The Watoto Children’s Choir is well known in the UK, touring round the christian music scene appearing at festivals like The Big Church Day Out. My grandmother loves them, and they are always a joy to watch. The children are so confident, and such gifted performers. Based in Kampala, I had the opportunity this week to attend a Saturday evening service at the central location. A converted old cinema, with pew like benches and room for a few thousand people. The church has several locations across the city, and is growing. After you arrived in the auditorium, except for the fact it wasn’t full of white people, you could have been in a church in the US or UK. They had the lights, the camera, the screens and the “entertainment” factor that is common (and required, in some ways) for reaching this generation.
The children’s choir that tours is different to the service in general, they did have a large choir of older children providing backing to the Hillsong style lead singers (one main singer, then lots of backing singers all on stage with them). It was a refreshing worship service, and nice to have everything in english. You don’t notice it till its not their, but having everything translated, although one of the languages is understood, having another language spoken adds a level of confusion to whats being said. So everything in english, with a few familiar songs was a nice break.
The church was founded by two americas, but I was glad to see its grown into something that is very led by local people. Although they stand at the top of the organisation, it seems that much of the hands on work, and day to day tasks are run by Ugandans. The preaching was good, nothing questionable in the content, and it was well delivered and I think very applicable to the congregation listening.
My one take away, something I liked that was different way the how they prayed together at the start. After the worship set ended, we were brought into a time of prayer, asking God for the needs that were in our lives to be met. We did this in small groups, pairs or threes. Now this isn’t too uncommon in the UK, but here they actually do it! In the UK we struggle to pray out loud, so too often we just turn it into an opportunity for conversation. But here it was great to hear the room filled with the sounds of people lifting their needs to a God who both hears and answers prayer.
