Cultivating a Worship Service that Celebrates Diverse Cultures
by Introducing Bilingual Worship
One in nine people in Orlando have moved here since 2010. Half of those have moved from another country. Today, the United States Census Bureau estimates that Orlando is 60.7% White, 31.1% Hispanic, 25.4% Black, and 4.3% Asian. If we go back to 2000 the biggest difference in Orlando demographics can be seen in the Hispanic community where in 2000 Latinos made up 17.39% of the population and in 2010 25.38%. With this continued growth, it’s certainly possible that as soon as 2030 the majority population in Orlando could be Hispanic.
One of our seven Values as a church is “Reflecting heaven’s diversity here and now.”
The impetus for this plan is to create a framework for Bilingual Worship at Summit, but the heart behind it and the goal behind it was always much bigger.
Diversity obviously doesn’t mean one single race or even two. Our ultimate goal shouldn’t be to incorporate the voices, songs and culture of one other group, but instead to celebrate the fullness of diversity in Christ as reflected in His church.
That said, in Orlando and specifically at our Waterford congregation as we relate with a growing Hispanic community, we’ve recognized not just an opportunity, but possibly the necessity to lean into this previously stated core value in a new way as it relates to our worship services.
We have come to believe that personally engaging our already existing Latin community - those already invested at Summit - in conversations on how best to celebrate them and give space for their voices and various cultures in our services will inch us closer toward engaging in similar conversations with other groups in the future and becoming a more welcoming church.
Goal: To Cultivate a Worship Service that Celebrates Diverse Cultures
When it comes to Bilingual Worship, we will always need a goal that’s more overarching than to simply sing in two different languages.
As stated before, the first step to this bigger goal will likely be to engage and give intentional attention to the largest minority group currently in our congregation. That doesn’t mean we don’t try to celebrate other groups or individuals as they come in and find space for those voices in our services. It just means that we will be intentional in this season in engaging the Hispanic community here that already has roots and likely deserved a different approach some time ago.
It could maybe be said that we’ve been a church that tried not to see color for a variety of reasons – most well-meaning. Shaking up this posture toward diversity and instead making a point to appreciate and celebrate nuance where it’s welcome though could make our worship services richer as well as the broader life of the church. This is something the whole community, young and old, could benefit from. Through this engagement, we should see growth numerically and spiritually as we become more welcoming as a church body.
Bilingual Worship
What do we mean when we say Bilingual Worship?
For the context of our services, this would be any time where a host or musician, or group of hosts or musicians are speaking or singing in two different languages.
What about “Multi-lingual” Worship?
It would certainly be great to one day have so many languages being spoken in our services that we have to make a special curriculum in Base Camp just to have our kids understanding what all the grown-ups are going on about, but realistically whether we’re introducing a part of the service in English/Spanish or English/Swahili or English/Cantonese, our services will likely feature English because that’s the primary language in our geographical location currently.
In other words, for the foreseeable future when discussing parts of a service that could feature more than one language it will likely be Bilingual more often than not, but “Multi-lingual” could be the next logical step in some way or form. Maybe one day we could commission multiple people from different places and get to hear multiple languages that way? We could sing a song starting in English go to Spanish then to Creole…certainly possible.
How could Bilingual Worship look at Summit?
In 2030 or beyond, it may one day actually become necessary to have our whole service translated in Spanish and available for people in some form either recorded or translated live or a whole new Summit Spanish service. That need could certainly present itself at some point.
The more immediate needs when it comes to this idea would be better assessed by looking at the current Hispanic population already calling Summit home. Most Hispanics at Summit are 2nd or 3rd generation meaning that at least one parent was an immigrant or a grandparent was an immigrant. Differing from some locales in South Florida, most Hispanics in Orlando speak English more often than Spanish in their daily life though they may speak Spanish in their home.
Therefore, by choosing to program a portion of our service in two different languages, the main goal would likely not be to have a certain group of people understand what’s being said or sung but instead to celebrate, acknowledge and honor that group within our community, while also bringing to the forefront the value of “Reflecting heaven’s diversity here and now.”
How to Start Implementing Bilingual Worship
Because we’ve had a fairly large number of Hispanics in our congregation for some time, we’re believing that step 1 will be to open up a dialogue with our longtime, invested congregants and volunteers that might want a stake in this endeavor. This will be a conversation hosted in person that will come with a declaration of heart and a verbal commitment on our part to value diversity and take a posture of learning and appreciation moving forward as a campus.
This first step may require our staff to first have a preliminary conversation to get on the same page with what we’d like to see in service, so that we can come into a meeting with unity.
Once we meet with our congregants and volunteers, we’ll want to hear and take note of excitement and concerns surrounding Bilingual Worship in our services and truly make an effort to put this people group in the driver’s seat when it comes to this expression of worship.
After these initial talks, we hope a sense of unity moving forward can be found. Then, the next questions we’ll have to answer (with lots of help) will be how often this will be implemented and in what ways (Songs? Prayer? Sermon illustrations? Etc.)
Luckily, we’ve already built in some pipelines to our service planning that allows for intentionally increasing the number of voices in our services. This will likely take some extra thought and work to make sure we plan out these portions of our services in advance.
Extra attention will need to be given to arrangements of songs and how speakers go from one language to the next in order to make sure the right tone is struck for the congregation and we’ll likely have to be very clear about why we’re doing what we’re doing.
After we’ve implemented a song or speaking element in a service it will be more important than normal to gather feedback on what was implemented and make sure certain trusted congregants and volunteers feel free to give their feedback, especially those directly connected to the language being sung or spoken from stage.
Potential Hurdles to Implementing Bilingual Worship
We recognize that these conversations could feel awkward, clunky and may make us look stupid at times. We, as a predominantly white staff, may have to say “Sorry” a lot, but we recognize that without these necessary awkward conversations we aren’t likely to build the intimacy and the bridges that will not only help us make our values come to life, but also make future conversations less awkward as this approach becomes part of our church’s DNA.
Possible Prompts…
For years, Summit leaders have said from stage that “Summit runs on volunteers.” We’ve been talking and now we’re wanting to push that ball a bit further by giving our congregation a glimpse into how great God is and how deep and broad He is working in this community. As an extension of that original sentiment, we have decided to be even more committed to showcasing your voices and stories in our services and it’s out of that heart that today we will be singing this Bi-lingual worship song.
One of Summit’s values as a church is “Reflecting Heaven’s Diversity Here and Now” because…and one way we’ve chosen to be committed to that value is by showcasing the different voices and cultures in our congregation by giving an avenue for people from different backgrounds to be heard and celebrated. With that in mind, let’s worship together as so and so sings this next song.