https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8230-247X
Born and raised as a Christian in Singapore, my initial outlook on Christianity was evangelical. It was not until I started my baccalaureate church music studies in the Philippines that I encountered diverse Christianities from various parts of Asia. With involvement in worship music-making for various ecumenical organizations such as the Asia Alliance of the YMCAs, the Christian Conference of Asia, the World Methodist Conference, and the World Council of Churches, my eyes were opened to even more variations within Christianity as I met and worshiped with Christians from other parts of the world. It was greatly intriguing and exhilarating as I immersed myself in the diverse Christian worship spirituality around me.
It is my hope that as you read through this issue, you too will catch a glimpse and experience the diverse Christian spiritual practices from around the world as shared by our contributors. They were invited to look at how liturgy is shaped by context in the broader theme of global and local issues in liturgy. To that end, these writings present to us the spiritual practices from their homeland even as some of them are presently working in another country.
For some of us who are familiar with Egeria’s travels to Jerusalem in the fourth century, the writing of Aziz Halaweh seems like historical ethnography. However, it would be helpful to remember that this distinctive early church liturgical tradition continues to be observed by the church in present day Jerusalem, Palestine. On the other end of the worship practice spectrum, Lester Ruth’s essay on Contemporary Praise & Worship enables us to appreciate this twentieth-century phenomenon as a diasporic community in the life of some North American mainline and evangelical congregations.
In examining local congregational spiritual practices, Oliver Dingwell investigates the place of congregational song in the Eucharistic liturgy within his United Church of Canada’s context and raises possibilities for strengthening congregational meaning-making through music-making. Focusing squarely on the current global pandemic as a concern, Karen Campbell offers a comparative ethnography of two multicultural congregations in the United States and Ireland and how they navigated through social restrictions while maintaining the integrity of their multicultural worship practice.
On the efforts of liturgical inculturation, Maria Cornou offers an account of the Latin American experience through a case study of the Evangelistic Crusades of Carlos Annacondia. From East Asia, Ching-Yu Huang showcases the ongoing contextualization efforts in Taiwan through her case study of the Taiwanese Duan Wu festival. While from Southeast Asia, Ester Widiasih and Rasid Rachman describe the hybridization efforts by Indonesian congregations.
For Christian identity formation, Mikie Roberts provides us a glimpse of the process in giving an account about the Caribbean Moravian Praise Liturgy book. Further afield, Zambian theologian Kuzipa Nalwamba shares with us the United Church of Zambia’s congregational identity formation experience through their denominational hymnbook, Inyimbo.
I close with an insightful thought from Wesleyan scholar and pioneer of the Global Praise initiative of the United Methodist Church, S.T. Kimbrough:
If Christians who now exist among hundreds of cultures and languages, want to relate to one another, they will have to sing each other’s songs—make music together. Music is the God-given language that gives the fullest expression to prayer, joy, suffering, and praise of the Creator. Followers of Christ will find that sharing their songs will strengthen their relationships, for they can sing about what they often find difficult to talk about. They can reach deep into one another’s souls with language, rhythm, melody, and perhaps harmony. But this involves tremendous risk and vulnerability. It means that one’s own tradition may or may not harbor the music that speaks best to the heart and soul of another person or community seeking to follow the same Christ. The Christians and churches that will not take this risk become insular and immured from the rest of God’s world.Footnote1
It is my hope that this issue will encourage you to further dip your toes into the waters of diverse Christianity’s worship practices. In turn, may you be rewarded with fresh insights and renewed vitality in your spiritual practices, enthused by this experience.
To God be all glory, honor, and praise!
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Swee Hong Lim (林瑞峰)
Swee Hong Lim (林瑞峰) is the Deer Park associate professor of Sacred Music at Emmanuel College of Victoria University in the University of Toronto, Canada.
Notes
1 S.T. Kimbrough Jr., “Global Song and the Church,” in Music & Mission: Toward a Theology and Practice of Global Song, ed. S.T. Kimbrough Jr. (New York: General Board of Global Ministries, GBGMusik, 2006), 3.