14 Things the Christian Artist MUST really understand:

1. Christian artists should view their talent as a gift from God and see its use ultimately as worship to God.

2. A Christian artist should have a sober assessment of his gift and neither over-estimate the opportunities it should given him or undervalue the contribution he can make with it.

3. The most authentic Christian art results from our joy in Christ overflowing into Christian art, not our strategies to do art that is Christian.

4. Creating art is an expression of faith and obedience, not of compulsion or identity.

5. The Christian artist should see his art as a way to love God, his people, and the world.

6. The Christian Artist sees the sovereign hand of God in both his opportunities and his obstacles.

7. The Christian artist is committed to truth in the way he lives and what he creates.

8. While the Christian artist is under no burden to make all of his art explicitly Christian, it would be an unbiblical use of his gift to intentionally create a body of work without reference to Christ.

9. The Christian artist rejects the worldly concept of artist as an outsider and embraces his place among God’s people in the local church as essential to his life and gifting.

10. The Christian artist should not ignore his personal responsibility to evaluate the theological soundness of his work.

11. Because the Christian artist trusts God, he will battle selfish ambition, competition, and any pretense of entitlement in regard to his art.

12. The Christian artist will see the evaluation of others as an essential help in both growing in their art and assessing its fruitfulness.

13. The Christian artist will resist elitism and care about the accessibility of his art to the average Christian in the congregation

14. The Christian artist must never confuse the joy of creativity with the joy of knowing and pleasing God.

Holy Hip Hop is a term used to describe a genre of music that is also sometimes called Christian Rap, Urban Gospel, Jesus Musik, Contemporary Christian, etc. It is a form of Hip Hop or Rap music, whose main focal point is Jesus Christ & the message of the Gospel.

While the style is not new, it has only just recently begun to take on new proportions, as the content, talent, & production reaches new levels of excellence. There are concerts, conferences, & award shows hosted throughout the U.S. regularly, & some artists have even received the esteemed “Stellar Award” which testifies to the growth & impact that this genre has in our world.

Successful artists include: Cross Movement, 116 Clique, JR, Phanatik, Lecrae, Trip Lee, Tedashii, Sho Baraka, Flame, Da T.R.U.T.H, C.O.F.A.T. Ministries, Blaze Ministries, Canton Jones, Mr. Del, KJ-52, & many, many others. Just do a search for the words: “Christian Rap” or “Holy Hip Hop” at Myspace.com, & you’ll be given a bevy of artists to choose from.

More information on the beginnings, History, & progression of Holy Hip Hop can be found HERE

—-WHO CARES!??!!—-

Personally, I don’t care if He was green, as long as that red blood is freely available to me, ya dig?! I think its pointless for people to debate such issues, because it changes nothing. Whether He was of African descent (not likely) or not, He was God’s son.

We all come from the same Adam & Eve anyway, whose direct Father was God Himself, so regardless of what shade, tint, color, or hue our flesh is…we’re all family.

I believe time & conversation could be much better spent on things like His teachings & the way He lived. So get your mind on those things that will build you up in the faith; because the color of His skin matters not… You’ll find out soon enough anyway!

When God created man, He gave all earthly authority to him. But when Adam sinned, he forfeited that authority over to satan. As a result, mankind lived under a curse for thousands of years…Until Jesus came & led a perfect life & had NO sin. He poured himself out as a sacrifice, & paid the debt we all owe. All we have to do is believe it & receive His forgiveness. See, God is a perfect & pure God & so He HAS to punish sin. But He loves us so much, He was willing to let His son take on all the punishment of all the sin of the world, so that He could redeem us to Himself.

He had a son, but He wanted a family. But the family that He created for Himself turned from Him & chased after their own pleasures. He could no longer fellowship with His family due to their sin. The only way He could fix our mess was to come to earth
Himself, & live the pure life that He intended us to live, & then take on all the punishment Himself, & suffer the death that we deserve.

See, the wages of sin is death, but since Jesus had no sin in Him, His death was illegal. Therefore, the grave was forced to spit Him back out. He looked death in the face & asked; “Where is your sting?” And He took back the authority over the world that satan had conned his way into; so now He’s King of Kings, & Lord of Lords! On top of that, His greatest desire is for you to do the same thing! All you have to do is believe that what he did & said is true, & He’ll delegate that power over to you. He has anointed us as Kings & Priests to the Nations, it is our obligation, & joy to tell others about His Victory.

