Beneath the shadow of Cologne Cathedral, a choir of Tennessee Baptist men sang “Amazing Grace.”
Passers-by stopped and recorded on their phones. Others watched quietly or raised their hands. A few shouted, pointed and chuckled. In the crowd, a man with a visual impairment leaned on his cane and mouthed the words “that saved a wretch like me.”
The Tennessee Men’s Chorale then sang “Goodness of God” in German. The crowd grew, and several more people sang along.
The group had two hours on the crowded Domplatte and kept their microphones at 85 decibels to comply with city ordinances. In that time, they handed out tracts from Bonn Bible Seminary while the singers’ wives shared their testimonies with people who wanted to talk.
“I prayed about who God would send me to and that I would be equipped to listen or tell them what they needed,” said Rebecca Kelly, who served in the mission trip along with her husband Phil who sings with the chorale. “And it just happened over and over and over again.”
Bring encouragement
The men came to the European Union’s most populous country on a mission trip between Sept. 27 to Oct. 6. Their main goal was to bring encouragement to churches through musical presentations including in Bonn, Bornheim, Gummersbach, and wherever else they could break into song — from restaurants and cafes to street corners, invoking smiles among the people.
“Music serves as an icebreaker,” said Roric Boese, worship and connections pastor at Leoma Baptist Church, south of Lawrenceburg. He sings as a tenor in the men’s chorale.
The Northern California native joined Leoma’s staff in April 2022 but has led church music as a volunteer and staff member for nearly 20 years. He said he has felt called to be a missionary to Germany since he was 8.
“We wanted to come to Tennessee to create music to use it for missions, kind of as a stepping stone to Germany eventually,” he said.
As one of the chorale’s newest members, he jumped at the chance to join this trip. “The Germany mission trip was that push,” he said.
Boese also sang a solo of “Goodness of God” in German at the seminary’s commencement ceremony Oct. 3.
He hopes to live out the apostle Paul’s example of becoming all things to all people.
“I’m not a German,” he said. “But as Paul talks about being a Roman to the Romans, a Jew to the Jews, you really are supposed to let go of some things and become the German to the Germans. So that’s the dream.”
In the days before the chorale’s trip began, Boese did street evangelism in Berlin, playing worship songs on his fiberglass acoustic guitar.
‘Music doesn’t need translation’
“People kept stopping and wanting to have conversations,” he said. “They’d ask, ‘What’s that song about?’ and I’d say, ‘Let me tell you. It’s about Jesus.’ Music doesn’t need translation.”
Christianity remains the largest religion, but fewer than half of Germans identify as Christian.
“Unfortunately, they consider themselves now post-Christian,” Boese said. “The percentages have dropped so drastically that Germany is now considered an unreached people group, like Iraq and Iran. So just very secular.”
Street evangelism, he said, satisfies something worship leaders often lack.
“The Great Commission is to go, not just to stay,” Boese said. “A lot of worship pastors struggle with just edifying the saints. I’m encouraging the believers, I’m pushing them. But if you don’t live it out, it feels unbalanced. Actually going to the street and trusting that Jesus is going to make a way, it feels completing.”
During the mission trip, four members of the trip also taught a singing masterclass at the Evangelical Free Church Bornheim to 25 students, many of whom attend Bonn Bible Seminary, a partner of the Tennessee Baptist Convention since Jan. 1, 2026.
“This is the key to good church plants: young people, the next generation, being poured into. You’ve got to have preachers, but you’ve also got to have worship,” said Wayne Causey, who has conducted the chorale for three years. Causey joined the group at 26 years old, and this is his last year as director — though he will keep singing in the bass section.
History of service
Founded in 1963, the chorale includes men who serve as music ministers, worship leaders, and worship musicians in Tennessee Baptist churches.
Causey said the group’s greatest value is community among worship leaders: “It’s the camaraderie, the brotherhood. We stay connected. It’s like a support group.”
Causey recently stepped down as director, and Austin Clark of First Baptist Church in Seymour is now in that role. “I’m thrilled,” Causey said. “He’s so good.” The trip is Causey’s first time leading a chorale mission trip and it has been “unbelievable and stronger than ever,” he said.
Kelly agrees. “This has been more evangelistic than any mission trip I’ve seen,” she said. “I think my favorite is watching all of us sing praises to God in four or five different languages. It sounds like that’s going to be as close to heaven as we’re going to get on this earth.”
For more information, visit the TBMB’s Germany Partnership page.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Zoë Watkins and originally published by the Baptist and Reflector.
