At our church, we will from time to time sing multilingual songs, typically in English and Spanish. For a while, I didn’t like this; we’re an English-speaking American church. I’d even try to spiritualize it — it’s not good to sing songs as worship when we don’t know what we’re singing, I reasoned, and many (most?) of us don’t know what the Spanish means other than a few words here and there. Most of the time the translation was provided, but sometimes it was absent (or was on a different page and not visible with the Spanish).

I knew about Revelation 7:9, that God is in the business of redeeming a people from every language. I knew that Heaven would be a place of multilingual praise. But in the here and now, and in the practice of the church visible, I wanted it to be in my language.

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People like being thrilled. This topic came up last week in my Friday morning men’s Bible study/accountability group. We are attracted to things that provide us with excitement and awe: beautiful mountains, Tchaicovsky’s 1812 Overture, great art, awe-inspiring movie sequences (read: the last hour of Transformers), a beautiful sunset.

Few things thrill my soul as much as a good hymn or song of praise well-sung. A clear, majestic rendition of A Mighty Fortress or O Worship the King, for example. Or a new favorite of mine, And Can It Be. Tonight at church we closed the service with Crown Him with Many Crowns.

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