The question for you now is “If”. If you want to accept Him, all you have to do is tell Him. He formed your mouth, He will hear! Just tell Him something like: “Jesus, I believe your are God’s son, & that you died for MY sins, & rose again. Come into my life, be my Lord, & my Saviour, in Jesus’ name, Amen”

-Welcome to the family!

Whats your motivation for being a “Christian”?

It really comes down to just two different reasons:
1) The right one- Because you are eternally grateful for Jesus’ sacrifice, & you know beyond the shadow of a doubt, that without His death & resurrection, you would be damned to spend eternity in hell because of your sinful nature. Consequently, you want to spend the rest of your natural life serving & pleasing Him.

OR

2) The wrong motive- Because you know that God is capable of making your life better, & giving you the desires of your heart, & you need a new car right about now, & some extra cash for gas money cuz the prices are crazy high, & a new boyfriend or girlfriend wouldn’t hurt, & maybe a new job that pays more…etc ,etc.

The point is: Are you a Christian that seeks to serve, or that seeks to receive? What is your motivation?

To all the “thugs”:

Imagine u & ya daddy were separated at birth, & he’d been relentlessly searching 4 you. Turns out, he’s a supreme court judge, & yall finally meet cuz u got caught up. Now he’s so happy to have you in front of him…finally; & u got all these incredible feelings rushing over your body cuz u get to meet your dad, who never actually abandoned u like you’d thought.

But, being who he is, he’s forced to send u to prison for what u did. He’s sad, your sad, but worst of all, you’re in prison for life now, & you’ll never get to build that relationship with your father. Turns out, he’d been trying to reach you all your life, but since you never truly set out to find him, all his efforts failed. In fact, your own mailbox was full of his letters, but you never opened any; you were too busy gettin ready to hit the club, or the mall, or rollin another blunt. You didn’t have the time to open one & read it.

God is your Father. And He’s been diligently seeking a relationship with you; he even had his first born son die in your place, so if you did come to Him, He could accept you…your punishment was already paid for. You have Bibles all around you, everywhere you go. A Bible is God’s love letter to you, but you never read it to find out what He’s saying. And now, since you never built that relationship to where He could pull some strings for you, when you finally do meet Him in Court, He’ll be forced to sentence you to death, not life, but eternal death; a separation from Him, set in the lake of fire. If only you would’ve taken some time to read those letters & seek Him!

Open your mailbox. Seek & you shall find.

Taken from Disciple’s Creed:

“…It’s the Great Commission/
But its gon’ take persistence/
To make Disciples of all nations & take ‘em fishin’/
We gotta make ‘em listen/
They don’t know what they missin’/
Remove the scales from our eyes & consecrate our vision…/

In Acts 9 (the conversion of saul), verse 18 says: “Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, & he received his sight at once…” I believe this is a picture of how our spiritual eyes are opened when we receive the Holy Spirit.

Lately, I’ve been “seeing” a whole lot of activity in the Body. God continues to strategically place certain people within my “circle” or path, & I sense things are really about to bubble. I see it happening all over, & hear stories about it in other’s lives as well.

It’s like the world is a great big chess board, & God is on the move; bringing all the necessary pieces together to prepare his final “checkmate”. The enemy is so shook. But again, it makes me fall back & just wonder at the sovereignty of the Lord. He is just completely in control; preparing his troops for battle, & his reapers for the harvest.

My eyes are open. I’m continuously seeing God move in my life & I give Him all Praise & Glory & Honor.

Are your eyes open? Can you see Him clearly?

Have you ever looked at God’s creation & just stood in awe of Him? I have! In fact, I find myself doing this more & more. For example, I love to look at the clouds. The Bible says that we will “see the Son of Man returning in a cloud with power & great glory” (Luke 21:27). What a befitting vehicle for His arrival! I mean, I just get awe-struck gazing off into the vast Arizona sky, with its rolling clouds & pink sunsets; imagine Christ’s return! That’ll be some kind of an entrance, huh?

I think, in a certain way, we’re a lot like clouds; let me paint you a picture…Early this morning as I was gazing up at the sky, & the sun was behind a group of clouds, I felt the Lord speaking to me. Now, this thing with the clouds happens all the time, but we notice it most when the sun fully disappears behind a bunch of dark rain clouds, & our world gets just a shade darker. But what I saw this morning were white clouds, & as the sun was behind them, it caused them to radiate! I mean these clouds were almost too bright to look at.

