in order that we may participate in the salvific and redemptive life offered through Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Such a life does not exist in isolation but in community. Do we as a church choose to be bound to one another, those that we may not identify with, folks that are seemingly “different” than us? Or do we remain consumers of comfort and familiarity in fear of our own transformation? The Christian life is to be continually transformed by the Holy Spirit into the image of our Creator through our participation with those around us. This is worship.

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Leading the music ministry at a multicultural church is the best job I’ve ever had, and I cannot imagine doing anything else.  However, while there are advantages to doing multicultural ministry, there are certainly challenges. Viewing our worship ministry through the lens of diversity has helped us find creative solutions to these challenges.

Humility

People like what they like, particularly when it comes to music.  In a multicultural worship ministry, we must be careful not to hold one musical culture in higher regard than another.  It’s crucial to remember the Apostle Paul’s words- Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.  We approach musical worship with open hands, being willing to give up our personal preferences for the sake of the corporate worship environment.

Human Resources

What we see onstage can be more important than what we hear. How can we communicate that our ministry is diverse without a diverse group of people? At our church, if it looks like we’ll be racially unbalanced onstage, we’ll find creative ways to get more diverse church congregants involved.  We may add a Scripture reading, or add someone to the worship team.  We may even add a video containing diverse peoples.  There are options available to obtain diversity in Sunday services.

“The How” – Structural Decisions

When we crafted an audition process, we learned that different cultures would react to the idea of auditions in a variety of ways.  After thoughtful consideration of all cultures, our auditions consisted of both a structured skill-assessment portion and a one-on-one “interview” portion to personally connect with those auditioning.  The structured nature of the audition helps some of our congregation feel comfortable with the process, while the relational nature of how we audition speaks to the body as a whole.

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Our church is on a journey. Once a suburban, mostly white, upper middle-class mega-church, we’ve found ourselves in the middle of a rapidly changing community. The city is coming to us.

But God has clearly led us to stay at our present campus and by His grace, is emboldening us to pursue significant changes. In our worship gatherings, that means we’re beginning to speak other musical languages and embrace other worship cultures. There are challenges that come with this journey. Here are my top three:

Be Patient! This includes being patient with people in the church who may not understand (“We’re singing songs in Spanish but there aren’t any Hispanics here!”). And it includes waiting on the Lord – in our case, letting Him orchestrate the increase of more ethnic families to the congregation and more non-white musicians to create a new “face” of worship.

Keep the Vision Fresh. A year into this intentional re-direct, one of our drummers told me, “I’ve never really heard anyone articulate just what it is that we’re trying to do with these different musical styles.” This was motivation for me to keep talking about the “Why’s” of multi-ethnic worship. And not just the demographic “Why’s.” Ultimately, the Biblical “Why’s” are the most important.

Keep it About God’s Glory. Worship is pre-eminently about God and the Gospel. Anything else that can happen with worship music must be subservient to that – including pursuing different musical languages. It’s tempting to think that I’ve really done something because I’ve implemented some technique or planned a trans-cultural worship service or introduced a song in Tagalog. In reality, I haven’t done anything until people see “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

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Everyday I thank the Lord (and pinch myself) that He has allowed me to serve for over three years in San Diego at the multigenerational church known as “the Rock”. Time and again, as I look into faces of our worshipping congregation, I am witness to the stunning craftsmanship of a Designer who paints with perfect precision, utilizes each hue of the rainbow, and ultimately creates a masterpiece of both diversity and unity.  How He imagines and delivers unforgettable art at every gathering absolutely amazes me…but then again He is God with a capital “G”.

With the beauty of a diverse congregation, however, comes a few bumps in the road…definitely not mountains, but certainly challenges.

Challenge #1

Everyone has a voice.  Since we are all created differently, we have a unique opinion and in this case, a musical preference.  Some are reached by Rock, others by Hip Hop.  For one, it is Latin-jazz that inspires, and for another the sounds of Gospel. As a worship leader, it is difficult to satisfy many musical preferences, but ultimately we must respect all while listening for the Lord’s final direction.  Our hope is that everyone has a voice, and we so benefit from the collaboration of all perspectives.

Challenge#2

Everyone has a story. Since we all have past experiences that are personal to us individually, we likely have a different worship expectation.  The great hymns of our faith are the catalyst to meaningful worship for one, but the person sitting next to them hopes to shout in praise with the contemporary song.   Some expect to see a band and dim lights, while others long for a choir (question is: an SAT, or an SATB!)?  Our hope is that everyone has a story, and just like the Word of God, chapters written by various authors makes for an exciting adventure!

Challenge # 3

Everyone has a gift.  Some are teachers, others prophets, some are administrators, but not everyone is musical. As worship leaders we may need to guide music aficionados who may not be musically skilled (Psalm 33:3) into their appropriate areas of service.  What makes this difficult is that in multiethnic congregations, there may be language barriers that can hinder communication.  When speaking these truths, it is critical that we do this in love just as Jesus commanded.  Our hope is that everyone has a gift, and the multi-cultural body of Christ working together makes for a new song that incorporates not only the voice, but the hands, feet, fingers, toes – and what a spectacular dance!

As we seek first His Kingdom, with Christ diversity does not equal segregation. The Lord has a genius way of weaving our tapestries together in oneness as His “band of believers”.  Harmony within distinction is not only possible; it is no problem for our God with a capital “G”!