Contemporary Features of Rebirth of Music in African Churches

Abstract

Music has played very crucial roles in the life of the African church since its emergence in the early nineteenth century and it is engaged to date in Christian worship to achieve several purposes of which mobilization and execution of the central assignment of the church which is missions is key. Although church music has gone through different phases of development and given different colorations, the progressive engagement of music in African Churches qualifies it as an indispensable vehicle of communication, invocation, supplication, and mobilization in the execution of the great commission. An examination of the African church's use of music in contemporary times reveals are birth of church music for mission mobilization evident in its Indigenization, Secularization, Instrumentation,and Acculturation. This paper, therefore, discourses the rebirth of church music in African Churches and its deployment in mobilization for missions. It gives a conceptualization of church music; African Churches; a historical overview of music in African churches; and the contemporary features of the rebirth of music in African churches. Drawing on historical materials and analytical methods of research, the paper concludes that music has been effective and remains an indispensable tool for mobilization for missions.