Music, Life Events, Missions, and Indigenization: A Case Study from East Asia

Abstract

Indigenization is key to the production of music and artforms in order to produce clear communication of the Gospel. A gathering of believers from an East Asian people group came to a songwriting workshop struggling over the negative community response to a Christian funeral officiated by a pastor from outside. In response, they wrote a song that would explain why they could not do the expected practice of bowing down to the dead body, and then a second song expressing a prayer on behalf of the grieving family and the community. After a couple of years, another Christian passed away, and the believers crafted a culturally sensitive funeral that expressed the Gospel and got a much more positive response. In a world where churches around the world easily show a Western face through its artforms, missionaries must disobey the incorrect adage that "music is a universal language" and intentionally call believers to create out of who God has made them to be. This requires thorough discipleship to avoid theological compromises and cultural insensitivity as well as empowerment of the local believers to make decisions over what is appropriate or not.