By Their Strange Fruit

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Arrabon: Learning Reconciliation through Community and Worship Music (Part 3)

We conclude our interview with David Bailey, who recently released his new book/CD combo, Arrabon: Learning Reconciliation through Community and Worship Music:

What are some practical first steps for congregations and worship leaders interested in moving in the direction of multicultural worship?

The first thing they need to do is to take an inventory of who is in the congregation and who is in neighborhood or 15-minute drive of church. They should look at race, ethnicity, age, socio-economics, education, gender, religious backgrounds, etc. to get to know what cultures are in the church and are not in the church. Then they need to become students of the people and cultures. This will help people learn to understand the cultural language, so they can eventually speak and it or contextualize the Scriptural truths to that culture.

What comments do you get from congregations that are new to multicultural worship? How do we ease the transitions or address reticence?

Everyone is not going to like everything, so there will always be complaints. This is why leadership is very important. Leaders have to lead in a congregation's transition from a mono-cultural community to a multi-cultural community. Leaders can’t sway from the vision of being multicultural in worship when people start complaining. If leaders shepherd and lead people through the process and equip everyone with the necessary resources and understanding, then the congregation will come along. There will be less complaining and people will eventually enjoy it. I learned that from a really great pastor that I served with and I mentioned it in my book under the section “Mmmkay”

What is the balance between accessibility and authenticity?

I will use the word “honor” to explain this. If you are in a relationship with someone that speaks a different language than you, then you endeavor to communicate in a way that is accessible to both. It doesn't even have to be a linguistic language. Men and women speak different languages! In any relationship if you value the relationship, you learn to honor the person in a way that is both accessible and authentic to both parties.

It’s been my experience, that the people that are most concerned about authenticity are people that are in majority cultures. When one is in the minority culture, they have to learn how to adapt with authenticity in order to get access to the majority culture as a means of survival. When someone is a part of the majority culture, they often don’t have to consider adapting and their concern is more about authenticity.

I do want to note that I carefully chose the phrase “majority culture” instead of “white people” because “white people” aren’t the only majority culture. The majority culture could be a culture that is shaped by age, race, Christian tradition practice, etc. It doesn't have to be exclusively based off of racial hierarchy in the American context. The point of the matter is that whether you are a part of majority culture or minority culture, if you’re a Christian, honoring your brother more than yourself should be your major concern. Nobody gets off the hook with this biblical requirement.

What is the difference between appreciation and appropriation when it comes to worship music? What considerations should be taken in this regard?

Jesus says, “Where your treasure is, your heart will be there also”. There is a huge connection between appreciation, value, and money. If someone comes to me and tells me that they want to do multicultural worship and they don’t know how to, but they don’t want to spend any money at all, then I know they don’t value multicultural worship. Spending money doesn't solve all of your problem, but how you spend money will tell you what you value. I talk about this issue in my book. I've done multicultural worship in situations where I we had very little money and other places where we've had a lot of money!

The first thing to consider is what are your values. Make sure you are spending money according to your values. I say this in my book also, but it’s important that you value people. Invest in the people in your worship ministry. Train them. It’s amazing to me that churches that have an expectation for the preacher to be trained, educated, and equipped for ministry. They’ll give pastors and ministry staff a budget for continuing education, but they don’t provide training for volunteer musicians and sound engineers. The music and sound equipment in many churches have about the same amount face-time in a service. I give some guidelines in the book that will help leaders with this.

Lastly, where do you find new songs? How do you remain interconnected and exposed to new music?

I get a lot of stuff from my friends in the Multicultural Worship Leaders Network and the International Council of Ethnodoxologist. I also commission a lot of stuff and/or work with writers. I arrange a lot of stuff also. I like a lot of the content that is coming out of the neo-hymn movement and Sovereign Grace Music, but I have to arrange the music so it could be used in more diverse settings.

Check out David's website for more information about Arrabon. Thanks, David, for your great insights!

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Friday Fruit (9/28/12)

On Fridays, BTSF offers links to other discussions about race & Christianity. It's an opportunity for you to read about racial justice & Christianity from other folks, and for me to give props to the shoulders on which I stand...

Weekly Round Up:

Does Christianity* make people prejudiced?

