Orderly worship and multicultural worship
Chaotic worship or orderly worship?
If you’re starting out in multicultural worship it can make Sunday mornings seem more chaotic than a typical Sunday. Why?
There’s a sorts of things going on during a multicultural service:
1. More people are involved on Sunday mornings.
2. You’re trying to make sure the PowerPoint is correct, especially the different languages represented.
3. The person you planned to read scripture or praying in another language hasn’t shown up.
4. Your worship team still hasn’t gotten a certain beat down for a gospel song you’re doing.
5. It’s testimonial Sunday and you really wanted a diverse group of people, but you don’t.
6. Just singing in multiple languages at the same time can be overwhelming.
It’ll take time for it to feel like orderly worship
I remember feeling stressed about all those things listed above and more when I first started out. And, I still feel a little bit of it now. But it’s just a matter of getting used to 
multicultural worship.
Before we had a written schedule for our worship team I was really worried about not having a Hmong worship team member come to practice. It felt like it was a hit or miss situation. I didn’t know how to speak the language and it I didn’t occur to me to think about using phonetics.
But, as I immersed myself in the process and learned from “trial and error” I become more and more comfortable with multicultural worship. Slowly…over time…it’s felt more like orderly worship.
Orderly worship and unexpected elements
When you’re starting out in multicultural worship you might sometimes feel like a failure because you didn’t have a certain language or style. Don’t worry about it.
You might even have a person not show up for a particular part of the service. Don’t worry about it.
Even though we have a person in our congregation who read scripture for us in Russian he’s not always there on Sunday. I need to make an effort to develop a relationship with him, but I’m okay if
Lesson…
Don’t worry if your multicultural service doesn’t feels more chaotic versus an orderly worship service.
Remember, it takes time to make a big transition like this. But with planning, organization, and time it will get better.
And it can feel a little crazy on Sunday mornings, but I want you to know….I’m right there with you striving for orderly worship.
Do you get stressed about multicultural worship? What’s helped you along your journey?
Share your story and your life…
Sincerely,
Peter Park
Blogger/Worship Leader/Speaker
peterpark@redemptionboulevard.com
(800) 453-3284
Blog posts related to orderly worship:
More worship songs?
Does having a multicultural service mean having more worship songs?
When I was leading worship in college we were allowed to have one or two songs in the beginning and two or three songs at the end. This was typical for our Campus Crusade meeting. There were a lot of other elements in the service, so having more worship songs wasn’t exactly necessary.
Now, when I started with multicultural worship about five years ago I started to notice that I was adding more worship songs. It wasn’t unusual to have seven songs or even nine songs on some occasions.
But why were we singing more worship songs?
Looking back I see that we were building up our song list. And, in order to make sure we had certain languages or styles in the service meant increasing our song list.
It takes awhile to find or translate songs in other languages. And it takes even more time for your congregation to get used to songs from different cultures.
I always say…worship leaders have all week or all month to learn a song in another language or style, but the congregation has less than five minutes on Sunday morning.
So, we have to sing those songs again and we have to wait on other songs.
Do you need more worship songs?
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I have a good friend who’s been leading worship at a multicultural church and they do four songs on a regular basis. Typically the songs are in the middle of the service.
The thing you want to keep in mind is not to let it always be about the music. You can include scripture in other languages or prayer in other languages. If your church supports artwork, maybe you can have an artist of the month, like my friend Andrew Thomas has at his church…Living Water.
Lesson…
Have a plan to include more worship songs that are multicultural, but do it over time. Everybody needs time to adjust. And, remember, there are other parts of the service that can honor other cultures too.
What are some ways you can think that would honor other cultures besides adding more worship songs to the service?
Share your story and your life…
Sincerely,
Peter Park
Blogger/Worship Leader/Speaker
peterpark@redemptionboulevard.com
(800) 453-3284