Meet Omot Ochan. He’s African. He’s Minnesotan. He’s more Lutheran than you are. Ochan is a worship leader at Christ Lutheran Church in Eagan, where on an average Sunday, Anuaks (an ethnic group from Ethiopia and Sudan) sway back and forth to call-and-response hymns supported by three drummers. They sing what they call their cultural music: East African songs set to Christian lyrics. This music, explains Ochan, “is what generates the true feeling of being attracted to a love of God. People jump up and say, ‘Oh! We used to dance to kings but now we are dancing to God.’”

Think Lutheran music and you likely picture a Euro-American choir singing precise four-part harmonies, the type of outfit lampooned and romanticized by A Prairie Home Companion. But the scene above is not that unusual in the Twin Cities, where recent immigrants have established themselves as important parts of Minnesota institutions, not the least of which is the Lutheran church and the music found therein. Tanzanian, Hmong, Liberian, Cambodian, Chinese, Sudanese, Lao, Anuak, Ethiopian and Oromo services and choirs dot the landscape of the Twin Cities. Their histories with Lutheran music differ dramatically, from those who grew up singing in Lutheran choirs in their homeland to those who had never sung in a group setting before arriving in the U.S. Regardless, these Lutherans make music to remember their roots and to plant new ones.

To understand the unique spin local immigrants are putting on the smooth melodies and thick harmonies of traditional Lutheran music, one needs to look at the state of Luthernism itself. Historically, the Lutheran church has not been bastion of ethnic diversity. It’s still one of the whitest religions around (the largest U.S. Lutheran body, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, is 97 percent white). However, Minnesota is becoming increasingly diverse at the same time that the world is becoming more Lutheran. From 1990 to 2000, the number of foreign-born residents in Minnesota increased by 130 percent. In 2006, Minnesota’s African population grew at five times the rate of the nation’s black population. Add to this picture a Lutheran membership outside of the Western world that is growing at an unprecedented rate thanks to its focus on mission schools, the provision of social services and respect for cultural identity. By contrast, Lutheran membership rates are falling in Europe and North America. As of 2009, Ethiopia had the second most populous Lutheran membership in the world, just behind Sweden.

Thus, the stage is set for the Twin Cities’ Lutheran immigrants to create their own unique cultures around worship music. Sudanese Lutherans in Columbia Heights, for example, sing a lilting “A Mighty Fortress” in the Nuer language, accompanied by a large drum. This version is hardly reconcilable with its German predecessor, proof that even the most eminent hymn can be produced in a profoundly different way.

It’s difficult to overestimate the importance of music at Our Redeemer Oromo Evangelical Church in Minneapolis—the largest African Lutheran congregation in the nation. The musical introduction to the service can take up to 45 minutes. During this heavily amplified prelude led by 4 to 6 vocalists singing heartfelt East African melodies and accompanied by a keyboard with complex pre-programmed rhythms, choir members dance in the aisles and church members may speak in tongues. The slow-fast-slow pattern of the music sets the mood of the congregants, who appear reflective then ecstatic then reflective again. Flexibility and improvisation, two characteristics virtually absent from most Euro-American services, are key elements to the spontaneity that makes the service so exhilarating.

An opposite scene occurs at Hmong Central Lutheran Church, where congregants sing along to contemporary Western music that sounds nothing like the music of their homeland (save for the occasional presence of a “special song,” led by an elder, which sounds very much like kwv txhiaj, traditional improvised spoken poetry). Hmong Central’s pastor, William Siong, says his parents were not pleased when he converted to Lutheranism upon arriving to the U.S. “My father says that Christianity is only for white people because he sees the pictures, the character in the movie,” says Siong. “They only use the white guy to be Jesus so [my parents] think that Jesus only belongs to white people.” Siong’s congregation in St. Paul, however, doesn’t have a single white member; all 140 members are Hmong.

For the most part, the congregations mentioned above have singular racial identities, but not so Christ Lutheran on Capitol Hill in St. Paul, one of the most diverse Lutheran churches in the Twin Cities. Here, Cambodians, Africans, Euro-Americans and African-Americans sit together during services. The church is doing its best to create music that belongs to all members of its multi-ethnic congregation, and houses both a traditional choir, which sings traditional and contemporary Lutheran hymns in English, and a Khmer-language choir that performs Cambodian folk tunes set to Christian lyrics and piano. Either the piano or the singing of the Khmer choir sounds slightly out of tune, but that’s the point. The caucasian pianist and the singers partake in a mesmerizing dance of leading and following, mimicking the complex process of acculturation. Cambodian choir members resist assimilating their notes to the piano’s scale and the piano backs off when singers produce tones outside of its range. Together, they strike a beautiful dissonance.

While these new Minnesotans could feel alienated by the traditional culture of Twin Cities Lutheranism—with its constant reference to Swedes, lutefisk and hot dish—many see their position in the U.S. as a God-given mission. Surprised by the contradiction between their expectation of a Christian nation and their experience of a materialistic culture, many see themselves as ambassadors of God. Ochan explains, “An Anuak could be a missionary in the U.S., even though we are from a different country. We used to think that Americans were Christians and the rest of the world was non-Christian. But, block after block [in the U.S.], there are empty church buildings.” Refugees in particular transform their displacement into an assignment with a specific place and purpose. Pastor Negeri of Our Redeemer Oromo Evangelical Church preaches, “We know it is painful for those who are leaving their homes where they have been living for years. But sometimes, this method is what the Lord chooses to bring his message out to people, and we are all his instruments.” In this way, instead of a persecuted people, refugees are the chosen people, and their most powerful tool is their worship music.

When viewed through the lens of these recent Lutheran immigrants, Minnesota looks remarkably, and perhaps surprisingly, diverse. And while their varied takes on worship music might not erase the popular perception that Minnesotans are nothing more than Scandinavian Lutherans, they move us a step further away from Lake Wobegon.

Allison Adrian, a native Minnesotan, is a professor of music at St. Catherine University in St. Paul.  As a first-year college student in New York, she felt snubbed when national programming insinuated that Minnesotans were nothing more than Scandinavian Lutherans. She satiated some of her curiosity about Minnesotan identity by focusing her dissertation research on Twin Cities Lutheran music while she studied at the University of Minnesota.