Category: Art

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Art

To B or not to B

Ask any student you know this question: “Who is your favorite preacher?” You are likely to get a few blank stares, “favorite what?,” or looks as if to say why are you asking me this question. Next, ask the same student this question: “Who is your favorite rapper?” You are likely to get ten different names, any one being from the top ten list of rappers that every student knows.

Last night, I took some students out to hear a Christian rapper that goes by the name of B-Shoc. This wasn’t the first time I’ve taken students out to hear a Christian rapper. Ever heard of Lecrae? Believe it or not, there are many Christian rappers currently out riding the circuit.

To be honest, B-Shoc’s music wasn’t my favorite. I much prefer Lecrae’s. But, nonetheless, I found myself down at the front of the stage jumping up and down with my sideways two-peace signs. WHY? It wasn’t about my musical preferences. It was about my students’ preference. If rapping a Christian song helps students come closer to God, I’m all for it.

What I preferred to hear over B-Shoc’s music was B-Shoc’s Jesus story. He said he went to Wal Mart when he was a teenager (after falling in love with “the beat”) to find some Christian rap music and there was none. At the time, he settled for what the world had to offer and soon afterwards found himself climbing the secular charts and playing in popular nightclubs. That is, until the Jesus he knew as a child got his attention. B-Shoc hit a rock bottom in his own life and said God told him to combine his passion, rap music, with the lifestyle of following Jesus. B-Shoc said he knew he was to take his style of music into the world to reach lost souls and even into the church to encourage the saints.

But it hasn’t been easy. B-Shoc has encountered a lot of opposition. Yet, B-Shoc has seen nearly 10,000 souls won to the Lord in his nine years of ministry. I think its easy to criticize. We could probably all find something to gripe about. But the question I would like to ask B-Shoc haters is this: “How many souls have you won in the last nine years?”

Reaching the next generation for Christ isn’t easy. But as you can see, B-Shoc has continued to grind. He says he is driven by that empty CD shelf at Wal Mart with no Christian witness to the style of music that captured his soul. I’m sure B-Shoc doesn’t want the next generation to follow the footsteps he took as a young man and is also driven to do everything he can to offer the next generation an alternate choice.

B-Shoc says it’s not get your life right so you can get right with Jesus; it’s get right with Jesus so you can get your life right. Sounds like good preaching to me! Christianity never was about climbing a ladder or stairway of good deeds all the way up to heaven. It’s the exact opposite. Jesus walked down the stairway so he could carry you back up with him. B-Shoc then told the students getting to know Jesus takes a lifetime, but salvation can happen in a moment.

This was all great stuff! But none of it was my favorite. Because B-Shoc was about to bring it home. He got personal with all in attendance, including the adults. He shared with everyone that they were uniquely made by God and that they could search the earth and not find another person just like them. God had created them for a purpose. Maybe they weren’t supposed to be a Christian rapper like him, but it was their job to find out what God had created them for and then do it.

In words only a Christian rapper could get away with, B-Shoc told everyone in attendance to hear what God was telling them, get off their butt, and MOVE to start doing it. Say what you will, but I think it’s a message the church needs to hear. If all you do is sit and worry about what God has told you to do, you’re not only hurting yourself, you’re hurting God and you’re hurting others whom God made you to help. *By the way, the reason I’ve written this post and others is because, like B-Shoc, God told me to!

I like preachers and I have known many good ones! But maybe, just maybe, the next gen knows the names of rappers and not the names of preachers because the rappers are telling it like it is. If we’re going to win the next generation, we’ve got to win their hearts and we’ve got to be real. Center yourself on the gospel, focus on the mission, and GO create a culture of missional artists in your next generation ministry that are ready to use their gifts and passions for the glory of God!

Categories
Art

Classical Music, Karate, and NGM?

What do classical music, karate, and next generation ministry (NGM) have in common? At first glance, nothing other than the fact that the next generation might participate in all three. I mean, how does breaking one’s neck compare to listening to a peaceful composition in a ministry setting?

However, if you look beyond the surface, it becomes evident that these subjects share many commonalities. Music, karate, and NGM are all both a science and an art. In fact, almost any craft has an exact science to it as well as an art form. Cooking, teaching, engineering, nursing, learning, etc.

