I did want to tell you about last Sunday, since I had requested that you be praying. Thanks to the prayers of many, the combined bilingual service with the whole church was a very edifying time. I’ve heard no negative comments (though I don’t know that anyone would have shared those with me).
We had a number of bilingual speakers participate: Lee Penya did the welcome, Gerardo Lara gave the announcements, Steve Austin led singing, Paul Roggendorff read scripture, Daniel García translated Gary McCaleb’s elder’s prayer (Gary isn’t bilingual, but regularly attends our bilingual service, so he’s part of the group), Ronnie Rama did the communion thoughts and Carlos Reyes led the closing prayer. I give that list only because each of those guys did a great job with using both languages. I’ve heard a lot of people try to work in two languages that did not do it well; each of those men did a great job.
Things did take longer doing everything in both languages. It was 10:50 when I got up to present the Bible lesson; the interim preacher we have right now nearly always ends the service right at 11:00. People didn’t seem too impatient, however. In fact, I was surprised at how responsive the audience was. Admittedly it’s been years since I’ve done anything on Sunday morning at University; the crowd was very lively, with lots of “amen”s during the sermon. The message seemed well received.
What I most wanted was for the ground to be laid for this to happen more often. Lots of people expressed the desire to see just that, so I’m hopeful that it will happen. We need to strengthen the ties between those that meet in the auditorium and those that meet in the chapel. We aren’t two congregations under one roof; we’re one congregation speaking two languages and meeting in two places.
As I understand, each man spoke in both languages, rather than an English speaker, then Spanish speaker. Is that correct? Did you also preach in both languages? And are you only using bilingual men to speak? We have two speakers for everything except the singing, when the Spanish men/women sing from their book and the English men/women sing from theirs. That is not cacophany to me, just beautiful harmony. The song leader coordinates songs that are in both books. We haven’t decided yet how we can project both versions on the screen. Then both preachers use the same scripture to present their thoughts, except for last time when the Spanish preacher prepared the lesson and the English preacher ended up having to read from his notes which he normally does not do.
I am so glad you had a favorable response and do pray that this will be a regular occurence at University.
At the beginning, the interim minister and I alternated in reading from Psalm 100 as a call to worship. And the elder’s prayer was translated. Everything else was done with each man doing his own translation.
As for the singing, I like that style, but we met great opposition to two-language singing in the last church I worked with. As for how to do the PowerPoint, Carlos Gonzales has worked a lot with that. I can’t find a website that shows those PowerPoints, but you can write Carlos at spanglishmusic@yahoo.com. He and his wife do congregational workshops on bilingual singing.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
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I contacted Carlos and go some PP songs. I also forwarded his emails to the deacon in charge of song leading on our special days. He is very excited and will be speaking to the elders about having Carlos come for a seminar. Thank you for giving this direction to help make our combined service even better.
Carlos is great. He actually created a song just for me to use on my radio program. Well, I think Voces will use it in the future, but I mean that he made it at my request. Great guy.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer