By: David Hoonjin Chai
In today’s congregations, diversity has become—or should become—a staple. The number of immigrants in our nations continues to rise. And we need to minister to them and invite them into God’s church. But we cannot honestly invite others into the church if we are not willing to provide services in their languages. Also, in immigrant churches, different languages are spoken within a single congregation by different generations; bilingual worship is necessary if these churches wish to worship together as a family.
The bilingual style of worship is not new; it has been present since the early church. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, while the New Testament was written in Greek. Different languages were also employed in the liturgies of the early church, such as Maranatha, which is Aramaic for “Our Lord, Come!” and Halleluia, Hosanna, and Amen, which is Jewish synagogue language.
The Directory for Worship of the Presbyterian Church (USA) encourages worship leaders to remember this diversity:
The church shall strive in its worship to use language about God which is intentionally as diverse and varied as the Bible and our theological traditions. The church is committed to using language in such a way that all members of the community of faith may recognize themselves to be included, addressed, and equally cherished before God.” (W.1.2006b)
If you would like to read more about bilingual worship services, see Dr. Paul Huh’s recent article, “Creating Bilingual Worship Services in Korean and English”, Call to Worship, Vol. 37.4/2003-2004.
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Issues in Bilingual Worship Hospitality Solidarity Identity |
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A Word of Advice… Worship Leadership
Visual Help
Special Occasions
Personalize the Worship For instance,
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David Hoonjin Chai finished his 16 years of service with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as a national staff for Asian American Leadership of the General Assembly Mission Council in 2010. For the last two decades he has been actively engaged in teaching and preaching nationwide on the topics of leadership, Christian Education, and Church Renewal.
He currently serves as Founder/Chair of the Confluence Institute, a ministry of Church leadership development.
In 2013, Rev. Dr. Chai was chosen as the first Korean-American “Educator of the Year 2013” by the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators (APCE). Currently he is working with the Korean Central Presbyterian Church as stated supply pastor. He can be reached at hoonjinchai@
gmail.com
I attend a church with two languages. It started as an outreach for another language so they could integrate with the English but they now keep themselves separate even though they have voting rights within the church. They have no interest in the English service, their own minister does encourage them to come to the English service, he also keeps the children from coming and newcomers that come are told they are in the wrong service if they attend the English service and they have the other language background which has led new people to feel uncomfortable and leave. The other language members do not help out with much at the church and have no interest in the English minister or meeting the English members. How do we handle this with a minister of the other language that wants to keep his group separate and not mix?