There comes a point in time for all us to practice what we preach, to apply theory into technical skill. And some do a masterful job at it! Think Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. Think Beethoven and Mozart. Think Rembrandt and Picasso. These characters are more than just scientists who know the ins and outs of their area of expertise. They are artists who display something for the world to see that has never been seen before.

How about you? What field are you involved in? Are you all head and no heart or are you all heart and no head? The masterful represent the scientist and artist, the head and the heart combined, that proceed to use their hands to create a masterpiece!

Look at the picture above. We all remember the original Karate Kid movie. The film combines the art of karate to the science of music creating a scene we will never forget. “Balance is the key.” And how did Danielson come out? Simply put, he was the best around.

Working with the next generation is not easy work. It takes much time and book study to understand the trends, nuances, and inclinations of the next generation. It takes just as much time to invest relationally into the next generation at third places, schools, and church so one can stay in-tune with what is happening in the real world. For this last point, Josh Reid wrote a great book entitled Get Out, encouraging student pastors to leave their church office and to engage their community.

But when a next generation leader combines the science and the art, when the recipe takes on a flavor of its own, great things are on the horizon! A ministry of parents, students, and leaders are not just then doing church. They are being the church! A ministry goes from average to exceptional and the community and the church take notice! The artwork or image leaves a lasting impression.

Categories
Art Creativity

Christian, Knock it off

christian-art

While attending a Christian college around the turn of the century, I would attend Baptist Student Union (BSU) every now and then. I and every other Christian on campus must have been witnessed to a thousand times and everyone was told these words, “you should come to BSU.” I must admit my school’s BSU could attract a crowd and had a praise team that produced quality sound. The praise team would sing a song at BSU and during chapel that was a favorite of many. The song was titled Celebration and was a knock-off of a post-disco song by Kool & the Gang, released in 1980. Not only was the song a knock-off but the song was also 20 years old.

What I have recounted above is a descriptive picture of the Christian sub-culture or what many have termed “the Christian bubble.” We Christians have everything – Christian t-shirts, Christian music, Christian schools, Christian toys, Christian yellow pages, Christian arts, Christian fiction, Christian movies, and the list goes on and on. I like what Alvin Reid says about the Christian subculture in his book As You Go: “You can spot something in the Christian subculture because it looks like something you would find elsewhere, costs more, and doesn’t work as well!”

Where did all the creativity and originality in Christianity go? Why does it seem Christian innovation and imagination has all but vanished? What do Elvis Pressley, Kurt Cobain, and Katy Perry all have in common? Besides being musical icons in their own generation, they all grew up in church. The church is known for stifling one’s talent, for not allowing one to express him or herself in the way God designed them. This has proven particularly true for teenagers, when identity development enters its peak stage during the course of one’s lifespan.

Do you remember the Middle Ages or the Renaissance and all the Christian art that was produced in that time? Hold up. Time-out. That Christian art was not considered a part of the Christian sub-culture. If people wanted a “Christian” picture or painting, people did not have to go to a Christian bookstore to purchase it. The “Christian” art of the of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance was considered a part of the culture. Where are all the expressions of Christianity in our culture? What impression are we making? We need “Christian” businessmen and women, soldiers and law enforcement, lawyers, teachers, artists, and politicians at work in society.  But we do not need them to work as an entire subset in and for themselves.

Fortunately, a movement has been gaining steam in Christian sub-cultures to break the box wide-open. Remember the Jesus Movement in the 1970’s? We need another movement to take place today where Christian talent and arts can flourish in society as culture and not as sub-culture. Toby Mac and LeCrae are two musical artists who have broken the bubble by topping not only Christian charts but the Billboard charts! That’s what the church needs to do! We need to get back to where we as Christians affect culture, not hide from it or become repulsive to it.

Matt Chandler, pastor of the Village Church in Dallas, TX, describes the gospel at work on the ground and the gospel at work in the air. The gospel on the ground refers to propositional truths about Jesus whereas the gospel in the air “connects human salvation to cosmic restoration.” Gabe Lyons in The Next Christians says there is a movement at work where Christians “want to be a force for restoration in a broken world” while Christians at the same time are still found proclaiming the gospel. Alvin Reid calls this being missional. Incarnating the gospel in its full form is the prescription for today’s ailing world and ailing Christian sub-culture.