Worship Together in Your Church as in Heaven

by Josh Davis, Nikki Lerner

If we hope to share the message of Christ with people in this changed world, we must examine and reshape our worship. Our communities and our neighborhoods are becoming increasingly multicultural. Is the same thing true at your church? Is the worship at your church reflective of heaven?

The Bible is clear that one day people from every tribe, language, and nation will gather together to worship Jesus together in heaven. More often than not, however, our worship here on earth is segregated, preferential, one-dimensional, and united around a musical style rather than the person of Jesus Christ. This kind of worship is not only incomplete, but it is dangerous, leading us farther and farther away from the kind of worship that heaven is about. Multicultural worship doesn't just happen. The church is in need of pastors, worship leaders, and worshipers who, with their hearts fixed on heaven, will not settle for the separate but equal mentality in worship.

Worship Together in Your Church as in Heaven is a foundational book for church leaders and all those who serve and participate in worship. The authors convincingly lay out the case for a shift to multicultural worship for virtually every church. They then take readers by the hand, so to speak, and show them how to begin making the changes in hands-on, practical, doable ways.

Genres: Christian Living, Christianity, Music

216 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 21, 2015

Reviews

[James Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a lifelong worship leader, songwriter and music director in a cross-cultural church, I have gotten used to being a pioneer. Multi- and cross-cultural worship may be highly respected and trendy in magazines, but very few Christians of any ethnic persuasion want to do the heavy lifting.
Last year, Gerardo Marti, a sociologist from Davidson College, published a book with Oxford Press called Worship Across the Great Divide and I read it from cover to cover twice. I was unaccustomed to my field being treated as a viable research topic and I pored over his conclusions and experiences with recognition and sometimes tears.

However, Marti is not a musician, and Davis and Lerner are-- they are singers, players, and leaders of worship. Lerner is the active worship leader in a large multicultural church in Maryland, and Davis has visited every ethnic church in the greater Atlanta area. This book gets a lot of credit for being the first one I have read written by hard working colleagues, not professors.

The opening chapters were familiar. There are so many reasons for having worship together during the most segregated hour of the week. But in section II, the authors hit on an important point that we in multicultural worship easily overlook-- we are called to be worshiping communities, not just have worship experiences. I am guilty as charged, having pounded the floor from my piano for decades trying to get that effect, that feel, that sound. Thank God he uses us, even when we realize we are sometimes imposters. Relationship is as important as the formulae for diversity, and our music ministries are a start, but not the whole picture. Section II also addresses your own cultural inclinations and suggests finding a culture coach who will help you navigate the bridge building.

Chapter 11 should be required reading for all contemporary church musicians. Itunes, Youtube, and other sources tend to manipulate us into imitating studio recordings and it can destroy your confidence and your uniqueness. “The radio is racially segregated,” says Lerner, “and we could be following these patterns of segregation without even knowing it.” Mainstream doesn’t always work because multicultural ministry is not mainstream. Word.

In the fourth section the authors highlight the nuts and bolts of multicultural worship leading. They urge us to use what we do have, not bemoan what we don’t. They challenge us to turn obstacles to assets, which reminds me of all the efforts we have made to include Latinos in our worship. Our Spanish speaking numbers are small, but our congregation is singing and reading scripture in Spanish.

Don’t put this book down before you read Chapter 16, “Surviving the Hard Times.” Nikki Lerner says the hardest thing about multicultural worship is loneliness. But when we look down the row of singers and see folks we are nurturing and loving through our worship, we shed tears of rejoicing, just like the Psalmist says.

As a white Christian musician, I have been privileged to interact with so many people of color in worship, and sometimes experience the justice and mercy of a God who will call all nations to himself. Every worship leader cries on Sunday as God meets us in our fumbling efforts, but to cry with brothers and sisters across ethnic lines has a sweet spirit unparalleled by homogeneous fellowship. As the authors of this exceptional book say, “remember that you are not alone, that there are people all over the world who are pursuing the same vision.”

[Will O'kelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who helps lead worship in a very ethnically diverse church, and who has wrestled with what it means to worship "in Spirit and in truth,"I was interested to read this book. There were some positive take-away's: I felt challenged to create worship communities vs. worship experiences, and to engage in meaningful relationships that cross cultural boundaries. I was reminded of the joy of using creativity in worship...

