Worship means something different to everyone, yet similarities can still be found. Taylor’s Multicultural Student Association (MSA) aims to explore what worshiping differently but together looks like in their Multicultural Worship Night event.
“The event is a night where students of different cultures can come in and worship in the way that they feel that they express back home,” MSA Co-President senior Joanna Vasudevan said.
The MSA invited students to audition for the event, looking for different types of performances in multiple languages including English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Hindu. The performances consist of both relaxed and upbeat worship songs, dancing and reading of Scripture.
The goal of the event is to help students recognize the many ways various cultures worship and how they can be as similar as they are different.
“You’re hearing the same thing, but in different languages,” Vasudevan said. “And even if you don’t understand what someone’s saying or singing, especially in a worship night, you know that we’re all worshiping the one God that created all of us.”
The unification found in the act of worshiping together, regardless of differences in language or other cultural aspects, is an important theme in the event: emphasizing the bond of the body of Christ through worship in many forms.
“I think there’s a lot of value in just setting apart our differences, but coming together with those differences as well, if that makes sense,” MSA Co-President Julissa Castellanos said.
By setting aside differences while also celebrating them, MSA hopes to exemplify what unifies believers in worship. While the way believers worship varies across the globe, it is all for one purpose that unifies believers rather than dividing them.
“From my view, I think different languages make me feel like even though we are from different places from different countries, when we come to worship God that we are connected by the same Holy Spirit,” MSA administrator Cher Wang said. “So, the different languages will not be obstacles to stop us reaching God.”
MSA hopes to reach students from different cultures across campus, and hear from God in a unique way.
“Prepare your heart to see how God will reach out to you or tell you during the show through the different languages,” Wang said.
Worshiping God remains the main focus, just as any other worship event on campus. But to see how that happens in different ways among various cultures represented in the student body makes the Multicultural Worship Night unique.
“I think that there’s a just a lot of beauty and seeing how many people come together because this is an event aimed towards the whole student body. So everybody’s welcome to come.” Castellanos said. “It’s just beautiful seeing all the cultures represented, and then having the whole student body embrace that as well, which is kind of like what it will be like in heaven.”
MSA invites all students to join in the Multicultural Worship Night event each year to experience an atmosphere of worship that might look or sound somewhat different, but is still filled with God’s presence and glory.