[Think about Exodus 34: 29-35, when Moses’ face was shining. The glory of God’s light caused Moses’ face to shine so much that he had to put a veil over it ‘cuz folks were buggin’ out’!]

We’re like clouds in the respect of reflecting glory. Just as those clouds reflected the light of the sun, we too reflect the light of God as we draw nearer to Him. So much so, that it’s almost too bright to look at! On the same token, if we’re filled with darkness like those looming rain clouds, then we’ll blot out the sun’s brightness & remove its visibility.

Those dark rain clouds are made dark by what they contain….what’s inside them. (see Matthew 6:23) That darkness they carry in them nullifies the effect of the sun. Our sun, at its core, burns at around 27 million degrees, but is blocked out by a few rain clouds that pale in comparison to size.

See how all this corresponds to spiritual matters? If we are full of darkness, then we not only block out the light of Christ, but we also make it harder for others to see! But as He has made our sins as white as snow (Isaiah 1:18), when we draw nearer to Him, we emanate His light, & others are able to see His power working through us. To summarize: all creation points to the Savior, the Light of the World! (Romans 1:20) Dig that!

I was watching the National Geographic channel awhile back, the show was about how modern canines came to be what they are today. Back in the day, there were these wild dogs that people kept, & over the years, they figured out hot to breed them to bring out certain desirable characteristics, & how to decrease, or eliminate others.
The guy gave an example for a hunting dog called Argentina Dogo. It resembles a pit bull, but this dog is a hunting machine! Over the decades, they bred in some hound dogs for its superb tracking abilities, bull mastiffs for size, & pit bull terrier for its docile demeanor (its true, evil owners in the hood gave this family dog a bad name). They even brought in a particular breed just for the white coat, so Dogo would be easier to see in the hunting fields.
So this dog’s ancestral family tree is crazy, but-this dog can run fast, track down wild boar plaguing pasturelands, kill it, & then go home & play with the kids. On that note, it can tolerate the unintentional mistreatment that toddlers & young kids dish out, without ever lashing out!

My point is this:
Over the centuries, God has brought certain people together to add certain qualities to your gene pool. He has prepared you for such a time as this, & all that you need to complete your assignment has been placed inside you.

Want an example from the Bible? Look at the book of Ruth. Seemingly negative circumstances, followed by her loyalty to Naomi, brought Ruth into the path of Boaz. you can read the full details in the book, which is only 4 chapters long. But what happens is that she ends up being King David’s Great Grandma; & who descends from this line but Jesus Himself!

So, this being the end times, over the coarse of history, God strategically positioned certain people together & you & I are the end result. He is the Master breeder. Certain qualities have been amplified, while others have been removed. So go on in faith knowing that you have all that you need to succeed in your calling, & that you have been made the way you are for a specific reason. God took a lot of thought in to who you were going to be & what he planned for you to accomplish. Run your Race!!

Are you an Urban Gospel Artist or a Christian Rapper? Over the years, I’ve met a lot of both, & I’ve heard of countless more. I’m always trying to understand why they do what they do. I consider myself the former, an Urban Gospel Artist, because my desire is to use music as a bait to preach Jesus.

See when I think of this small genre, I see two different “sects” if you will. On one hand, we’ve got Urban Gospel Artists, & on the other, Christian Rappers. In identifying the two, I hardly use the term Christian rap anymore, it’s too broad of a generalization. I think “Urban Gospel” is a more fitting title for clarification.

The Urban Gospel artists are those who minister; they speak of Biblical matters, stories, values, & principles, all in the form of Hip Hop music. These are they which operate ministries that are just as valid, & important to the Body of Christ, as any other “ministry”. They provide relevant, accurate teachings from the Bible & the life of Jesus, using music as a means to communicate these truths. At shows, they don’t simply get on stage, do their songs, & then leave, unless time restricts them; no, when they’re given a platform in front of a crowd, they preach, exhort, & edify in between their songs & in the songs themselves.

Those who are called to this ministry, not only make anointed music, they can get up & deliver a message without the music. This is our calling & our passion; to reach the lost in America’s sub-culture of Hip Hop. I am an Urban Gospel Artist. On the other side, we have Christian Rappers… More »