The Sound of Heaven

Cross-Cultural Worship

From Scripture, it is clear that God cares about the nations of the world.

 “Let the peoples praise Thee, O God; Let all the peoples praise Thee. The earth has yielded its produce; God, our God, blesses us. God blesses us, that all the ends of the earth may fear Him” (Ps. 67:5-7).

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20a).

“And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for you were slain and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9).

God desires the praise of the nations in all the glorious multiplicity of languages and cultures that He designed us for. There is a very real sense in which each language is uniquely equipped to express God’s character, and He is magnified and glorified by the worship of the whole of humanity.

Perhaps no other time in my life has this truth been brought home more than a recent short-term mission trip to Greece with AMG International. As this was somewhat of a “vision trip” for our church, we participated in a wide variety of ministries in order to gauge where best to plug in for longer-term partnership. Because of this, we experienced different slices of the multi-ethnic, multi-lingual metropolis of Athens each day–working with Greek-speakers primarily, but also with Farsi-speaking refugees from Iran and Afghanistan and Romanian and Moldavian immigrants.

The unique sounds and pitches of each language were, and still are, unfamiliar to me (true to form, I am a functionally monolingual American save several semesters of Spanish in college), but the joy of each when tuned to the praise of God was easily recognizable. Worship in the Greek churches was a wonderful time of fellowship as we clumsily worked our way through Greek melodies and sang the English words to hymns we knew, together praising the same God with our “joyful noise”.

In a Romanian church in the crowded municipality of Kallithea (part of metro Athens), I was ministered to in a way I’ll not soon forget. I had written off this service as a “byway” of our trip schedule, and I was admittedly skeptical after hearing that their Sunday evening service lasted at least 2 hours and was “very formal”. After spending 20 minutes driving around the block looking for a place to park, I stumbled in to the service late, and prayerful worship was the last thing on my mind.

As I sat down, the choir (which appeared to contain roughly 1/3 of the church members, each dressed to the nines) began to sing a setting of The Lord’s Prayer in their native tongue. As the perfectly pitched hymn filled the room, I began weeping, both for the beauty of their worship and for my sinfully selfish attitude and prejudice toward them. The service (which lasted every bit of 2 hours) seemed to fly by with song after song lifted heavenward. I remarked to a teammate that “this must be what heaven will sound like.”

That Romanian choir will be part of the soundtrack of heaven, but even more beautifully brought into harmony with the worship of the nations. In that day, when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, we will cry together in every language, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing” (Rev. 5:12). Participating in God’s work around the world is our act of obedience to His plan, and when we follow Him, He sometimes allows us the opportunity to see just a small picture of the magnitude of His glory among the nations. Praise His name!

Justin Lonas is editor of Disciple Magazine

To learn more about how AMG International can help you and your church connect with what God is doing around the world, click HERE, call (800) 251-7206, ext. 258, or write to 6815 Shallowford Rd., Chattanooga, TN 37421.