The Conducive Nature Of Hip Hop Culture For Missional Praxis
One particular of the most distinctive, creative, and influential cultures in not only North America but throughout the planet is hip hop culture. Hip hop's appeal can be seen locally and globally as its style, music, and attitude continue to spread rapidly by way of varied mediums. In the midst of this culturally explosive movement, we also note that the North American Church is struggling, as its popularity and draw fades with every passing year. Nonetheless, rebirth is located as thousands of Christians are taping into the fountains of biblical wisdom that are redirecting them back to God's Mission. A motion identified as the missional church, is pleading with the physique of Christ to be the Church, and to bring the gospel of Christ in a related and contextualized fashion to all peoples. 1 would be wise to advise the missional church to take particularly severe the possibilities that hip hop culture brings to the table. For it is this papers intent to show that the pretty nature of hip hop and its cultural norms are quite conducive for missional praxis locally and generally instances even globally.
Before exploring why hip hop and missional theology would go together well hand in hand, one should to begin with grasp what hip hop culture and missional ecclesiology are to begin with. To the misunderstandings of countless, hip hop is an additional word for rap music. This confusion draws from a lack of engagement from those outside the hip hop community with those inside. In reality rap is just one aspect or cultural artifact that has come out of the hip hop community. "The hip-hop subculture manifests itself in consumers, and as men and women identify the wants in their life that hip-hop meets, the culture is sustained. To reduce hip-hop by saying it is just rap is to disrespect it, given that hip-hop is life" (The Hip Hop Church, 66). Hip hop is a culture, it is a globe view, it is a way of life. "Hip-hop is about dance, art, expression, discomfort, adore, racism, sexism, broken households, tough times, the search for God and overcoming" (The Hip Hop Church, 61).
For this perform, we also make the point that hip hop at its core is urban youth culture, specially culture representing African Americans and Latinos. In the book, The Hip Hop Church the author agrees that "it encompasses the culture of African Americans, Latinos and urban America additional generally" (63). Now as we will point out later, the influences of hip hop have crossed these racial and geographic boundaries nonetheless, we attest to its cultural roots and authenticity located in mainly black and brown urban settings. From the beginning, hip hop has found its birth from the African diaspora. And then grounded itself in the urban experience largely of the northeast and west coast. "Accurate Hip-hop is a term that describes the independent collective consciousness of a certain group of inner-city individuals" (The Hip Hop Church, 63). And so it is the people's mundane life activities that make and produce hip hop culture.
The missional community, on the other hand, represents a theologically diverse community who are committed to pursuing God's Mission. It appears at this point, that the missional movement (or at least beneath the title missional) is a largely white upper and middle class theology. Nonetheless, a homogeneous group is not the goal, nor want of those inside that theological framework. In truth they represent the opposite, a community that desires to cross all boundaries as God does. They claim that God has and continues to interact in human history, and chooses to use men and women, particularly the church, to be his hands and feet in this world. And so according to John 20:21, just as Jesus has been sent into this globe, followers of Jesus likewise are sent into this planet. They are referred to as to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to represent the reign of God right here on earth. Practically speaking, they believe that to do this we are called to cross racial, ethnic, demographic, and cultural boundaries. At the similar time we are not to force any certain culture or practice for each and every context. In Missional Church it is explained this way, "to be faithful to its calling, the church ought to be contextual, that is, it ought to be culturally relevant inside a certain setting. The church relates constantly and dynamically each to the gospel and to its contextual reality" (18). And so the charge is to bring the great news of Jesus and his coming Kingdom to a world that is broken, sinful, and in bondage. Relevance is a essential word for this community as they are sent out into the planet. Engaging cultures and recognizing that every culture can have the gospel applied to it is core teaching inside the missional community. "The gospel is often conveyed by means of the medium of culture. It becomes really good news to lost and broken humanity as it is incarnated in the planet by way of God's sent people, the church" (Missional Church, 18). So no culture is beneath redemption, no culture is so lost that it can not be saved.
It is with this background of missional theology and hip hop culture that we start to lay foundation to who these communities, cultures, and movements are, as well as why they may possibly go nicely together for each are fascinating movements that have deep impact for the globe in which we reside. We should begin to acknowledge that although they do not necessarily overlap in terms of human population and demographics, ideologically the two would go hand in hand quite nicely. We will begin to unpack this additional.
Inside the hip hop community, there is a debate going on as to what is authentically hip hop, and what is a bi-item of the commercialization of rap music. Within the confines of rap as a genre you acquire underground and socially conscious emcees as well as wealthy and renowned rap pop stars. The Hip Hop Church breaks it down like this, "a rapper is for the sector or created by the sector they rap about whatever is famous, and they give the culture of hip-hop a reputation of only getting about materialism and sex" (83). But there is a further definition for the conscious rapper, or as they call him the emcee. Right here they say that "an emcee, on the other hand, seeks to maintain the purity in hip-hop and stays away from the entertainment, efficiency-only view that rappers regularly have. The emcee is thought to be to be a lyricist with some thing to say that is for your heart, your soul or your intellect. They do not rhyme about what is trendy or valuable to the materialistic hip-hop head due to the fact they are stewards of the culture and hip-hop's message. Emcees are searching for to drop some understanding about life and how top to reside in this globe" (84). It is this stewardship and consciousness of hip hop that I would like to discover some a lot more as it relates to missional praxis.
