“Sometimes Risk Works Out”

A friend of mine sent me the link to this post and asked whether he thought something like it would be able to fly at OBC – check it out:

A year and a half ago I met a new friend named J-Griff. He has become part of our church and has an amazing gift.

He speaks a different musical language than most of our congregation and I have wanted to use him as part of our worship experiences for a long time, but could never quite muster up the courage. Then I read this post and decided that just because something might fail I have no an excuse not to go for it.

The “this post” he’s referring to is some great thoughts from Tony Morgan on the “new traditional church music” –

Only it’s as if we got stuck in the 80s. While the church still leans on a mix of rock and pop music as the preferred worship genre, our culture has shifted once again. Now, according to iTunes, 1 in 3 of the top 100 songs in the country is either hip-hop/rap or R&B/soul. My guess, though, is that you can’t name a church in the country that’s using these genres of music for worship. Why is that?

Now, before you let your “it’s-not-our-culture” bias set in, consider this. Most of the hip-hop and R&B music has been recorded by black artists. 14% of the U.S. population is black. But, remember, nearly one-third of the music purchased on iTunes is one of these two genres. You do the math. White people like hip-hop.

If you want to hear the recording that inspired this song, check out “One Way” from Soul Survivor 2008 on iTunes here.