Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Jesus and the Gospel Rap Movement - part 2

RES: How would you describe your calling, your ministry?
Tedashii: My life is bent on living out being a Christ follower. What I do musically, vocationally, or even in ministry was birthed, and became a huge burden, from simply following Christ. God gave me many passions and desires yet only one door kept opening, and that was art. Whether it was public speaking or rapping, God allowed the arts to be a consistent outlet of ministry. So besides serving at my local fellowship and discipleship, music has become a major platform for how I serve and follow Christ.
Shai Linne: I use music as a means to highlight the character of God and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, primarily for the building up and encouragement of the church. I’m passionate about the gospel, the supremacy of Christ in all things, sound theology that leads to the joyful, vibrant worship of God. I also enjoy teaching the Word, writing and expressing the beauty of God through the arts.
Thi’sl: I’m a teacher and a missionary. No matter what context, what part of the city, whether it’s county or hood, I love people. My heart beats heavy after the inner city, though—because that’s where I came from and I know the hurt that goes on there, and my heart beats for them to know Christ. The main tool God has given me to do it is hip-hop. Hip-hop is the soundtrack to urban life and quickly growing to be the soundtrack of American life. It speaks to people and pumps them like few other musical genres ever have. That’s why we are attempting to rewrite the urban soundtrack, while infusing Christ-centered lyrics into the culture, hoping to see people changed.
V. Rose: I’m definitely called to minister to girls my own age—and not just girls, guys too, but people my own age—my peers. I do pop, Christian pop—so it’s fun, it’s engaging music with a Christian message. And it’s about stuff that I’ve lived through growing up as a teenager—peer pressure, and dealing with parents, and all kinds of stuff like that. So my ministry is just to reach out to people my own age. I’m doing pop music, not necessarily how you hear Christian pop music today, but pop music that is just as cool and just as modern as today’s secular pop music. Pop music is really huge right now, and is bigger than even hip-hop, so that’s what my music is doing. When you hear it, you’ll kind of understand that it’s not like anything that’s in Christian music right now. It’s Christian pop, but it’s going to redefine Christian pop.
FLAME: Really, I just want to be a voice of reason; I want to speak heart language. I love saying things that touch the deeper layers of our hearts—I like to peel back the layers from just the surface things to thinking deeper about our attitudes, our motivations, our desires and affections. And I like to say the things that would cause people to contemplate deeper about their relationship with God, or their lack of a relationship with God. With my degree in biblical counseling, my hope is to speak the type of theology and heart language that would really serve to cause people to see themselves, see their sin, see their need for the Lord, see hope in Christ, and deal with some of the complexities of our human experience—why we do what we do, the way we tick, how can we overcome habits and habitual practices, and come to trust in God in a deeper way. That’s what I like to think my music does.
Justin Taylor

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