Friday, July 21, 2006
Report from ‘Global Consultation on Music and Missions’ 2
From Bert Polman (previous report):
Here are my comments on the final days of the Global Consultation on Music & Missions in St Paul, MN, which I attended during July 11-15 with some 200+ missionaries, ethnomusicologists, and other musical types interested in indigenous styles of Christian music. (You may recall that this event was partially funded by a grant from CICW.)
The plenary sessions for Thursday and Friday morning were led by Ron Man who did solid biblical teaching on worship and cultural engagement. Thursday evening, John Witvliet led worship (with Randy Engle at that sizeable ethnic instrument which western peoples call a pipe organ), and shared “vertical habits” (among other things) with the conferees. During one of the breakout sessions I attended, the leader gave a wonderful talk about how worship is first of all our whole life and only secondly a specific event. Ironically for a conference so dedicated to redeeming and transforming many elements of culture, the concluding gospel hymn for that session featured the escapist sentiment, “You can have the whole world, but give me Jesus!”
I took in a stimulating session in the Bethel Library which focused entirely on online resources for ethnomusicology and ethnodoxology (i.e., the study of indigenous-style Christian music). A later Thursday evening session was a panel discussion on a document called “The Lausanne Declaration on Redeeming the Arts.” One of my Friday breakout sessions was led by a Wycliffe-sponsored musical missionary who worked with First Nations natives on Vancouver Island, and who helped us dance a praise song in native style. Another Friday session raised all kinds of professional certification issues for the conferees.
Highlights from later on Friday included the awarding of “Distinguished Service Awards” to two long-time pioneers in indigenous Christian music making, I-to-Loh and Mary Oyer; a panel discussion on the future prospects and challengees for indigenous Christian worship songs; and a full concert of performances of Christian music from around the whole world by participants in this conference, many of them using a variety of ethnic instruments and singing styles. The Saturday morning brought a final inspirational plenary talk by Stephen Fry, and a commissioning service to dedicate and rededicate ourselves to the vision and work of this Global Consultation on Music & Missions.
I got to talk with numerous fascinating people, including the person who will plan the next GCoMM in 2009 in Singapore, and several folks whom I hope to meet in Manila and Singapore when our CICW team gets there this August. And Paul Neeley, one of the organizers of GCoMM, helped to pick out a whole box full of CDs, tapes, and print materials, which we bought to add to CICW’s international resources.
Thank God for a whole bunch of wonderful people, for inspiring ministry, and some fascinating results and forward steps in the making of indigenously-styled Christian song!
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