The following conversation was recorded at Symposium 2003, the conference on worship and the arts held at Calvin College each January. Participating in the conversation were several giants in the field of global song for Christian worship who have much to offer Western Christians from their years of ministry throughout the world:
Resources by C. Michael Hawn
The gospel came to us as a potted plant. We have to break the pot and set the plant in our own soil.
— D. T. Niles
This is the second of Hawn’s three-part series on global music.
MUSIC IN COMMUNITY: CONVERSATIONS WITH A WEST AFRICAN "TALKING DRUM" INSTRUCTOR
[The] community dimension is perhaps the essential aspect of African music. . . . [Africans] do not want to distinguish the audience from the musicians at a musical event. (1)
—John Miller Chernoff
Worshiping with Hospitalidad: Celebrating the wealth of Hispanic worship songs from around the world
December 1, 1998
The setting is a Protestant church in Havana, Cuba. The sanctuary is packed on this hot, humid June Sunday afternoon. Following the reading of la palabra de Dios (the Word of God), the pastor delivers the sermon. He speaks of esperanza (hope) and la paz de Cristo (the peace of Christ) during this “special time”—a euphemism used by Fidel Castro to refer to Cuba’s crumbling economy and the resulting suffering of the people.
