Jimmy Dorrell, Board of Contributors: Hip hop and church need not be in conflict
    
Sunday, June 11, 2006

Urban youth leaders are my heroes.

From church youth directors to neighborhood recreation center leaders, those young adults who are investing deeply in the lives of today’s hip-hop culture should be honored and thanked for their tireless efforts to reach this generation.

They work long hours, are usually underpaid and are frequently caught between the expectations of their own supervisors and the teens they serve.

Yet day in and day out they are trying to offer guidance, teach values and communicate love to an age group that is often crass, seemingly amoral and unthankful.

The hip-hop culture is more than rap, vulgar-mouthed icons and sagging pants. It is truly a generational worldview expressed in language, song and dress that most adults simply do not understand or want to understand.

Birthed somewhere in the early ’70s, groups and artists like L.L.Cool J, Whodini, Run-DMC, Public Enemy and Tupac shaped the landscape of the urban community.

Lyrics that often degraded women, glorified sex and drugs, and used vulgar language as if it was acceptable to the mainstream began to emerge in the media and on ghetto-blasting speakers that literally shook the cars.

Yet behind the in-your-face words and music, there emerged a clear longing for something in life more than the current menu offered.

Conveying a religious desire in irreligious language, hip-hop artists challenged empty institutions while crying out for love, understanding and change.

In his song, “Changes,” Tupac raps, “We gotta make a change; it’s time for us as people to start makin’ some changes.

“Let’s change the way we eat; let’s change the way we live, let’s change the way we treat each other. You see the old way wasn’t working so it’s on us to do what we gotta do, to survive.”

His words express the nihilism of hopelessness in the present culture and a growing acknowledgement of personal responsibility, hallmarks of a large youth culture that is multicultural and vocal.

Urban youth leaders understand these cries and deal with them everyday. They refuse to accept the rhetoric of hopelessness and continue to challenge their “homies” to step up to more in life than accepting a vacuum of meaninglessness.

They learn the language of the youth whom they serve so they can understand and speak to this dominant hip-hop culture.

They offer programs or opportunities that are culturally relevant and reject old forms of youth programming that now are considered outdated by most teens.

Unfortunately, many churches and other youth-serving institutions stubbornly refuse to acknowledge or attempt to speak to this subculture, because the forms of expression used are offensive or confusing.

They forget that the Bible is filled with contextualized efforts to communicate truth in the mind-set of the local culture.

Paul talked with the Athenians in philosophical language, to the Jews in the traditions of the Patriarchs and to the Corinthians in their blue-collar society.

Truth goes beyond language but can creatively and uncompromisingly employ the dialect of the culture to offer hope and meaning.

Today, across our nation, many churches have discovered that Friday night hip-hop worship services are drawing back thousands of disenfranchised teens who left the church, to sing praises to God in a language they understand.

Effective youth programs are offering urban teens a venue where they discuss, explore and serve without the rigid boundaries or forms of past generations. Kids growing up in poverty and rejection are finding a place of meaning and hope. And all this because of the urban youth workers who care.

Church Under the Bridge is having a hip-hop worship service today at 11 a.m. All are welcome.

Jimmy Dorrell is a member of the Board of Contributors, Central Texans who write columns regularly for the Tribune-Herald. He is director of Mission Waco.