If you are involved in leading praise and worship in a non-Westernized society, you may be faced with the question of whether you should modify your worship style to suit your culture. Most styles of leading worship are heavily influenced by the church in developed nations, and if you’re in an emerging nation, it’s important that you don’t just play what you hear on worship CDs, but start leading worship instead. within their own culture.
Leading Praise and Worship is about the Lord
Contrary to what you may believe, leading in a developing nation is not about westernizing your church! It is true that there are many wonderful worship songs that have been beautifully produced by the Western Church, and it is tempting to play and sing the songs exactly the same way you hear them on recordings, but I don’t think this is what it should be. made.
Leading worship in church is about pointing people to the Lord, and I believe the Lord wants to meet people where they are and in their own culture to impact their lives. If we continue to use music as an excuse to introduce Western culture, and we are conveying to people that the Lord commanded us to worship exclusively, in the manner of developed nations. If you are a praise and worship leader, this is your chance to show people that God is relevant to them in their culture.
Leading Praise and Worship is About the People
As I write this article I am sitting in a room in North East India where these beautiful Indians are singing songs that I recognize but in their own language. Some songs are in English, but many of them are in a language that people understand better, and this is part of leading praise and worship in your own culture. This style of music and worship, however, would not be out of place in any American, English or Australian church, and thus I feel that those leading worship are deluded.
One of the great difficulties facing the early and medieval church was that much of the original writing was in Latin, a language that common people did not speak! As wonderful as a worship song is, if people don’t understand the meaning behind it, it’s pretty much useless! If you are leading praise and worship and want to make it relevant to your culture, one of the first steps is to translate the words into a language your people understand.
Leading praise and worship is about expressing your culture
However, worship leadership in your own culture needs to go beyond mere words. Most cultures have a specific way of expressing themselves musically, and I think it brings great joy to God’s heart when he hears people worship using their own cultural instruments in their own cultural style. For some strange reason, those worshipers always seem to want to make the sound more western, instead of embracing the music and style of their own culture. There may be a mystique to Western culture, but when you lead praise and worship, you have an amazing opportunity to blend the Western sound with your own instruments and cultural styles!
So if you are a worship leader in your church, and if you live in Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia, India, and South America, try to express your own culture in your worship. This will bring much joy to the heart of God, and also to your people and your country. Western music is attractive especially to the youth, I would suggest that both of you blame your own culture’s styles with western music to create a unique expression of worship to the Lord.
If you are leading praise and worship, you are in the perfect position to combine words and musical styles to create a form of worship unique to your culture.