Earlier this year, a team of eleven people from Proskuneo Ministries went to the Calvin Symposium on Worship in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Symposium is a gathering of people from a wide spectrum of denominations, perspectives, cultures, and approaches to worship. We were invited to lead for morning services on Friday and Saturday with the theme of “The Divine Parent” from Hosea 11. In my opinion, Proskuneo as a family and community was able to contribute in a unique and unprecedented way.
First of all, it’s a multicultural family. Brothers and sisters from South Sudan, Korea, Georgia, Syria, Congo, the Philippines, and Maryland came together—not only to lead worship, but to enter into a space of family.
What does that look like? Well, at Calvin it looked like sharing leadership so much that we were constantly taking turns with the lead vocals or instrumentation, serving each other on the platform with honor.
It looked like laughing and eating together every chance we got. It looked like leading spontaneous worship for each other before a service, rather than just running through the set list, in order to encounter God and set our hearts on Him.
It looked like my brother Abraham Deng, who is over six feet tall, picking up his five-foot-something friend into the air with a huge hug of welcome—simply because that friend was alive and well that morning and he saw them.
It looked like providing space and opportunity for story after story to be shared,often with tears, of earthly fathers and our divine Father. It looked like a family of people with imperfections choosing to love each other, serve each other, and live with each other in commitment to God, to oneness.
Second of all, it’s a choice to live together in community. Yes, it is a choice to be together—not only for a few worship services, but choosing to stay in community with people who are different from you. People who could get on your nerves, or who don’t speak your heart language. People that you don’t understand all that well, or you never really get their jokes. Choosing to live in community with nations of people is an intentional seeking of the Kingdom on earth, of the nations learning and living among a fuller dwelling of His being, His glory, His healing, His redeemed people, His unity.
If this experience taught me anything, it taught me that we are all broken, bleeding, scarred people who are healing into oneness by the present and living power of the only One who can truly save us into Himself… into oneness!
Click here to watch a livestream recording of Proskuneo at the Calvin Symposium on Worship.
Learn the story behind “Wahed,” a song written by our community and shared at the Calvin Symposium on Worship.