Vol. 5 No. 20 September 24, 2006

“And the Word was made flesh and dwelt in the Hood”

Written by Christopher Mentzer

It’s Sunday morning and you’re seated for services. Your friends and family are there. Brothers and Sisters in Christ are all present as they prepare themselves to be edified by another scriptural lesson. The preacher gets up; he’s well-dressed in a coat and tie. His hair well groomed and his appearance is neat. He begins to speak from the 23^rd Psalm and he says, “The Lord is all that, I need for nothing. He allows me to chill…” Then he concludes with the words: “My sistas and brothas, all the posse of God, stay up, keep your head up, holla back, and go forth and tell it like it is!"

You look around to see where the Candid Camera might be or perhaps Rod Serling is standing in the corner announcing you have taken a little trip. However, this is more reality than one would perceive.

Hip Hop worship is becoming the latest “Religious Craze” reaching out to inner-city youths; gangbangers, drug dealers and the like. Taking standard Episcopalian liturgy and giving it a “streetwise” make-over to encourage younger people to attend. Even a Hip Hop Prayer Book has been created. Here is what Timothy Holder, editor of the prayer book, said in regards to his idea:

"The Hip Hop Prayer Book, I think, speaks very effectively to wide ranges of people—young, old, black, white, hip hop or not. It is worship," Holder said. "It is the Holy Spirit moving among us."

However, there is at least one individual who disagrees with this. No, not the concept of the Hip Hop worship, but the prayer book. Darren Ferguson, another Hip Hop minister had this to say:

We’re not telling young people that hip hop is wrong, because hip hop isn’t wrong. I think [the young people] like hearing the sermons and like things being expressed in their language, but they also want the richness of a traditional service, too. We have a responsibility to give them both without cheapening the gospel by changing "verily, verily" into you "Yo, you know what I’m saying."

‘Cheapening the gospel’ is the very thing they are both doing! Hip Hop or any other style of music should not be incorporated into the worship service. There are dangers to doing it. By paraphrasing what is written in the scriptures is to say you know what God is thinking. The prophet Isaiah says otherwise, “8.For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith Jehovah. 9. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isa. 55: 8-9)

Using instrumental music is contrary to what Paul wrote in Eph. 5: 19, “speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.”

Finally it’s the words of the gospel that save not the emotional experience. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” (Rom. 1: 16)

Reaching the young people of the world is very important. But it is not necessary to change the gospel to suit them. Rather, help the person change to suit the gospel.