About

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Vaughn Thompson Jr. is a worship leader/singer/songwriter residing in Los Angeles, CA. With a Korean mother and a father of German decent Vaughn was forced to bridge cultural gaps at home. While disliking his multi-ethnicity, and even embarrassed of it through his early years, Vaughn has not only embraced and accepted it, but he has grasped it as divine purpose and calling to lead worship and to do ministry with a “Third Culture” mindset.

Vaughn Is a graduate of Lee University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Pastoral Ministry. He has also received his Masters’ in Theology with an emphasis in Worship and the Arts from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. And with this educational background Vaughn has developed a passion to teach and train others in Worship. So now a vital part of his ministry and focus is not simply leading worship but also teaching and equipping others to do the same. This past year Vaughn has begun teaching a Worship Foundations course at local churches that help young leaders develop a Biblical Theology of worship as well as musical skills to assist them in leading congregational worship.

Vaughn has served as Worship Pastor at Newsong LA, an Emerging Multi-cultural church, for 3 years, and still currently assists all 3 of the Southern California Newsong sites in the area of worship. But now Vaughn also travels with his wife Irene, who is an accomplished worship leader in her own right, and together they have formed Third Culture Worship (TCW).

Third Culture Worship aspires to be a worship ministry that speaks from the perspective of Third Culture people and gives people who don’t find their identity in any one culture a representation of what worship sounds like from Third Culture people. TCW is comprised of many folks from a third culture background and aspires to be a camp of worship leaders, teachers, songwriters, and artists that influence the world with the message of the Gospel. TCW believes that leaders are not just called to lead but also to raise up other leaders. So now TCW finds their purpose to be not just “doing worship” for people, but also in teaching, training, and equipping others to grow in their own journey of leading worship in their own communities. TCW aspires to create resources, music, teachings, seminars, and conferences that help people across the globe worship and also lead worship, while also creating an awarness of third culture people in ministry. While raising up voices of people with a third culture perspective on life in leadership they also wish to share the spiritual implications of living with a Third Culture mindset that realizes as Christians we are spiritually “third culture” as well, having been raised in a culture that is not our own. Essentially the concept of third culture, is a world-view, which allows us to find our true origin as children of God and not find our identity simply by our ethnicity.

Third Culture Worship has just finished their first worship album. The EP release will be in March 2009 with the full project being released in late April 2010.