The Ballot and the Bible: How Voting Can Be a Sacred Act

Step into my film school! The importance of casting in breaking open movie stereotypes

via Side Hustle Stories!

Fifteen Issues This Election Is Not About

Hari Kondabolu Celebrates Success by Pointing to a Few Failures on W. Kamau Bell's 'Totally Biased'

These are some of BTSF's links of interest this week. What are yours?

Feel free to contribute your own links in the comments section, or submit items you feel should be included during the week. Self-promotion is encouraged.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Arrabon: Learning Reconciliation through Community and Worship Music (Part 2)

We continue our interview with David Bailey, who recently released his new book/CD combo, Arrabon: Learning Reconciliation through Community and Worship Music:

Tell us a little bit about your church, neighborhood, and ministry in Richmond, VA.

Pastors of EEF

Well, I lead worship in two worshipping communities. I live in a neighborhood called Church Hill. This neighborhood is a majority black neighborhood and the poverty rate is ridiculous! It’s also a neighborhood is also going through gentrification, so the community is becoming more racially and economically diverse. About 12 years go or so, God started to bring a bunch of Christians into the neighborhood to live in the neighborhood and do Christian community development. The majority of those Christians were white. A black pastor by the name of Don Coleman was diligently serving in the neighborhood for 25 years or so and invited the Christians that moved into the neighborhood to participate in racial reconciliation and community development.

Eventually this community grew into 100+ loving Jesus and caring for the community in incarnational ministry and missions. One day John Perkins came to Church Hill and saw what was going on and he told us that we should become a worshipping community. My wife and I were friends with all the people involved and we knew that many suburban middle class black families don’t choose to live in urban environments to be engaged in incarnational community development, so we decided to move into the neighborhood and be a part of what God was doing. The name of that church community is called East End Fellowship (EEF).

EEF's worship is in a renovated theater!

I also lead worship across town at a majority white affluent Baptist Church called Bon Air Baptist. I lead worship and give presentations at many conferences. About two years ago, I was leading worship at the Baptist World Congress in Honolulu, HI and met Travis Collins the pastor of Bon Air Baptist Church at this conference. He told me that multi-ethnicity was one of the intentional values the church was emphasizing and they were in need of a worship leader. He knew about my itinerant ministry and my involvement with my community and Church Hill, but he asked me to come and lead worship at the church. It’s been a great time leading worship and being a part of the community of Bon Air Baptist. They are great people that love Jesus.

The two communities are very different in many ways, but there are many similarities. Bon Air is a much an older-aged congregation and East End is a much younger-aged congregation. Bon Air has about 2000 members and East End has 200. Bon Air is in an affluent part of town and East End is in economically depressed part of town that is slowly coming back to life. Both congregations are neighborhood community churches that are serving their context. Both congregations are intentional about multi-ethnicity and racial reconciliation and see how hard it is. Every week when I’m in town, I’m endeavoring to practice what I preach at conferences in two congregations. It’s challenging, but fun.

How does your environment support your vision?

I think because Richmond has such a wounded history along racial lines, the biblical vision of racial and ethnic unity is at the forefront of many Christians in Richmond. My ministry has been birthed and shaped in this city, so for me, my environment has done more than support my vision, my environment has helped me see this biblical vision in Scriptures and has given me opportunities to practice this biblical vision.

What are the struggles your congregations faces?

We don’t know what we are doing!

I guess since I’ve written a book, I’m an expert now, but although I do have close to 15 years of doing multicultural ministry, I’m still faced with problems that I don’t have a clue how to solve. There are not a lot of resources to help people with the details of being multicultural congregations. This is the reason why I wrote the Arrabon book and produced the Arrabon CD to help provide resources for people.
Although I’ve spent a lot of time studying multicultural ministry and I’ve spent years doing multicultural ministry, the things that I’ve written are my experiences and I haven’t experienced everything. Both at Bon Air and East End, we are constantly facing new things that make us scratch our heads. I’ve found that not knowing how to solve every problem we face is a good thing because it draws us to God for answers. I think one of the scariest places to be is to become an “expert” on God or worship. We can always be students that are learning and teachers that share what we’ve learned, but when we become “experts” we become inflexible and harder for the Spirit to move us wherever he wants to move us.

