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.