Abstract
This qualitative study aims to understand the factors motivating Korean migrants’ participation in weekly Charismatic Prayer Meetings in a Catholic Church. As music plays a crucial role in these meetings, the paper explores whether active engagement with music motivated the long-term commitment of participants to the meetings. The research is based on a thematic analysis of a focus group comprising six Korean adults living in Australia. Results show that music performed in religious forms such as Praise and Worship and Speaking/Singing in Tongues prayers was found to intensify spiritual experiences of the people as a group, and over time, each participant experienced improved physical and mental wellbeing, which in turn motivated further investment in the meetings. It was evident that the passionate group music-making enabled participants to focus on conscious and subconscious body, mind, and spirit, eliciting transpersonal experiences within each person. The findings of the current study are deemed relevant to this specific cohort and to others in similar contexts, where minority groups use worship and music for socio-cultural inclusion that addresses both spiritual and mental health issues. Though a small-scale study, the current paper provides a rationale for these religious groups to be involved in music-based spiritual practice.
Highlights
The current study is written by authors with different religious and cultural backgrounds
The findings taken collectively suggest that the motivating factors for attending a music-based religious practice such as Charismatic Prayer Meeting (CPM) are not religious, spiritual, musical, or social, but a combination of all of these elements that generates a type of communion
It was evident that the participants often made a reference to scriptures from the Bible when explaining their experiences in CPM, which seems to indicate that their religious belief and context was crucial in understanding their spiritual experiences in CPM
Summary
The current study is written by authors with different religious and cultural backgrounds. The first author was born in South Korea and trained as a music therapist in Australia. Christian, she was involved in Charismatic Prayer Meeting (CPM) with a group of Korean adult migrants in Australia. Since attending Catholic Charismatic Renewal Seminars in 2010 and 2011, she attended weekly CPM gatherings and provided keyboard accompaniment for the group for five years. This involvement initially coincided with her fulltime postgraduate study and the challenges of new stressful life circumstances. Juyoung has been living in Australia for 13 years and found spiritual peace through the CPM, believing that she had been able to experience the Holy
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