Last night we had a baptism. The brother I mentioned last week who came to faith somewhere in the middle of the book Matthew went under the water (in the somewhat-scary metal trough we’ve been using). Despite the nerves and a potential slip in the Trinitarian proclamation on the part of the new local elder, the immersed man also came back up again – surrounded by the hugs, applause, and singing of a room full of celebrating saints.
My wife and I and two local believers led worship during the service. These two local believers, the single former guerrilla fighter gal and the divorced poet/prankster dad, are both growing in their abilities as singers and as songwriters. That being the case, I wanted to share with you the translation of a couple of the songs they’ve written that are fast becoming staples of our local language worship.
Even in English, we don’t have a lot of good songs about baptism. A year or so ago, we realized that when it came to our local language, we had none at all. So, we asked this local brother if he would consider writing one. I sent him a collection of key verses that talk about the meaning and significance of baptism. And I asked him to write a song that would feel very local and singable on a baptism picnic with no guitar and only a bunch of believers clapping by the side of a river. He got to work on it, crafting a solid song with traditional rhyming couplets. We then worked on it a little more to make the theology present in the song just a little more robust. In the end, this is the very Central Asian song that was created.
Arise O sisters and brothers, make respectful clapping
Today we have a celebration, for the sake of baptism!
Now arise and look, everyone prepare yourselves
He that is baptized, congratulate him!
Let all sing, give clapping with humility
Another person has been redeemed, by the blood of Christ!
As a sign of burial, we submerge him in the water
And a sign of new life, we bring him out again!
Through faith and water we are members of one another
Before we were estranged, now we are one in Christ!
Arise O sisters and brother, make a respectful clapping
Today we have a celebration, for the sake of baptism!
The melody of this song is quite celebratory and fun to sing either A Capella with just clapping or with guitar. Someday when we have more believing musicians here in Caravan City it will be really fun to sing it with a full band playing local instruments. I appreciate how the song is congregational, calling the church to respond rightly to this glorious act of obedience to Jesus. I also love how the song balances both the spirit of celebration while also teaching core truths about baptism. It’s a good example to me of how foreign and local believers can work together to craft something that could serve the church well for a long time to come.
More recently, the pastor of this church asked us to help create a good welcome song for the beginning of the service. The only one we had in the local language wasn’t so good, one of those odd evangelical songs that’s all about welcoming the Holy Spirit “into this place, into your gathering.” Because we’re not confident that we really should be focused on ‘welcoming the Spirit’ like this (does he not sovereignly create and indwell and fill the church?), we don’t really sing it and were more than happy to see if a better one could be written.
We followed a similar process to the one above, asking the single gal who does vocals with us most weeks if she would consider writing it. We knew that she had been writing a lot of songs on her own, but most of these were first-person devotional-style songs, not necessarily congregational “we” songs that teach and exult in truths from God’s word. It’s curious how this particular weakness of global worship music has somehow seeped into the first generation of believers here as well. Not that first-person, devotional-style songs are unhelpful in the proper context. But that context is not usually the gathering of the local church.
After sending her a number of key passages on the biblical theme of welcome, this is what she wrote.
Where Christ is there is peace
For the weary and heavy laden
His yoke is easy, his burden light
Rest for mind and soul
Chorus:
We come with open heart
We welcome one another
We come humbly and rejoicing
God has welcomed us
Sinners are welcomed
In the presence of God our father
The heart is calmed in our Lord's presence
Christ has become our sacrifice
Chorus:
We come with open heart
We welcome one another
We come humbly and rejoicing
God has welcomed us
Children and elderly, rich and poor
All are called, let them come
The mercy of God has made the way
Let all come, the door is open
Chorus:
We come with open heart
We welcome one another
We come humbly and rejoicing
God has welcomed us
We ended up changing very little of the content since she had done such a good job of weaving in truths from multiple passages of scripture. But a group of us did work together to come up with the melody together. In the end, what’s resulted is a joyful and rich song of welcome for the local church. The melody is more of a fusion of Central Asian and Western styles compared to baptism song, but still close enough, we hope, to get long-term traction among the believers here.
This season has involved more opportunities to invest in local worship than we had anticipated. What a joy it’s been to be a part of the creation of good songs for the local church. Long-term, our hope is to see many new songs that are robustly biblical, delightfully singable, and deeply Central Asian, songs that teach, exult, and call believers to respond in faithfulness.
Although I must say, this kind of work is a bit addictive. Once you realize you can plug needed gaps in the worship of another language, you start looking at your own language and wondering why there is such a paucity of songs on certain topics.
Speaking of these gaps, why don’t we have good baptism songs in English? Somebody needs to get on that. The next time we’re in the US and a newly believing friend goes under the water, I want to be able to exult in song about what is happening!
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