giving artistic expressions back to the creator as worship

On arrival, we hit the freezing country running and divided into two groups.  Our HSI ethnomusicology coordinator remained in the capital to work with OM leaders and our local recording engineer.  They rounded up musicians from last year's New Song Concert to re-record some tracks that a massive computer crash had damaged.

jesus assembly erdenet

The second group took a 300-mile taxi ride to Erdenet, the third largest city of Mongolia, to work with the worship team from the nation's largest church, the Erdenet Jesus Assembly.  This church had become a model of church planting in the nation, and had birthed a significant body of worship songs.  Last year we recorded eleven of their songs.  Now we were back to recover tracks that also had been damaged in the computer failure.  In two days of intense vocal recordings, the missing parts were restored.

These worship songs from Erdenet were some of the most moving melodies the team had ever had the privilege of recording.  The tunes have a haunting quality about them.  Before packing up and heading back to the capital, two of the worship team leaders were interviewed on video.  They were asked how the worship songs were birthed.  One said that when she attended the first HSI song-writing event in 2002, she was challenged to write a song.  She cried out to the Lord for help, and before long desperation turned to joy as the new song began to flow.  Another lady on the team told of the unbearable pain and trial she experienced in her home.  She felt a deep need to experience the love of Jesus in a greater way.  The Swedish missionary who had helped plant the church prayed over her.  He prophetically declared that God would release worship songs that expressed His intense love for her.  Most of the Erdenet songs that we recorded demonstrate the powerful melodic and lyrical gifts of this woman of God.

new song concert #3

When we arrived back in the capital, we rejoined the other part of our team and all helped launch the third New Song Concert that was to be held at a large Assembly of God church.  A song-writing fellowship had formed from last year's visit, and they had written more than 20 powerful songs.  On the night of the concert, over 900 people crowded into the church for yet another standing-room-only event!  The concert featured children of all ages who premiered 10 new children's songs.  Local people told us this was the first time in Mongolian history that new children's music was featured in a Christian concert.  The remaining 14 Christian songs included both traditional and contemporary styles. A traditional dance in praise of the Creator was also performed.  As in the previous events, the pastor who is a prolific composer and musician, skilfully played and sang the traditional songs, using indigenous instruments.

recording marathon

With no time to lose, the HSI team divided again, this time into two recording units with a third team making the rounds to Christian leaders.  One unit had the joy of working in the studio that HSI had helped to start two years ago.  The other unit set up a second studio next door in a meeting room, having covered the walls with borrowed quilts.  The daunting task of making professional recordings of the songs from the concert began in earnest.  There were also a few songs from the 2003 events that needed re-recording which added more drama to the four-day marathon.  Fifteen of the 20+ songs had been arranged ahead of time by a talented local composer/arranger.  This vastly simplified the instrumental portion of the recording.

One team member showed his ethnomusicology prowess by contacting musicians who played the traditional instruments and encouraging them to add ethnic flavors to various songs.  During a lull in one of the recording sessions, he realized there were two guitar players, a traditional music throat-singer, and a Mongolian Bible nearby.  He wondered what God might inspire with that special mixture.  He worked with the small group to develop a song that combined a blistering rock guitar duet, ethereal arpeggios, and the text of Psalm 100 sung in the traditional Mongolian way using two types of throat singing.

Meanwhile, another team member and an OM worker moved throughout the capital, setting up appointments and luncheons with Christian leaders.  They presented to them a two-page vision proposal to start a national movement for distribution of the new worship resources.  At one luncheon the pastor/songwriter who began the song-writing group a year ago decided to increase their mandate.  They would not only birth new songs; they would also find ways to get recorded worship songs into the far corners of the nation.  Within a year, four recorded projects will be available.

a wonder moment

Some moments in life we see the work of God in such a clear way that our reaction is best described as "wonder."  A team member had one of those "wonder" moments when he visited the Bible College where the first HSI concert was held.  One of the professors showed him around the growing library and pointed out a newly printed songbook for Inner Mongolia.  As the team member opened the book, his thumb just "happened" to land on song #102.  As he started humming the very ornate melody, to his astonishment he realized that it was one of the songs that the HSI team had just finished recording in Erdenet.  Apparently, that Erdenet song had circulated onto another recording and some perceptive musician computer-notated the song in time to include it in the songbook.  Quickly humming through the entire songbook, he found a second song from the Erdenet recording in the collection of mostly Western and translated songs.  The worship leader in Erdenet was ecstatic to discover that two of the Erdenet worship songs were on their way across the border into China to strengthen the restricted believers in the underground church of Inner Mongolia.

Reflecting on this, we felt that it was not just a pleasant coincidence for the Lord to point out song #102 from Erdenet.  There might be a wider purpose in that special moment. We began to imagine the possibilities of Mongolians releasing songbooks of entire Mongolian-bred songs to enable musicians to teach new indigenous worship songs to their congregations.

billy's new vision

Perhaps the most touching moment of our entire visit to Mongolia came from Billy, a delightful energetic worship leader from a very contemporary church.  This church had been planted by the first missionary sent out from Mongolia.  He had spent two years on an OM mission ships.  On his return, he also started Mongolia's first Christian rock band (which includes Billy) and started mentoring worship musicians.

At the Sunday service we attended at the former missionary's church, Billy was one of the worship leaders and also played drums for part of the service.  Though a majority of the songs were Australian imports, that very Sunday the congregation experienced something quite historic, incorporating traditional dances into the worship time.  They were performed in colorful national costume and incorporated traditional stylized dance movements.

The next day Billy told us a change was happening in his life--a longing to go back to the use of traditional Mongolian instruments, which was part of his musical training.  He was asked if the traditional dances at the morning service rekindled that desire.  Billy then said that it was not the morning service, but the evening New Songs Concert.  Billy explained that when the pastor sang those haunting Mongolian melodies with the national instruments, he received an expanded mandate from the Lord to include his culture's musical heritage as part of the Christian music repertoire of Mongolia.  To demonstrate his resolve, Billy went into the studio and recorded a song on a traditional instrument that he had not touched in six years.

Billy reflects the heartbeat of HSI, a small reflection of the gigantic globally beating heart of God to call His people, nation by nation, tribe by tribe, language by language, to give their artistic expressions, ancient and modern, contemporary and traditional, back to the Creator God as their worship.