Report from ‘Global Consultation on Music and Missions’
From Bert Polman (filed last week):
I’m attending the Global Consultation on Music & Missions in St Paul, Minn., with some 200+ missionaries, ethnomusicologists, and other musical types interested in indigenous styles of Christian music. (This event is partially funded by a grant from CICW.) We began Tuesday evening with a wonderful procession of some 40 ethnic instruments from all over the world, and with worship songs from all over the world—some of them bi-lingual. Roberta King of Fuller Seminary gave the opening plenary address, and used in part texts from Isaiah 60-61 to speak about “Springs of Righteousness and Praise: A Doxology of the Nations.” She was followed by a Chinese conductor who spoke about the Chinese housechurch collection “Canaan Hymns”—over 900 texts by one Chinese village Christian woman—the Chinese equivalent of a Fanny Crosby!
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