Upcoming Cross-Cultural Music Training, January 16-30, 2010

January will be VERY busy as we run three interlocking training events! We could do with a whole lot of prayer!

Multicultural Worship Workshops
There will be two Resonance Multicultural Worship Workshops (16 and 29-30 Jan) at different levels in separate locations , one at a church in Alperton (Wembley) and the second at WEC’s Northern Centre, near Leeds (For the brochure PDF, click here. For those who came to Leeds last time, this is “Step 2” in multicultural worship music, including a song track and a hand drum track. 

You might like to check out Ian’s article, Worship With a Global Smell”, on the website.

Cross-Cultural Music Training
In between these two workshops falls our Resonance training, held in Leeds, for two or three cross- cultural music interns (18-31 Jan) preparing to work with our WEC team in Japan (Feb-April). The interns will do some valuable musical research into non-Church music for the field. This is a first step. We are hoping to build on this in the future. Please pray for us to be empowered and led by the Holy Spirit in this training programme, to bring glory to Jesus and to be sensitive to those in our care. If you want to know more about WEC in Japan, click here or if you like the Cherry Blossom, click here.

Profound Worship Experience (Ian and Helen Collinge)

Perhaps the most profound experience of this leaders’ conference was the opportunity to work with some folk in an Indian-style gathering format, adapted to our international group of maybe 90 participants.

While Ian led the music, we were guided in biblical concepts and forms of pure devotion that have special resonance for truth seekers in the Indian context. It was a beautifully fluid time that moved easily back and forth between scripture, explanation, song, movement, and questions to the leaders.

It is difficult to describe such experiences, but I could say that we discovered in this a depth of worship that can less easily arise with the romantic style and lyrics of worship songs that use the love song genre as a model, uplifting though many of these can be. Perhaps the problem is that romantic language is designed to express love between equals. Indian devotional songs are for the One who is unlike us in so many ways, beyond our reach yet so near. These are intimate in a way that leads us bow at the feet of the One we serve and worship.

Thailand Ministry (Ian and Helen Collinge)

What a true joy to teach a few days on the Ethnomusicology course at the university and to spend special time with two course members, from Nepal and India. We began planning a 2010 Resonance visit to work with these brothers.

We then had nearly 2 weeks at WEC’s Asia leaders conference. Ian oversaw the worship times and taught on contextualisation. It was a great time to network with key leaders. This resulted in more invitations to fields! As a result we (as Resonance) will be training and sending interns to Japan early in 2010.

New Zealand Ministry (Ian and Helen Collinge)

After some days taking in the delights of New Zealand’s natural life, work began! Ian taught a 5-day Music and Church Planting course to 9 students at WEC’s EastWest College.

It was a treat to teach both musicians and non-musicians from a variety of countries and generations, all with a vision to work in God’s harvest field. For the first time, Helen joined in as an extra. She enjoyed being in the live course context (we had some amazing discussions!) but we both discovered she knows most of the teaching by “osmosis” (I wonder why?)

The week ended with a heart-warming global worship service, heralding the start of WEC NZ’s annual conference in which Ian was supported by college musicians in leading worship. For a great 2 minute video clip on WEC’s objective of ‘reaching people, planting churches’, click here

Thanks SO MUCH to all who looked after us, showed us round and to everyone who prayed. God truly kept us in health, protection and with a sense of His leading.

Faith or Fantasy Downloads

Free Downloads are available from the faith and fantasy conference

A few weeks ago South Manchester Family Church hosted a Zacherias Trust conference called Faith and Fantasy. If you were unable to attend you can download the talks for free from the Zacherias Trust website.

First Impressions (Ian and Helen Collinge)

We got back from New Zealand and Thailand a few weeks ago, but some folks have been saying they’d like to hear how we got on, so novices though we are to the blogosphere, here are a few bits and pieces.

We left on Monday and arrived on Wednesday! New Zealand is a LONG way from the UK! We have huge respect for those intrepid migrants and visitors in the 1800s who discovered a warm, beautiful, surprising and at times amusing land, surrounded by ocean. On our week of holiday, it was a delight to encounter another culture and people group (Maori) and intriguing to be introduced to the wonderful bird life.

One highlight was a visit to the Waimangu volcanic valley opposite Mt. Tarawera which erupted in 1886 resulting in a line of craters.  The huge rifts are awesome reminders of the fragility of our planet. The constant bubbling and hissing of steam in people’s gardens and street drains in Rotorua never failed to amuse us! The thermal pools were wonderfully relaxing. Later, we visited friends and even experienced a tsunami evacuation.