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If you will be involved in leading praise and worship from a non-westernized society, you may be facing the problem of whether it is best to modify your worship style to fit your culture. Most of the forms of leading praise and worship are heavily influenced from the church in developed nations, and for anybody who is in an emerging nation it's important that you don't reproduce what you hear on worship CDs, but start leading praise and worship within your own culture. Leading Praise and Worship is About the Lord Contrary to what you might believe, leading praise and worship in the developing nation is not about westernizing your church! With most songs being written for the western culture, and most CDs and DVDs too, it's tempting to merely recproduce what they do, but I feel this is not what God really wants to see happen! Leading praise and worship in church is about pointing people towards the Lord, and I think that the Lord desires to meet people where they are at and in their unique culture to impact their lives. If we continue to use music as an excuse to introduce Western culture, we are conveying to the people that the Lord commanded us to worship in an exclusive way, the way in which developed nations do it. You have an amazing opportunity to show your people how precious they are by embracing your culture! Leading Praise and WorshipLeading Praise and Worship is About the People As I write this short article I'm sitting in an area in northeast India, where these beautiful Indian folks are singing songs that I recognize, but in their particular language. They mix songs in English in with their own language, and I for one think this is really cool! However, besides the odd language change, the actualy style is similar as I hear in churches across my own country, so I think there is some work that should be done among worship leaders to help them embrace their particular culture. One of the great difficulties facing the early and medieval church was that much of your original writings were in Latin, a language which the common people did not speak! However wonderful a worship song is, if the folks haven't any understanding of a meaning behind it truly is practically useless! If you happen to be leading praise and worship and also you want to make it relevant for a culture, one of the first steps is to translate the words right into a language that the people will understand. Leading Praise and Worship is About Expressing Your Culture However, leading praise and worship in any culture needs to transcend simply the words. Most cultures have a unique method of expressing themselves musically, and I feel it brings great joy to the heart of God when he hears people worshiping using their own cultural instruments in their cultural style. Why do worship leaders choose to mimic western worship styles? When we do this we miss an unbelievable opportunity to create a unique style by blending the two! So if you are leading praise and worship in your church, and if you live in Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia, India and South America, please try and express your personal culture within your worship. This will bring much joy to the heart of God, as well as for a people and your country as well. Western music is attractive, especially to adolescents, I would suggest you ought blend the styles of your special culture with Western music to bring about an original expression of worship the Lord. When you are leading praise and worship, you are in the ideal position to blend words and music styles to make a form of worship unique to your culture. If you would like additional information related to this short article you may go to see our web page by clicking here - http://www.bestworshipleader.com/leading-praise-and-worship/leading-praise-and-worship-within-your-culture-2/. You may additionally go to see worship leading for some extra info.
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