Make a joyful noise

Make a joyful noise

To follow up from last month’s article on the Christian jazz musician, Tuan Hung, did you know that …

… Vietnamese love to sing? Any occasion will involve people getting up on stage and performing songs (karaoke style). Christian or not, groups on holiday or camping will pull out a guitar and sing the night away!

… every age-group in church has its own assiduously drilled choir, who perform with gusto. All are encouraged to join.

… most hymns in the sole Vietnamese hymnbook are translations from old Western hymns of the 19th or early 20th century? (Lots of Moody & Sankey.) The translations have never been revised in the past 50 years, and even regular churchgoers don’t understand some of the archaic Vietnamese vocabulary.

… churchgoers bring their own hymnbooks to services? Most churches cannot afford to provide hymnbooks or to print worship sheets. Some large city churches occasionally use projectors for occasional songs (only effective if all members are wearing their glasses!)

… Vietnamese melodies are written to match the rise and fall of the tones in Vietnamese lyrics? In translated songs, whether hymns or contemporary worship, the tunes and Vietnamese tones clash dreadfully.

Pray that Vietnamese church leadership would recognise the importance of developing and supporting worship in an indigenous Vietnamese style. Those stepping into a church for the first time often find the music off-putting, because translated songs just sound ‘wrong’.

Ask the Lord to guide those writing new Vietnamese worship songs, in USA and in Vietnam – that they would understand the elements that make songs more suitable for congregational singing.

Dear God, stir up those with creativity, and entrepreneurial flair – to spread your praises from the music notes of the songwriters to the lips of Vietnamese congregations around the country.

O! that Vietnamese youth would find Jesus worth singing about!