This blog examines, reviews and discusses how worship is being lived out in culture and in the church. We tackle everything from songwriting techniques in corporate worship, to interviewing worship leaders and pastors, to reviewing the last big rock concert.
Lacrae and his group did a concert at Mars Hill Church but also joined Red Letter on stage during worship to lead a song this past Sunday evening. Amazing worship song. So cool that MHC has the courage to do things like this. I love seeing people with a conviction and identity and just going after it.
‘Send Me’ – Live at MHC | Ballard from Mars Hill Church on Vimeo.
-->
Loading ...
Podcast - 
Facebook
Twitter
Soundcloud
Stumbleupon
Linked In
Vimeo
You Tube
Contact
That’s my jam! I love that song, Lacrae has some sick lyrics, I really love his stuff. That is so awesome that Mars Hill is willing to incorporate different music, styles and culture into their worship sets. I think our church body would LOVE something like that every now and then. Any chance we could get Lacrae to Life Connection Church or even that one guy that Ronni knows?
Lyrics that convict. Wow. I’d like to take this opportunity to plug the Justice Connection. That’s just one way LCC gets out of the building and out to the block!
If there was a soundtrack to my calling then this would be the theme song…. Lecrae is sick, brave and unashamed. He is definately an influence to me and all warriors for Christ should hear what he is saying.
Man I love Lecrae! His lyrics are just so theological and solid. I would love to have him at LCC. He preaches in every rap. Let me go, let me go!!
We had him at our church http://www.eccc.us and he preached the gospel it was awesome.
[...] in idolatry and sin. These are the kind of interviews that make me excited to be in the church. I posted video from Mars Hill Church a few weeks back showing Lacrae leading a song in the actual worship service which was amazing and powerful. I could [...]
“Music” like this tears me up. The lyrics are great, but the sound has it’s own sort of subconscious messages. The words say “go out and spread the gospel,” but the tone says “I hate you” and the style says “The world is my friend.”
Put it this way, I wouldn’t ask someone to take out the trash in that tone of voice, let alone exhort them from Scripture about spreading the gospel.
Joel don’t you believe that musical style or “sound” as you say can be redeemed? Perhaps that style has been used by the enemy in the past but isn’t it a victorious sign of the kingdom that it’s being redeemed and used for the benefit of the gospel? Why is rock able to have been redeemed by contemporary worship but not rap?
I guess I’m not sure what you mean by “redeeming a style.” Is it in the Bible anywhere? Which styles can be “redeemed” and which can’t? I can think of Ahaz “redeeming” a copy of a pagan altar for use in the temple but that doesn’t seem to have been such a great idea (2 Kings 16:10).
Glad you asked. A musical style is nothing but a cultural custom, neither moral nor immoral but has the potential for both. Paul is a great example of teaching that cultural customs can be redeemed(Galations 2) in the rebuke of Peter. Paul also preached differently to different cultures so as to be effective in their culture and show the truth of Christ. When Jesus spoke the the samaritan woman at the well(John 4) she tried to catch Jesus on some worship legalism in where you are supposed to worship. Her fathers said the mountain and the Jews said Jerusalem. Jesus of course says neither, worship in spirit and truth. Forget about the place, the style, what counts is if you worship in spirit and truth, whether it’s with your mouth, a piano or a turntable.
We have no more biblical justification to say rap is sin than we do orchestral or country or old lady with an organ. There is no sacred musical style. Can you sin *in* a musical style? Certainly, but the style itself is not sin. Lecrae is an amazing example of taking a genre of limits to truth and letting Christ crack it wide open.
Joel – it seems to me like LeCrae is a missionary to a certain culture. Would you go so far as to say that if a missionary to a remote tribe somewhere gets to know their customs and culture and immerses into that culture in order to reach the culture better but still doesn’t compromise the Gospel message or his doctrine – wouldn’t that be the same issue? Who’s going to reach the rap culture if not for artists like this – He’s a missionary to his culture? I, for one, am thankful to see a rapper using this style to magnify God as opposed to what most rap music magnifies.
As Kyle said – musical genre doesn’t necessarily make it sinful (although, one could *maybe* make a case against very angst-filled genres (but maybe not – as David was filled with much angst in many of the Psalms).
That doesn’t mean that we don’t have the freedom to dislike certain styles, but we can’t equate our own personal tastes to moral standards.
Thanks, guys. I understand where you are coming from, but I don’t think there’s any getting around the tone of this musical style and what it represents, even independent of the lyrics or the culture. It’s the style and tone of anger, confrontation and defiance. I don’t believe Christ would have us adopt any style that jars so badly against the fruits of the Spirit.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” again, if I could not understand english I would not detect any of these qualities in this music.
Yes we should adapt ourselves to our audience, but obviously we need to discern which customs we need to adopt to enhance our message, and which are actually contrary to the message. The example the apostles gave us was to match the customs of our audience to keep them from stumbling over our habits and being distracted from the message. In that sense, using a style of anger and confrontation would be exactly the kind of stumbling block we should avoid, not embrace.
I never said “rap is sin”, that of course would depend on your motives. I’m just saying it’s a bad idea for the purposes of spreading the gospel. I know how we *can* reach the rap culture, though: by talking to them.
Sorry this is so long – I wanted to respond but I don’t want to hijack the blog. I won’t take up any more space here but I’ll be happy to read followup comments or if anyone wants to continue via email.
Joel – you have great thoughts that I think are very valid to think about. I wouldn’t want you to stop being part of the discussion!
You’ve definitely made me think – but I think we might be in one of those situations where we might have to agree to disagree on this one. I’m not exactly sure where I stand yet. Thanks for your thoughts!
Joel: I understand what you’re saying but it’s your personal association of hip-hop/rap beats to anger. I don’t associate the beats or music tone with anger. But neither of our personal experiences make it gospel truth. Many people associated guitars with distortion on them as crazy angry pagan music. But we regularly hear distortion in contemporary worship now. I don’t think we can take our personal experience and make it gospel for others.
Also even if it was angry music the bible doesn’t tell us to never get angry, just not to sin in our anger. I think there is probably a great place for some angry music. Sin, injustice should make us angry. I can imagine Jesus flipping over the tables in the temple to a good rap beat. I can’t imagine him doing that to a Chris Tomlin soundtrack.