What are some practical first steps for congregations and worship leaders interested in moving in this direction?

Continue to part 3...

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Arrabon: Learning Reconciliation through Community and Worship Music (Part 1)

David Bailey is a great practitioner and leader of multicultural worship out of Richmond, VA. He has recently released his new book/CD combo, Arrabon: Learning Reconciliation through Community and Worship Music. BTSF had some questions for David, and we'll be sharing his answers with you over the next week:

Tell us a bit about the idea for book/cd. Why was this project important in this time?

Well for starters, the word, Arrabon means a foretaste of things to come. The word is could also be translated “earnest”, meaning I’ll put this down payment to represent something that is to come. The Church is in the world today as a representative of what God’s kingdom is like. We are to be a foretaste of what heaven will be like.

When the Apostle John saw a vision of heaven, he saw, “a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10)

When over 93% of churches are divided along racial lines, we are not representing heaven well at all.
At one time in our recent history (my parents generation), the division was intentional and generally racially motivated. I think today, much of the division is because of worship preferences. In the book, I make a case for why we should do songs of diverse cultures, not for reasons of preferences, but for spiritual formation, honor, and hospitality.

What is your vision for Arrabon in our congregations?

Biblically, a churches identity is tied to the geography, so the Church at Corinth looks different than the Church at Ephesus and the church at Laodicea looks different than the Church at Thessalonica. Each church we see in the New Testament Scriptures represented a foretaste of heaven, but yet they were unique because of their geography. I believe that our churches today should have a uniqueness because their geography. The more metropolitan cities will probably be more ethnically and racially diverse than the rural churches of the Midwest, but even the rural churches of the Midwest probably have socioeconomic divisions that are expressed culturally that they can work through.

I think one of the challenges with churches in our time face is learning how to be geography culturally unique because so many of the things that we do in church today are driven by the Christian music and media industry. Much of what people in church sing, teach in Vacation Bible Schools, and get sermon series from are the latest Christian media and music industry buzz.

Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying. I’m not saying it is all a bad thing. There is a lot of quality resources from the Christian music and media industry that help ministry leaders equip their congregations, but the challenge is that many of these resources are targeted to the affluent mainstream, majority white or certain populations of black people. There are starting to be “some” resources for the Hispanic community, but it’s very little. People of other racial and ethnic demographics are not being targeted because the industry doesn't consider the market share big enough to make a significant profit from. For this reason, churches have to be creative and see what Arrabon looks like for their context. An Arrabon of worship should look different at every congregation. There should be a familiarity of the Father, Son, and Spirit, but a unique fresh expression from God’s people.

What was the process for choosing songs?

I believe that congregations should sing songs that represent their theology and their culture, so when I was making song choices, I chose songs that where first, rich in theology. Secondly, I arrange songs that represented the various cultures that I’ve lead congregational worship for. Many of the songs on the CD are songs that I’ve used over the years in the various congregations and conferences that I’ve led worship.

How did you first become convinced of the importance of reconciliation and the role of music in it? What was that journey like?

I’m an African-American black musician that grew up in Richmond, VA, which was the formal capital of the Confederacy. Although Richmond has gone a long way in race relations, the residue of Slavery and Jim Crow is still very real. The racial division isn’t hostile, but it still shapes our city. Many of our churches are racially divided also.

My life has been like Forest Gump when it comes to racial reconciliation and music. I didn’t plan it, but the Lord has used me in ways to bring people together of various ethnicities, races, socio-economic classes, educational levels, and church traditions to use music as a tool reconciliation.

Around the time I was 18 years old, I met a guy by the name of Bob Kauflin who is the author of Worship Matters the book and blog. He spent a period time mentoring me on how to write songs with rich theological content in a contemporary style of music. At the time, I was in a majority black inner city worshipping context, but I was taking these culturally white songs and theologians and contextualizing it for the inner-city context. The more I wrote and arranged songs this way, I began to lead worship for more multi-racial Christian communities. A few years later as I was finishing up college, I started to be the worship director for a multi-ethnic church plant and then that’s when I started to really do multi-ethnic worship. That’s an abbreviated version of my story.