The place of music in missions work in Ghana: with reference to the church of Pentecost

Abstract

This article gives a brief narrative of the role that music has played and continues to play in the churches in Ghana with particular reference to the Church of Pentecost. It begins by acknowledging that the COP as an indigenous Ghanaian church sees music as an integral part of its missions in Ghana and beyond. It then examines the musical tradition of the churches in Ghana, and examines four models of musical types in Ghanaian churches, namely, Contrafactum, Eclectic, Creative Essays of Afro-Identity and Spontaneous types. The rest of the paper focuses on the Spontaneous Type of music as the Church of Pentecost’s preference in worship and in its missional activities. It concludes with a brief comment on the importance of the Psalms in church music.