“I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.” 1 Corinthians 9:22.
A few days ago I heard a wonderful presentation by one of our missionaries in Kenya. Gloria Sauck is a nurse – and no musician, certainly. In recent years, however, she has been training in ethnomusicology. Gloria is developing significant expertise in the study of musical forms in culture and mission.
Gloria has observed that the Samburu people of northern Kenya transmit cultural knowledge in song. They write no memoirs. They do not develop web sites. They sing the information they want to remember, and pass it along from generation to generation in distinctive Samburu melodies.
Often they will gather closely in a circle, shoulder-to-shoulder, to sing their songs. Gloria calls it “singing in the round.” She has observed her Samburu friends singing “in the round” about many of the issues that concern them – from theology, to ethics, to health concepts learned at our clinic in Arsim. They want to remember, I suppose. And they want their children to remember, too.
Gloria reports frankly that when she first heard this music she “thought it was noise.” What if she had insisted that her Samburu friends sing their theology and health concepts to the tune of Finlandia, let’s say, or How Great Thou Art? These familiar tunes would have seemed so much more fitting…to Gloria, perhaps. But among the Samburu they may have appeared as noise, too.
Happily, the missionary task is not about Finlandia – however much we love that great European melody. It is more like “singing in the round,” I think. We come alongside our unbelieving friends – in Samburuland, or Manila, or Minneapolis. And in melodies familiar to them we sing the story of Jesus.
We should approach our entire missionary calling and activity “in the round.” Let’s read the Bible “shoulder-to-shoulder” with our unbelieving friends – and discover its Answer for the burning questions experienced among them. Let’s build the church “shoulder-to-shoulder” with our believing sisters and brothers – and discover the melodies and patterns that make sense among them.
The alternative is a melody, a theology, a church, etc., structured after our own preferences – that may appear as “noise” outside our own tradition. Jesus was incarnate among us. He spoke our language. He sang our songs. We must learn to sing in the languages and melodies of the people among whom we live, too. What are the burning issues “sung” about in your neighborhood? Have you heard the melodies? How can you “sing” the grace and love of Jesus among them.
"The Way I See It", February 2002
© Copyright 2002 (World Mission Prayer League). All rights reserved.
Let’s build the church “shoulder-to-shoulder” with our believing sisters and brothers – and discover the melodies and patterns .