Perspectives — North America
Singing from the MWC songbook in Pennsylvania
“All the nations you have made shall come
and bow down before you, O Lord,
and shall glorify your name.”
Psalm 86:9
When we sing songs from Mennonite World Conference’s international songbook, we are practicing hospitality and belonging. Singing other cultures’ songs also connects us with the global church.
Songs such as “Here I Am to Worship,” “Way Maker” and “How Great Thou Art” fit neatly into the musical canon at Neffsville Mennonite Church. Others – like “Cantai ao Senhor,” “Kwake Yesu Nasimama,” and “Tu Eres Todopoderso” – are more of a stretch.
Our congregation is majority white, with many having a Swiss or German Mennonite lineage. However, we also have members from Puerto Rico, Haiti, Kenya and Uganda. Singing songs in their native languages is one way to express to them that they truly belong.
Also, quite a few of our members have served as missionaries overseas in Africa, Asia and South America. Singing songs from the MWC songbook encourages them as well.
Let me give two examples of how our singing has expressed welcome and solidarity in a tangible way.
Favourite song in a heart language
About three years ago, a missionary from Peru that we support visited Neffsville and preached on Sunday. That morning, we sang “Tu Estas Aqui.” Tears began to roll down his cheeks as we were singing. He never thought he would hear a song in his native tongue at a Mennonite church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania!
I learned later that “Tu Estas Aqui” is one of his favorite songs. He and his family felt welcomed in a more profound way, simply because we sang a song in worship in his mother tongue.
God’s ways welcome a guest
The second example is recent. We sang “Cantai ao Senhor” in our service, in both Portuguese and English.
On the Sunday, there happened to be a family visiting our church for the first time who is originally from Brazil and speaks Portuguese in their home!
Some members of our congregation wondered why we sing in Portuguese. They knew of no one in our congregation from a country that speaks the language.
But this is how God works! This family was enthralled that a congregation in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was singing in their native language.
They felt welcomed in a way beyond what any handshake could have accomplished. They felt seen.
Music connects across the world
One of my goals this year is for my congregation to sing at least one song from a non-majority culture in most of our worship services. Songs from the MWC songbook help us to do that in a way that powerfully connects us with our Anabaptist brothers and sisters around the world. When, as it says in Psalm 86:9, we “glorify God’s name,” we are doing so with the songs of “all the nations.”
After all, when we get to heaven, there will be people of all nations; every person in Christ who has ever lived. All of us – with all our various cultures, languages, races – will be singing “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:10b)
Singing songs from other cultures and languages (particularly those from the MWC Songbook, many of which are also in our hymnal, Voices Together) serves as good practice for us.
Rashard Allen is the director of music and worship at Neffsville Mennonite Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA. He first became familiar with the MWC Songbook through serving as part of the International Ensemble for MWC Assembly in Indonesia in 2022. He has since conducted workshops on worship music in Mennonite congregations in Uganda, and he organized the five international choirs at the Anabaptism@500 commemoration in Zurich in 2025