The Church and Hip Hop

Hip hop has gotten a bad rep, especially in the church.  "It's sinful! Stay away!"  Some yell from the doors of the church, or from their hiding place in the pew, unwilling to get "world" on them.  (So many of them got "world" IN them, it doesn't really matter now does it?)  

Anyway, this is a place where I want to engage culture, school and get schooled; teach and be taught.  There are some good things in our culture that even the church could learn from.  Jesus said the children of the world are wiser than the sons of the light, in dealing with their generation, (Luke 16:8).  It would make sense that we get learn a little something.

Jesus was the best example when He came all up in our culture.  It would have been easier to yell from heaven, or to keep sending letters and words…but instead he BECAME THE WORD and lived in the HOOD!   Gotta love that.  He got flesh on His bones.  He got the earth between His toes and under His fingernails.  Jesus got down and dirty with humanity…  The even better news is that He didn't leave us that way.  He offered living water to clean us, if we wanted it.

That's what I'm doing.  I'm not saying I am the foremost authority on hip hop…not at all (not even a lil bit)….but HOPE…I got that on LOCK!  I know what it's like to not have and want, I know what is like to have and lose, I know what it's like to have good sense and not use it, to know better but not do better…and when it should have been HOPELESS….God gave me another chance, He gave me HOPE to press through, and to press on.  I got HOPE for days.   

…So I was thinking we could meet somewhere in the middle.  You know, at the crossroads…hope and hip hop could meet.