Student Testimony - UNITED Worship Ministries

One of the students I mentored last semester wrote this and I wanted to share it with you all. Thanks again for your prayers & support, without you none of the work I do would be possible.

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My worship training experience with Jon really developed how I look at musical worship from a leader's standpoint. I have always felt a strong connection to God through musical worship, and because of that and my musical ability, leading worship is something I have been involved in for several years, including three and a half years with IV. For the first half of my senior year I thought our worship 'team' was pretty good, but I knew we needed something to take it to the next level, so to speak. Then I went to Urbana and realized what true worship could really be like. It was amazing to be there with so many people and still experience God in a very personal way through the musical worship.

The spring semester after Urbana, Jon came on as a staff member at SLU IV with the main purpose of really developing our bunch of musicians and vocalists into a true worship team that leads the chapter into deeper relationship with God through music on a regular basis. While on the surface the means by which our team was developed may seem sterile and clinical, the result was a real evaluation of how musical worship must be done in order for it to truly minister to people where they are and bring them into a place where they experience God. The semester of training with Jon really took our group to the level where it could be effective as a ministry.

-Nathan Clark, SLU Alumni

UNITED continues to grow

Just got back in town last week from almost a month of slightly hectic travel and it's good to be back home. I wanted to update you all on some of the recent developments with UNITED, the worship ministry within InterVarsity that I am working on. The college branch (that I am in charge of) is growing rapidly, expanding to 6 campus ministries at five different college campuses: Washington University, MO; Drake, IA; William Penn, IA; Coe College, IA; St. Louis University, MO. The most recent project is planning a worship workshop for ACF - please keep it in your prayers as I work with their worship leader to put this out.

We're also working on a FAQ publication that allows younger leaders to seek help from more experienced worship leaders. I thought I'd share one of the questions with you:



How do I learn new songs that are multicultural / multiethnic?

We have a lot of diversity at my college, and I want to be able to do new stuff, but not just the stuff I know. I want our worship to be very diverse…but I don’t know how to learn new songs and be effective at leading them.

(Leah Doolan - William Penn University, IA)



SOLUTION
The challenge with multiethnic worship is that it often comes across as inauthentic and poor-quality which, especially if you are trying to bridge racial & ethnic gaps in worship, is often received poorly and results in insulting or distancing yourself from the very people group you are trying to reach out to. This is because that multiethnic worship is not just about learning new music and songs, but learning how to minister to people of a different cultural background than your self.
To do this you should focus on the following:

1. GET TO KNOW THE PEOPLE YOU ARE TRYING TO REACH – spend time with them, go to church with them, seek to learn what worship looks like in their cultural context by immersing yourself in it.
2. SEEK OUT A MUSICAL ADVISER – especially if you are not proficient at your instrument or a certain singing style, look for someone who leads worship in the culture you are trying to reach and learn from them (church is a great place to find these people).
3. TAKE THE TIME TO PRACTICE – create a practice schedule for your self and spend at least 30 min a day going over one or two songs that you are trying to adapt for your worship community. Only after you have mastered these songs and have a basic fundamental understanding of what makes worship work for the culture you are trying to reach should you try to teach it to your team. The only exception is if you have someone from that culture in your team, then you should have them help you learn and teach the song to the rest of your team.

Teens @ Chinese Gospel Church

Thank you for your prayers! The talk @ CGC's Teens went very well. I ended up talking about the relationship between 'Apologetics' and 'Evangelism' and how they share the commonality of being about serving others vs. adhering to a sense of duty. So we talked about getting a heart for the lost and spent some time doing an exercise examining stories we had experienced where God transformed us along our own continual journey to know Him more. I also used a couple of videos from InterVarsity's new evangelism training to help relay some of the more abstract concepts I was trying to explain to them.

I'll be going back there this Friday to lead worship while my boss is speaking; please continue praying for us.