IVP Books, 2016. 224 pp. $15.20.
Picture worship “like a feast, the table of which serves food from diverse cultures and seats people from diverse nations, ethnicities, and languages”—this so-called “multiethnic worship” is what Sandra Van Opstal advocates. Her career as a worship leader, including with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship for fifteen years, has exposed her to increasing cultural diversity and a drastic demo- graphic shift in church congregations. Released in 2012, her booklet titled The Mission of Worship casts a glimpse of multiethnic worship, well reflective of such changes in the twenty-first-century Christian worship milieu. As an extension of her previous book, The Next Worship provides a full-fledged blueprint for multi-ethnic worship. Her explorations, both in theory and in praxis, reinforce her argument that, modeled after the inclusive worship illustrated in the New Testament, multicultural worship becomes a place for a foretaste of “the now-but-not-yet of Kingdom of God” (15), leading worshipers “to live out God’s call to reconciliation in hospitality, solidarity, and mutuality” (76).
This book is structured in three divisions: a biblical rationale for multiethnic worship, its practical guidelines, and epilogue and appendixes with supplementary resources. Van Opstal draws the rationale for the diverse worship from Revelation 4 and 7 (22), urging that, in spite of characteristics such as differences, diversity, awkwardness, and tension (25), worshipers should come out of the comfort zone of “normal” worship marked by individualism, preferences, consumerism, or favoritism. Adopting the metaphor of the Master’s Table in Luke 14, she expounds how God calls His people to Himself and one another for reconciliation, which, she argues, should be central in worship. Coupling the Table metaphor with “the image of the body in 1 Corinthians 12” (50), she adds that worshiping communities will “express reconciliation in three ways: hospitality, solidarity and mutuality by welcoming, standing with, and depending on one another” (62). Following the theological exploration, she elaborates on practical aspects of multiethnic worship, including leadership, four models of music, extramusical elements such as form and liturgy, attitudes and virtues of “culture creators,” and training worship leaders. Finally, the addition of supplementary resources to Epilogue and Appendixes ends the introduction of multiethnic worship.
With a view to convincing contemporary Christians of the necessity and means of implementing multiethnic worship in local and global churches, this book adopts a unique narrative mode. The narrative interweaves into its main arguments a variety of elements—biblical grounding, culturally-diverse food metaphors, cross-cultural episodes, ministerial experiences, scholarly expertise, and musical aspects. As novel as this mode of narrative may be, its distractive nature may deprive the book of readers’ rapport while the narrative crosses over different elements. Nevertheless, the originality of the Table metaphors carried throughout is praiseworthy in that they accomplish dual goals—to coherently tie the primary argument of God’s invitation of His people to the communion table chapter by chapter and to situate readers in cultural diversity by bolstering their cultural sensitivity.
In an endeavor to implant a new paradigm of worship into the reader, Van Opstal employs a rhetorical device of repetition. Among the most frequently used words in this book are “imagine” and “imagination” appearing in forty-two sentences; when its synonyms, “dream” and “envision” are included, fifty-four appear in total. She intentionally and prophetically reiterates those words in the hope for the inauguration of the new paradigm, a biblically sound eschatological multiethnic worship, as a worship model for next generations, not merely for contemporary Christianity. How- ever, musical practices, which she presents as resources for this in- clusive worship in chapter five and appendixes F, G, and H, fall far behind its theological and theoretical rationale. With existing songs, lyrics are simply translated into the language of a certain people group, part of the worship demographic. For newly composed songs, they are still under the pervasive influence of the western popular musical styles, however reflective they may be of ethnic musical features. Lyrically and musically less refined adaptations would not be able to meet even an average standard of worship music, much less that of musically and aesthetically sophisticated people. With theory and praxis imbalanced, it remains skeptical whether the new paradigm is God-ordained and noble enough to imagine or envision.
Van Opstal is well aware of the controversial nature of this new worship paradigm, as she acknowledges, “this is a topic with a variety of opinions” (15). Planning multiethnic worship rises above preference-centered questions such as “what do we [or a changing student generation] prefer in worship?” (14). This proves that this new worship inclines itself toward being anthropocentric rather than theocentric. In line with this human-centered inclination, experience-orientation with the emphasis of relevancy and authenticity may well arouse objections to this new mode of worship. As another contradictory factor, the idea of implementing diverse worship in homogenous or mono-ethnic congregations, the context where no other ethnic group needs to feel included and welcomed, lacks a rationale for its necessity. Her contention that it is “an act of both hospitality and solidarity” (200) sounds groundless and unconvincing. Further, one of her presuppositions, the prevalence of cultural diversity in North America and around the globe, needs reexamining. A multi-faceted survey should be made beyond the simple demographic statistics in number, considering that in North America most young generations of African, Latino, or Asian lineage are fully acculturated or in the process of the acculturation in the western culture-based Christianity with their ethnicities merely nominal. When applied to churches beyond the boundary of North America, which are culturally and/or ethnically much less diverse, the feasibility of this paradigm will be lowered.
Founded on the ideal picture presented in the New Testament, this new paradigm of multiethnic worship is taking its staggering steps, wrestling to keep its theory and praxis in balance. Van Opstal’s plain and conversational narrative may enable her to successfully achieve her goal of introducing the new paradigm to a wide range of readers. However, the topic may confine the reader- ship to the present multiethnic-worship leadership or leaders-to-be, for whom this book will be of some benefit as a textbook or hand- book. A sequel to this book is expected to be published, where this paradigm with its biblically grounded rationale is to be redefined and honed with less contradiction and more persuasiveness, in turn heightening the feasibility of its implementation as an alternative solution in the fluctuating worship milieu.
