Arnel Cadeliña, a pastor and worship leader in Manila, remembers when his parents called their only “born again” relative for help. It was 1983, Cadeliña was 12, and his family was convinced that his teenage sister was possessed by a demon.
“He showed up with two guitars and two singers,” Cadeliña recalled. “Then he said, ‘Let’s not mind her, let’s mind the name above all names,’ and so they led us in worship songs.”
Cadeliña remembers singing easy praise choruses like “This Is the Day” and praying. He says he witnessed two miracles that day: the deliverance of his sister and the conversion of his family.
“We didn’t know the Bible, we didn’t understand God, but he showed up in the facility of our music, in the facility of our worship.”
Contemporary praise and worship music from the United States, Australia, and the UK has been an element of Cadeliña’s faith journey since its starting.
Like many Protestant Christians within the Philippines, he grew as a believer while singing songs from direct-to-consumer cassette tapes by Integrity’s Hosanna! Music within the ’80s and ’90s, passed along by missionaries and inside grassroots networks of churches. (“This is the Day,” the song Cadeliña remembers singing, was administered and distributed by Integrity.)
With the influence of Western worship music, Filipino leaders like Cadeliña are attempting to balance local music with popular hits coming from the US-dominated worship music industry.
Cadeliña now leads FIJ (Faith in Jesus) City Church in Manila along with his wife, Jessica, the church’s worship leader. The church is an independent Protestant church, with an auditorium that appears so much like one you’ll find at a nondenominational church within the US: mostly black, with a stage lit by intelligent LEDs, outfitted with a high-end sound system and band instruments.
The Cadeliñas are each musicians, writing and recording original songs for his or her church and leading training workshops for church musicians of their region. Arnel loves the Western praise and worship music that has shaped his faith, but is set to not let it dictate the musical practices of his church. For each service, they struggle to program two songs in Tagalog and two songs in English (the 2 official languages of the Philippines).
Image: Courtesy of Arnel Cadeliña
“We’ve had weeks when a team lined up a bunch of songs by Hillsong and Planetshakers,” he said. “If we don’t make a choice to do local songs, we can be overwhelmed,” he continued, by the worldwide options and influence.
Because Christianity got here to the Philippines through colonization, the Filipino church has all the time been deeply influenced by Western culture. Today, the Philippines is second only to the US in its 17 percent share of Hillsong Worship’s global audience, in accordance with Chartmetric (the US audience is 28%). And the Philippines is the first audience of the Australian group Planetshakers (33% of its listenership).
In metro Manila, most Filipino churches that use contemporary music sing a mix of English and Tagalog on Sunday mornings. Sometimes, congregations sing a single song in each languages (with the verses in Tagalog and the chorus in English, for instance) and listen to preaching in a mix of the 2 languages, Taglish.
Worship leaders can rarely find official worship song translations in Tagalog (or in any of 150-plus other native languages spoken within the Philippines), so some local musicians are working to develop their very own repertoire.
Gloryfall, a collective of worship leaders around Manila, has been working on translations of popular worship songs because the pandemic. They have received approval from original recording artists to provide translations of over 30 hit songs, including “King of Kings” and “Who You Say I Am” from Hillsong.
“We’ve gotten numerous feedback from local Christians who say that it’s been really meaningful to have these songs in Tagalog,” said drummer Harald Huyssen, a former missionary kid and a school member on the University of Santo Tomas Conservatory of Music in Manila.
“Singing the last chorus of a song in Tagalog rallies the congregation,” said Chester Elmeda, Gloryfall’s keyboardist. “I all the time stay up for the top of ‘King of Kings,’ when everyone starts singing in my language. That’s the facility of your individual native tongue.”
Gloryfall records its own music and runs a studio for other local musicians to make use of. The group has seen a growing enthusiasm for grassroots music in Tagalog.
“It’s easier for Filipinos to access the doctrine and theology in our native tongue,” said Rye Pecardal, the group’s bassist.
The growth of the Philippine marketplace for worship music has caught the eye of the worldwide music industry. In 2021, Sony Music Philippines launched a recent Christian label, Waterwalk Records. Gloryfall was one among the primary bands to hitch.
“I appreciate that the industry sees the worth of Filipino Christian music and that a serious label is supporting this work,” said Huyssen. “Why wouldn’t there be a Christian label? It’s interesting that it took so long. Sony is a business, it sees the worth.”
On a world scale, the exchange of music continues to be relatively one-sided.
“With the present state of the industry, it will be almost inconceivable to send music the opposite way,” said Huyssen. “The remainder of the world aspires to the extent of production coming out of Nashville, for higher or worse. It’s not a level playing field.”
Many Filipino worship leaders and church musicians see questions of provenance as distracting or counterproductive, while acknowledging that the dominance of music from one segment of the worldwide church falls in need of “on earth because it is in heaven.”
“We need to begin with a kingdom mindset, versus a hemispheric mindset,” said Elmeda. “The best themes all the time come from the Word of God. There’s no competition. ‘How Great Is Our God’ takes the ‘me’ out of it.”
When a song coming from the US doesn’t resonate, they don’t use it. Huyssen said certain Western songs that cope with trials and struggles don’t strike the fitting tone in English lyrics written by a famous American artist.
“An American’s material struggle doesn’t exactly relate to a Filipino’s material struggle,” said Huyssen. “But the more vertical songs, like ‘How Great Is Our God’ or ‘10,000 Reasons,’ have a universal theme. God’s using these songs powerfully here.”
Filipino leaders are very plugged into the broader worship music industry, and there’s numerous variation in how church leaders are selecting to cope with questions of music selection, just like the US.
“Sure, there are churches here that may ban songs by Bethel or Hillsong. People concentrate,” said Jessica Cadeliña. But at their church, decisions about a selected song are made based on the merits of that specific song. “It’s not concerning the group, it’s about Jesus.”
“You have a culture in each church,” said Arnel Cadeliña. “You need to tailor your music to your congregation and your musicians. We’d like to play music by Israel Houghton—he’s so good. But the music is so difficult to play!”
The Cadeliñas’ worship music ministry has grown since they began leading training sessions and workshops in 2003. They are generally known as “Malayang Pilipino” (“Free Filipino”). It’s the name of the title track of their first album, written in 1998 to have fun the 100-year anniversary of the Philippines’ liberation from Spain.
The name stuck, completely by accident. “Malayang Pilipino” has continued to resonate because the Cadeliñas, Gloryfall, and other leaders navigate music ministry, balancing the liberty to embrace or reject outside influences with a commitment to the celebration of Filipino identity within the church.
