Churches in the Netherlands are becoming increasingly international. There is an increasing need for ways to worship God together, in multiple languages. The new Intercultural Songbook contains 50 songs that everyone can sing along with.
Songs from different cultures
The Intercultural Songbook is an online collection of well-known Western worship songs and inspiring songs from other continents. These are available in Arabic, English and Tigrinya, among other languages. Thanks to phonetic rendering and translations, anyone can sing along. The songbook thus helps churches experience connection and unity.
The initiative is a collaboration between Gave Foundation and Songs2Serve. Gave has been offering mainly Western church songs in various languages for years. Songs2Serve collects non-Western Christian songs.
Singing together connects
"Singing together connects and creates unity," says Willemijn Vlot, from Gave involved in the project. "The Songbook is a wonderful tool for people from other countries and cultures to worship God together in their own heart language. For example, an African woman, who was always subdued in the meeting, spontaneously started dancing when she heard a song in her mother tongue. The whole church joined in."
Rieneke Visser, initiator of Songs2Serve, recognises this: "Music is a key to the heart. A Kurdish woman only really felt at home in church when she heard a Farsi song in the style of her own culture.'“
Available for free
The lyrics and music are available for free download at interculturesongbook.co.uk. The website features inspiration videos and soon practice videos for churches and musicians. Later, sing-along videos will follow to further support singing together.
