Hey folks! I wanted to talk in this article about worshiping with people from different backgrounds, and the challenges and successes I have personally experienced. Worshiping in different languages and styles is an amazing thing to unify the body of Christ, but is also one of the hardest things to do—yet worth it!

I am currently writing from a hotel in Belgium, while on a choir and band tour with my college. It has been an amazing experience and great to worship in different countries and contexts and to sing with all different types of people with the same mission: to glorify Christ. It has touched my heart how many people we have encouraged by our playing and singing and how many have encouraged us by opening their homes, and showing us so much love.

This has also been one of the hardest times of my life for some of the reasons I just mentioned. Going to another culture to worship means you have to put a lot of time and effort into what styles of music you sing and play and how you present yourself; if you go to a church that is primarily a gospel background, or if you go to Europe, you have to understand that a lot of the churches are Lutheran, so you are going to have to learn the hymns of the Lutheran church while implementing gospel in there—it is challenging! During this tour, we have experienced a lot of these challenges.

There are so many beautiful churches here, with the way they are built, and the acoustics, such that would blow American churches totally out of the water. The thing that we noticed around Europe, however, is that there are all these beautiful churches but most of the population does not believe in Jesus Christ. A lot of the churches are getting bought out by museums and what was once a place of worship is now a spot to make money. And we are here for three weeks and are trying to make a difference. That is a challenge!

So, while being in this spiritually dead climate, I believe our purpose here is to reignite the power of hymns in the churches we go to that they were founded on, but also introduce some new styles of music and worship and proclaiming the gospel. That sounds like a huge task, and you are right, it is, but God has set up this atmosphere for us to be a witness—we cannot just pass it by.

Worshiping in this multicultural context does not just start and end with the music, it has to be a total change within the church. If we truly want to be united as a body and to love each other, we have to become all things to all people in order that we might save some.

I hope this is helpful for you all, and I would love to have a conversation with you all!

Gabriel