Multicultural Worship

North America’s total ethnic population now numbers over 110 million people. In an increasingly multiethnic and urban society, it will take new multicultural churches to reach the full spectrum of peoples a Sovereign God has brought to our shores. The notion that America is a melting pot for all the world’s ethnic groups has been revealed to be a myth. A better analogy is to see our nation as a giant salad bowl or stew pot in which each cultural component retains its own integrity and identity yet contributes to the overall national flavor.

Missiologist Charles Cheney observes: “America will not be won to Christ by establishing more churches like the majority we now have.” To be effective and to see people transformed by the Gospel, churches will need to intentionally design multicultural worship.

Multicultural worship is contextualized worship that seeks to avoid the Anglo-ethnocentrism which assumes that there is only one right way to worship the true God. Multicultural worship assumes that one size does not fit all, regardless of ethnicity. Our worship will always be couched in culture—it has to be, because we are!

Worship must be central in the life of a biblical congregation and biblical churches worship in the “heart language” of their people. Culturally relevant worship is a powerful evangelistic tool; as unbelievers see believers from different backgrounds responding passionately to God in worship, they are attracted to Him and are more receptive to the Word.

Worship forms (styles) should be selected that allow church members to express both the facts of their faith in God (truth) and the emotions of their relationship to their Lord (spirit). Worship forms (patterns) should expedite fulfilling biblical functions (purposes). Genuine worship in a multicultural church will take hard work, great wisdom, and deep sensitivity to the people in the congregation. As Charles Foster suggests in We Are the Church Together: “The task persons in these communities face is not that of becoming bilingual or multilingual or multicultural in the sense of mastering the multiple languages and cultures in currency. Rather, their task is to appreciate and live in rather than master or resolve the multiplicity of languages and cultures among them”.

There will always be some uncertainty and ambiguity because these churches will always be nontraditional and changing with their local contexts. Knowing God is at work in their midst helps create a posture of dependency.

The task of relating worship and culture is ultimately concerned with finding the balance between relevance and authenticity, while avoiding syncretism and eclecticism. More important than being totally relevant is being biblically authentic. Unbelievers, above all else, want to see genuine Christian faith lived out by genuine Christians in real, loving church bodies.

This faith is a prophetic witness to our divided world and a beacon of hope. Multicultural churches that worship well are microcosms that simultaneously reflect a fulfillment of God’s Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20) and foreshadow the reality of His Heaven (Rev. 5:9-10; 7:9-10; 14:6-7)

Ken Davis (M.A.) has been involved in church planting for over 25 years. He served as chairman of BMM’s North American Church Planting Ministry Council, and he co-founded the School of Church Planting, which has provided training for over 270 church planters worldwide.

return to the Fall 2006 Paraklesis