What is intercultural worship and what is it not? Be ready for change and know that worship is a sensitive topic. True worshipers stand firm in their God given identitiy. It is important to embrace our identity in Christ as the basis to look to one another in love. Being intercultural in your worship in your church is the proof of your unity in Christ and that the mystery of our unity is a reality on earth right now.

Ann shares about two principles of worship and about a life of worship. Our worship is a response on the acting of God. Worship must be in spirit and in truth. It is much more then a moment in the week in which we sing as a church. Our whole life should be a sacrifice of worship. 

Can people in your church express themselves fully as they are, or do they need to leave part of themselves at the door.  Worship should be fundamentally disruptive, because in worship we take the focus away from ourselves and back to God. We lay down the kingdom of ‘selves’ for the Kingdom of God. We can use intercultural worship in the church, but also in missions, for example as a conversation starter. And although it can be uncomfortable to sing in unknown languages, be sure God exists outside of our comfort zone. Jessie also shares of her own identity struggle and how intercultural worship makes a difference.

Ian explains about heart music – how it resounds in our hearts, deeper then our brains. Music is not one universal language, it communicates different things to different people. He shows from the BIble how prophets asked for a specific kind of music in order to help them prophecy. Cultures do not simply want to blend in, but they want to hear their own sound, their heart music sounds. He helps us find out about own our heart music and that of our church. 

Rieneke shares about how we start inplementing Intercultural worship in our church. Be aware of the sensitivity of the topic. Powerful worship will evoke the enemy to disturb and steal. So you need to be a worshiper yourselves, with the kingdom culture of love, connected to your leadership and the calling of the church. From there you investigate about the cultures and the languages in your church, the possibilities or challenges that are there. Remember that we are there for you in this process. Ann tells about the many different tools and resources you can find on our website. 

We need to learn to listen well, to people of other cultures, to people who have objections and to God Himself. We try to provide safe places for people to share about their culture. It is important to listen in order to communicate value and respect and discover new things about their background and preferences. Ian shares some practical ways of how you could do this and find it back in Scripture.

Ian explores with us a variety of worship models for a church. Identifying your starting point and formulating a vision on what to attain, gives you the opportunity to plot a route between those two points. Ian helps you with an overview of the different possibilities you can attain for. Be intentional in what you do and follow the Holy Spirit. 

Once you got the theory of intercultural worship, you need to start gathering your musicians and get to work. But how do yuo start an intercultural worship team? Jessie Tang from the UK shares how she build up intercultural worship at her church in London, in the practice of a small church plant.

Jill Ford, Arts lecturer at All Nations Christian College,  shares about crafting intercultural worship. She starts with a Biblical foundation under worshiping multicultural. She shares a 4 fold order that provides a simple framework of how worship in the early church might have looked like. She shows how in many ways this is a helpful tool that helps us be more intentional and creative at the same time. 

Rob Baker shares about his experiences with songwriting in West-Africa and the underlying principles. The principles will teach you a lot about the role of culture in worship and helps you reflect on your own situation. Rob shares from several examples from the past and the present from which you can learn how different people are and how different their cultures are. It also teaches you how using the right music style and instruments can be a powerful inroad for the gospel. 

Josh Davis tells about his Jesus centered, multi cultural community. We need new songs to help our hearts worship our God. He takes us along in the story of the song ‘Wahed’, which sprang from a gathering with a unique combinations of cultures. This lesson will be most interesting for musicians. But he lets us hear some other songs too and explains through this variety some different ways in which you can write new songs.