Feature Story

SRI LANKA--FIRST-PERSON
(Quinn McClintock*):
Sri Lanka’s Christians Develop their own Worship Music

By Quinn McClintock*
EDITORS' NOTE: Quinn McClintock serves as an ethnomusicologist in South Asia.
*Names changed for security purposes.

SRI LANKA--Colleagues asked me to meet with a group of Christians that formed because of the tsunami relief work in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankans were really having some difficulty in the area of worship. They didn’t have very many worship songs, and the songs they had were just not theirs. They really had a hard time singing them.

We spent four afternoons creating songs. We discovered a very musical family. Geethan* is a drummer. He met his wife when he was playing for a musical theater production in which she was acting and singing. They have three children, and the two older children are also very musical, very interested in music. They became a part of the workshop. Geethan was the only family member who was a believer at the time.

By the end of the workshop, there were 19 new Scripture songs in their language. They patterned the music after the popular music in Sri Lanka, and we found out later that the songs they created were kind of imitations of some popular songs that were on the radio. Some of the tunes were similar.

We used a two-sided drum. It’s called a dholki, which Geethan played. He is very talented. Since that was the instrument that was available, that’s what we used.

The response was good. After they had created the songs, I made a recording. We played a rough copy of it the following Sunday at a house church of one of the groups. They just wanted to sing along with all of the songs.

When we played the recording at a leaders’ meeting, the leaders said, “OK, let’s try it ourselves now.” So they really wanted to take the songs and reproduce them.

I spent quite a bit of time with Geethan and his family. I talked to Geethan on several occasions and asked him a lot about Sri Lankan music. We were doing music research, trying to get things going for the workshop. One afternoon, they invited me to their home. I realized that I had asked him lots of questions about his musical background, but I’d never asked about his testimony. So I asked him to share his testimony with me.

His wife and his daughter, Tayani,* confirmed the changed life that he had.

Then one of us in the group asked them, “What about you? Have you decided to follow Jesus yet?”

Tayani said, “Not yet.” You could tell that she was really weighing the decision of whether to follow Christ, because it meant she had to change some things. She was a leader in her school, and that position required her to lead prayers to Buddha. She knew that by coming to Christ, she might have to give up this place of honor in her school. She also knew that if she came to Christ but kept that place and continued to do things like lead the prayers, she would be disobeying God. So she was really weighing that. A few weeks later, she made the decision to follow Christ.

Two house churches are meeting in that community. The family members are now leaders in their church there. They’ve suffered because of their faith, but they’ve been strong. I believe that music played a big role. Because of the role that music played in their family, music played a big role in that family’s decision to come to faith.

Editor’s note:Below is one of several songs the Sri Lanka Christians wrote during their first workshop. They based this one on Psalm 93, an especially significant passage for survivors of the December 26, 2004, tsunami.

The Lord is the King.
The Lord is wearing majesty.

Lord, You created the world.
It can’t be moved.
Your throne was
long ago, forever.

Lord, the seas have
lifted up their voice.
Lord, they lift up
their voices every day.

The Lord is the greatest King.
He’s mightier than
the sea waves.