Back in February '21 some of the Ethnoarts team from our office headed out on the two day journey to join the folks working on a cluster of language programs for a Scripture song-writing workshop. What on earth is "Ethnoarts" I hear you asking! 'Ethno' is race, people or culture and when combined with 'arts' means the study of arts that come from a specific race, people or culture. Arts can include music, design, painting, carving, leather work, candlestick-making, poetry, story-telling and all manner of things! Our team do a lot of work to help communities recognise what the scriptures say about God being the creator and how all aspects of created things can be used to praise and worship him in all settings, for His glory.
I love music. I love listening to it, I love playing it, I love sharing it. I
love seeing people connect with God through music and so I do get excited any time I see folks get super enthusiastic when they are using their language to praise God.
I've been visiting this cluster for the past 7 years and have been responsible for our work among them for the past 2 and a bit years. It can take a while for the translation work to get through the many steps of refinement before printing and recording so it is always great to find ways that people can use the scripture in their everyday life, songs are a great way to do that.
So with 50 or so participants from five different language communities, the Ethnoarts team hosted the first scripture song-writing workshop in the area. The output is a recording of some scripture songs in the local style, using local instruments, for each community and some people tooled up to continue writing. The dream is that those new songs will find their way into the lives and churches of the communities so people can praise and worship in the languages they value most.
If you are curious, here are some of the recordings.
