Monday, March 10, 2008

Urban Prophets

I have been encouraged by the music of Lecrae, Tedashi, the 116 Clique as well as their predecessors in their genre, Cross Movement. What is most exciting to me about these men of God is that their lives are about ministry. Music is just one of the outlets of expression of that lifestyle.

Reach Life Ministries recently produced a gospel tract that is relevant in style to the urban culture, but with the same timeless truth of the gospel. You can find an on-line interactive version here: http://www.readthisbeforeyoudie.com/

What new resources have you found useful for the gospel?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey Kevin,

I wrestle with your question often.

I have a hard time thinking about what resources are helpful. To me, any resource that I consider limits the "gospel" by overemphasizing certain aspects of it while ignoring other areas.

Being in student ministry all those years... i'm starting to see that there maybe more harm in the way we are selling the gospel in the long run. I think you can see it when you look at the type of Christians we are raising.

Here are a couple of post that might help us think through this topic. (I was at the Ecclesia Network conference that he was referring to).

http://www.reclaimingthemission.com/2008/02/bridge-illustration-idea-whose-time-has.html

http://www.reclaimingthemission.com/2008/03/bridge-illustration-idea-whose-time-has.html

KG said...

I think that tools or resources have to be seen as such. They are not the message. So they need to be used in a proper context.

The bridge illustration,for example, may still be useful in the right context. The tract that I linked would be most effective when communicating with urban youth or those influenced by the hip hop culture.

Tools are always going to be incomplete. They are just to assist the messenger and the message.

I often use a narrative approach with people. The Bible is mostly narrative. So God primarilly communicated to us through stories. Maybe He knew that people would better relate to stories than point A plus point B equals point C.

By the way Brent, how did you like the conference?

Unknown said...

I'm with you on the role of resources and i really like what you are saying about a narrative approach... I guess my problem is with the limited view of atonement that are generally found in these resources.

On another note: The Conference was good. The Ecclesia Network is filled with some great people and Alan Hirsch and David Fitch are always fun (provocative) to listen to.