[I am thankful for the leadership of Chestnut Grove Baptist Church and their desire to help their people develop God's heart for the nations. The PROSKUNEO team converged on Sunday night, September 27 to worship across the globe...singing songs in English, Spanish, ASL, Russian, Portuguese, Swahili, French, Chinese, Korean, Hawaiian, Tagalog, Congolese...all in under an hour and a half!)

[We were able to involve a couple of Chestnut Grove members who come from different countries and backgrounds. Martha (from West Africa) read Psalm 150 in her native tongue and sang a song from her husband's tribal language.]

[Lee read Psalm 24:1-2 in Korean and led us in prayer.]

[i love our Proskuneo team! Here is Mark preparing his heart before rehearsal...each one of our amazing team members brings so much of themselves and so much talent and spiritual energy to the ministry!]

[Neil brought his classical guitar, and took a break (only one song!) from playing bass to play an amazing classical guitar solo in "With One Heart." Just adding a classical guitar solo helps the song feel much more latino!]

[Karen led out in an ASL moment...she signed and I voiced for her (always an adventure!)...did you know there are 35 million culturally deaf people world-wide? After Karen's moment on Sunday, everyone knew that...(in fact, Katie even spouted it out 4 days later!)]

[Joy and her daughter Ashley led us in worship by dancing to celebrate GOD's goodness...all the time...HE IS GOOD! I love watching a mom and daughter worship and serve the LORD together. PROSKUNEO is not just multicultural, but intergenerational too...as is the Body of Christ!]

[Debbie's soulful vocals always bless me, and lead my heart to worship our great GOD! And she even sang in Congolese this past week "Malembe malembe tu kwenda na...nzila zulu tu kwenda na" :)]

[i love how our team loves each other...we are always the last people to leave...we just have to catch up with each other, and LAUGH together!]

[Francis (far left) busts out with the ukelele (pronounced: "ooh keh leh leh") to help us sing "Glory, Glory Lord" with an island feel...the incorporation of just one unique instrument can really change the feel of any song!]

[you know, southerners have their own culture too...i have my fair share of miscommunications and misunderstandings even though we speak the same language in north and south USA. Here we are gathered around the piano for some southern-style worship...]

I had the privilege of leading worship a couple weekends ago at a Multicultural Church Conference in Winston-Salem, NC. Southern Baptist church leaders from all over the state converged to be inspired and challenged in the area of multi-ethnic ministry. The Multicultural Ministries Team of the North Carolina Convention, led by my friend (and Proskuneo Board Member) Ken Tan hosted this event beautifully!

I was naïve, but I had no idea, before attending this event, that the Southern Baptist Convention was formed originally partially due to the issue of slavery. Since then, the Convention has issued a formal apology and has taken steps to right wrongs. Because of this history, however, this was a ground-breaking event as Southern Baptists from diverse cultures came together to worship in one place.

Pastor Rodney Woo of Wilcrest Baptist Church in Houston, TX was a keynote speaker on Friday night. I love his definition of a multi-ethnic church:

"A multi-ethnic church is composed of racially diverse believers, united by their faith in Christ, who make disciples of all nations, in anticipation of the ultimate racial reunion around the throne."

We worshiped and prayed together as one...singing songs in English, Spanish, Tagalog, Korean, Arabic, and Creole to name a few languages. 

FUN FACT (I learned at this conference). The  USA is the 3rd largest spanish-speaking country in the world. Can you guess what the first two are?

You are right if you guessed Mexico and Spain.