By Torie Speicher
INDIA — From Music City, USA, musician and songwriter Jeff Bourque made his way to India to share the basics of songwriting for a congregation with Indian believers. The mission: write songs.
Through a friend of a friend, Bourque was chosen by Ethan Leyton,* ethnomusicologist, and Mani Dutta,* an Indian pastor, to lead a workshop for 18 young men and women living in urban India and representing five churches.
“Dutta and I dreamed and prayed that instead of [English-speaking] Indian believers singing Hillsong and Chris Tomlin songs all the time, perhaps they could begin writing their own English songs for worship,” Leyton said.
Budding songwriters worked together to write a song that centers around God's character. Jeff Bourque, songwriter and worship leader, offered some one-on-one tips during small group time.
Roughly one out of every 70 persons in India believes in Jesus. Indian Christians are surrounded by temples full of idols and sounds like the cacophony of Muslim calls to prayer. With a unique perspective on their identity as Christians and living out their faith, these believers have a lot to offer Christian music.
In the last seven years, Leyton has organized 20 songwriting workshops for believers around South Asia. This one is unique because it’s the first one in English. In a diverse city of over 8 million people where four primary mother tongue languages are used, many Christians and young professionals are more comfortable communicating in English because it’s the language they have in common.
Leyton hopes the songwriters will take what they learn and apply it to their mother tongues, but also that these songs will be used in American churches one day.
As worship leader for Grace Community Church in Nashville, Tenn., Bourque thinks a lot about songs sung congregationally. When leading worship, he chooses songs that express the truth about who God is and what our response should be as His people.
Amit Dhawan* is studying in Bible college and serves at Dutta’s church. He has struggled to write songs before, but learned a lot at the workshop. He worked with a group of four people to write the song The Lord is Good.
“Many times I came to know the truth about God through worship songs and it encouraged me to come closer to God,” Dhawan said. “(As a songwriter), I want people to understand that God still saves, heals and delivers people from darkness.”
Like Dhawan, these budding songwriters had some experience writing songs, but almost no experience writing songs centered on God for the purpose of building up the church. Among the students were a former drug addict, an engineering student, a banker, a software developer, a pastor and the grandson of a village elder who practices witchcraft.
With 22 years of songwriting experience and a passion for the local church, Bourque’s interest in leading a workshop like this was peaked in 2005. He was leading worship overseas for a group of cross-cultural workers and heard about the importance of equipping new believers in different cultures to communicate their experience with God through song.
“When you have an experience of salvation, everyone is saved to Christ, but everyone is saved from something and that looks different,“ Bourque said. “So, the people of this country will have a completely different perspective on what it means to be a believer.”
A group of four Indians with different mother tongue languages collaborated in English to write a song about our relational God.
Bourque believes that believers from different cultures should be able to sing songs that relate to their experiences, rather than importing songs from other cultures, like the Western-sounding songs sung in American churches.
When he came to India, Bourque was expecting to offer tools that people could use to get started and hoped that with time and experience, they would learn to write lasting songs.
Instead, what he found was talented musicians hungry for the opportunity to learn and practice songwriting.
The language barrier — although minimal since the workshop was in English — was there, but it didn’t stop Bourque from connecting easily with the students from Bhutan, India and Africa.
As surprised as he was that it didn’t take long to build trust, Bourque credits their bond with knowing that their lives have been greatly impacted by Jesus. They were ready to soak in everything he had to share with them.
“I mean, it was two straight days of thinking of nothing but songs and songwriting and I started to get fatigued,” Bourque said. “But rather than taking a break, the students said, ‘Let’s write another song!’”
Sanjeet Devar* leads worship at another church in the city. He worked with a group of four to write the song You’re My Friend. Inspired by John 15:13-15, he wants his song to express God’s nature as our approachable friend.
“He created everything that we see and know and chooses to call us His friend,” Devar said. “God is nearer and more approachable than what most people in my culture think.”
Despite their different backgrounds, Bourque and the 18 young men and women living in urban India worshiped God together through familiar songs as well as songs they wrote.
By the end of the workshop, Bourque’s students had written four songs ready to use in the church context. “Their excitement to write songs motivated me to write more,” Bourque said. To hear them, use this link: http://southasianpeoples.imb.org/?p=6152.
The last night of the workshop ended with a time of worship. Together, the pastor, former drug addict and Hindu background believer jammed together singing songs they wrote with faith in Christ as their bond. No one noticed the myriad of mosquitoes or flickering electricity as they praised the one, true God with voices, shakers, djembe, guitar and keyboard.
“I looked around the circle as we were worshipping one night just playing guitars and banging on instruments and singing songs and their hearts were so humble and filled with love that came from an understanding of who God is and a desire to know more (of Him),” Bourque said. “They were just obviously committed followers of Christ, without any pretense or shells, and that was such a blessing for me to spend time with them. “
Bourque’s prayer is that seeds of Truth taken from God’s word in these songs will bear fruit in the church in India.
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*Name changed.
Torie Speicher is a writer, serving among South Asian peoples. Jeff Bourque can be found online at http://congregationalsongs.com/
Although Huan Tan* resembles her listeners, she must use an interpreter to encourage them in their spiritual growth. Through the voice of another, she speaks with conviction. She tells the people in jeans, khakis, polos, and button-up shirts that they can live lives mature in faith and spread the Gospel to their friends and families. Asians, she says, can sustain a successful church and spread the message of Christ. She has seen it happen.
Consequently, as the Tans conduct their leadership training, they realize that their audience has very little understanding of basic Christianity. The couple teach rudimentary lessons dealing with Christian marriage, Christian parenting and basic evangelism through Bible storytelling. The five other Chinese congregation members take turns giving their testimonies and demonstrating storytelling techniques with felt board characters.
