I was blessed on last Friday to go, along with the young folks of The Soldiers of Praise and Hell's Most Wanted, to St. Matthews Baptist Church in Harlem to be a part of a youth and young adult service. What a blessing!!! HMDub ministeres in rap, the choir sang, and I had the blessed opportunity to break the Bread of Life with the folks...
I know that the Lord showed up and showed out last Friday because there was a huge altar call, and as the service was closing, there were several young people who just came to me, sobbing, and really crying out to the Lord...
This is nothing new, this happens almost everywhere we go... every single service. We also get a lot of comments from people, saying things like "We never get to worship like this", or "I wish that church was like this all the time". While I do love traditional worship, we, as members of the traditional church, have a lot of work to do to create ministry that is inclusive of everyone who needs a touch from the Lord, and desires to be touched in the place where they need to be touched, not just where the church leaders believe they need to be touched. I say that to mean that the traditional church believes that our young people (and the unchurched) need to be touched in a way that separates them from their culture (which generally is hip hop), removes them from their comfort zone and indoctrinates them into "church culture", which may or may not be God centered. For many in the traditional church, bringing hip hop into the worship experience is tantamount to allowing the world to dictate the move of the church, when it should be vice-versa. This is so far from the truth and so removed from the history of World Christianity that it is ridiculous. Anywhere in the world that you find Christians, you find that the culture of the people of that land has been incorporated into their worship. If this were not true, the entire church would still be speaking Greek or Latin, even today. Language, culture and music are integral to a total worship experience for everyone in the church. This has been the strength of Chirstianity, because Jesus Christ is accepting of all cultures, races, genders, etc. No-one should ever feel like an outsider when the head of the Christian Church (Jesus of Nazareth) was the ultimate outsider, the ultimate radical, and constantly accused of fraternizing with those who did not fit within the accepted paradigms of religious tradition. How can we pray in the name of a radical and not be radical? How can we worship a homeless man and ignore the homeless of our home cities and states? How can we say that we accept the stone that the builders rejected while rejecting, or worse, persecuting the stones that are out there that are needed to help rebuild scores of dying churches?
I am truly praying, asking God for guidance as I feel a love for the traditional church, but a call toward creating a newer, truer paradigm for worship and Godliness that may diametrically oppose the institutional churches of our time. Pray for me as I pray for you...