The Biblical Basis for Multi-Ethnic Worship - Ministry Exchange (MX)

Biblical basis for multi-cultural worship

Worship = the transformational act of recognizing God’s invitation of love and offering our lives in response to Him. Worship is our RESPONSE to what God has already done.

Therefore, worship must reflect the place and the people who do it.
Christian worship has never existed without human cultural elements. The
incarnation of Jesus redeems all “natural” elements, so therefore all of
who we are and what has made us to be, our culture, our language, should be
brought to the altar to honor and give glory to God.
Every person is multicultural in the way that we may have one dominant
culture (ethnic or nationality) and other subcultures (age, gender, marital
status, location of residence, economic status, education.) Therefore when
we gather people together and desire them all to worship God authentically,
the worship must be multi-cultural.

Biblical basis for multi-cultural worship that addresses ethnic cultures.

3 main scriptures:
Rev. 7: 9-17: Culture and ethnicity is God given and will be with us even
in heaven.
Acts 2: Music as “language” to reach ALL people with the powerful message
of Gospel
Eph. 2:11-22: The cross enables all people to be built together to worship.

Leading Multi-Cultural worship makes us better worship leaders:

1. Worship leaders are leaders of the Spiritual Formation of your congregation. You are NOT just a song leader!! You have been given the mantel of spiritual authority to lead the congregation into transformation, not entertainment. a. Modeling both risky and contemplative worship. Leading cross- culturally will make you rely on Jesus in fresh new ways and compel you to believe that He is good on a deeper level. You can’t call others to do what you are unwilling to do. b. Create space for hospitality – how you lead, what music you play, who is on your stage will determine who comes to your service. The house of the Lord is to be a house for ALL nations. c. God is not just a dominant culture God. He is not white, male, urban, upper-middle class. Therefore we learn to have a fuller picture of God when we worship in other cultural styles. 2. Worship leaders are prophets and Gatekeepers to point the way to Jesus and teach the congregation how to live out the reign of the Kingdom of God. a. Justice and mercy must be taught, read from the scriptures, modeled and prayed. Our God is a global God and He has taught us to love our neighbor. In 2005, we often can know more about what is happening in Indonesia or Darfur than we do about all the people on our block. b. Our songs need to communicate that God’s love is for all, not just “me”. Scripture is full of verses that talk about how God loves the poor, the widow, the oppressed, the orphan. An all white congregation cannot sing “We shall overcome” and not be convicted to act on their behalf. c. We need to be in relationship with people of other ethnicities and cultures to be the “ministers of reconciliation” that scripture calls us. 2 Cor. 5: 16-20. We come together to worship with people we like and some we don’t like because we are all children and our Father wants us to gather together. 3. Worship leaders are pastors, shepherds that love and guide their congregation to healing and wholeness. a. Multi-cultural worship teaches the congregation to repent of their ethnocentrism, both individually and as a church. Ethnocentrism definition – to think that your own group, its habits, language, culture is superior to others. b. Teaching your congregation to be demonstrative in worship gives them more “tools in the tool box” to express themselves to God, and to receive from Him. “Good worship” or “the working of the Holy Spirit” usually means something happened that they recognized as good and familiar. We must make the experience of corporate worship be the larger and more compelling story where they understand what it means to be molded by the King of the Universe and a resident in God’s multi-cultural Kingdom. When we choose our worship to be mono-cultural, we diminish the work of the Kingdom, minimize the power of the God of all nations and our actions tell the story that the power of the cross is dead.

What fears do you have?

1. What if I offend? You will. 2. What if I look like a fool? You will. 3. What if it doesn’t feel natural and It’s not my authentic expression? It won’t. 4. What if I can’t do it perfectly? You won’t.

What excites you about this?

Remember that the CROSS is at the center of Multi-Cultural worship, not the people!