With that said...there were also some negatives. I felt the book was a little more geared towards larger churches with salaried, full-time worship leaders, who can devote hours and hours of time to perfecting their worship teams and finding their "approach" to worship. My church is not large, and as a volunteer worship leader with another full-time job, two young kids, and other responsibilities, I struggle just to find time to practice...let alone take some of the action steps that Davis and Lerner emphasized.

Besides that, I also struggled with the author's very basic idea of multiculturalism in church. Despite trying hard to escape it, the authors seemed to fall into tokenism. Despite the truth that God desires all nations to worship Him, the fact remains that the nations have separate languages, and customs, and their hearts are going to be moved by different things. And this is okay. I see no scriptural reason to believe that my local church body NEEDS a member from every country or language to create one local super-church. Does the big "C" church need these members? Of course. But therein lies the rub...there are things that are possible in the big "C" church that are not possible with my little church. Should my church be eager to embrace new cultures, and to see the gospel permeate the whole world? Yes! Should my local church feel like a failure if they aren't able to evangelize every "ethnos." Nope. Yet...I felt that this was the message of the authors: "YOU are responsible to know as many languages, cultures, customs, songs in foreign languages, etc...as possible." This seems neither scriptural, nor practical to me.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone who is, or is seeking to be, involved in multicultural ministry, the number of resources available, while growing, is still somewhat scanty. Into this relative void comes this exemplary volume, written by Josh Davis and Nikki Lerner, two seasoned practitioners of what they preach. As a primer into the advantages, the pitfalls, and many of the nuts and bolts of multicultural worship, this deceptively slim volume is a treasure trove. It's hard to say whether the practical and practicable techniques, the gentle and common-sense admonitions, or the thoughtful and caring encouragement are of greatest value here, but they are all offered in generous quantities. The authors strike a comfortable, conversational tone, and fortify their material with a great number of personal anecdotes which are illustrative of the principles they espouse. Yet these anecdotes, far from serving as so much mere padding, help to emphasize and reinforce the underlying principles being presented. This book is dense, profound, informative, and yet still manages to be both an easy and highly enjoyable read. My only gripe is not with the authors or their book, but with the fact that similar sources of information on the subject are so scarce that Davis and Lerner were unable to include a bibliography or a list of other resources (although some books and resources are referenced in the body of the text). One can only hope that future editions will have many more such resources to cite. This is a must-read!

[Ethan Linder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fantastic book for those working through the challenges and great opportunities of God’s call to multicultural worship leaders.

Plagued at times by a lack of clarity in writing style, however. At some points an instructive manual, at other places a reflective journal, but at no points seamlessly written. But maybe that’s reflective of the joy of multicultural ministry: it’s not always seamless, but it’s what God calls us to.

I’m leaving the book inspired to stop, look, listen, and practice attentiveness to God’s work in many cultures... so while the book is hamstrung by its own stylistic inconsistency, it’s changed my life for the better.

[Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

First five chapters are really good. The rest is pretty practical for a more evangelical context than I find myself, but still a good resource and aspiration for most churches.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here's a great book that's been written specifically to be both practical and to make you think about how to worship as a multicultural church. The authors do a wonderful job making the topic accessible, even to those of us who aren't technically worship leaders (like me). I would have liked to have seen them take the definition of culture just a little further, since they define the word early on in the book to not necessarily mean a nation or racial group, but instead to stand for a group of people with a common idea of normalcy. With that definition in mind, I'd have enjoyed some discussion about how cultures don't have to be another language or country—there may be more than one American, English-speaking culture right in your church that you may view as "mono-cultural". That aside, though, highly recommended as a resource to spark some good discussions and thought about how we can consider our brothers and sisters more important than ourselves as we approach God's throne in worship.

[Kendra Mikols · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. I like book that are more facts and how-to's than stories. The writing style left me frustrated. Also, much of the stuff they talked about was stuff I already knew so it wasn't very informative to me. There were a few chapters with step by step things to do in your church and that I enjoyed.

[Massanutten Regional Library · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joseph, Central patron, June 2018, 5 stars:

Worship Together provides readers with a glimpse on how to worship God effectively in a multi-cultural setting. When we all reach Heaven, it is not going to be American Caucasians only worshiping God. That is a great thought to have this side of Earth!