WONDER

This past week, for the 4th week in a row, I tuned into a standing room on Clubhouse called Rethinking Church, led by a few guys I've known for a while (Jason, Koo, and Eugene). I had been quietly listening in and then this past week, felt convicted to step into the conversation as the question that was posed was "What is success to you when it comes to church?" I shared the following words, pulling from my perspective as an artist, but also using an example of a JayZ/Kanye rap song that impacted me deeply many years ago. There was an outpouring of responses and especially folks who reached out privately to state that they wished more artists would join these conversations that were predominantly filled with pastors and Christian figures of influence, who said all the “right things” yet pushed away so many non-believers and individuals who had left the '“church.” I wanted to share here hoping that it might challenge you and hopefully cultivate and encourage more dialogue and conversation between people.

Honestly, "success" in church doesn't seem like anything I feel can be quantified or even really figured out. As an artist, I feel a calling to create (through music) to encourage the listener to wonder. So I’ll come back to this idea of wonder…

I’m reminded of a song called No Church in the Wild which was released back in 2012… which was a collaborative track by hip hop artists Kanye West and Jay Z, with a lot of the writing by Lonnie Breaux also known as Frank Ocean. Frank Ocean questions, "What is a God to a non-believer?”…among many other poignant lines.  During the time that the song was playing all over the radio, I remember many individuals in the church pointing out that the song was speaking about Nihilism. Nihilism is basically a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are false/baseless, and that existence is useless and without reason. The “church” in the song stands for essentially “meaning, value, or purpose” and “the wild” stands for “the world”.  So the title literally could mean “there is no meaning, value, or purpose in the world”. However, diving into the lyrics, I found it very profound and almost counter to what many were thinking the song was saying. It actually deeply challenged how I thought about church and my faith.

ALL of art, whether a song or a dance or a painting, is an act of expression, and the specific form is chosen because of the needs of the content. So basically, the essential nature of what is expressed by any work of art must be given by that artwork itself. So both the artist as well as those listening to the art, should also be finding purpose in their own way through their own lived experience. I feel that a large majority of the current state of church does not fully encourage the STRUGGLE... for from a theological standpoint the “sanctification.” We know, theologically, that we are supposed to be on this journey of sanctification and growth yet we don’t fully embrace the struggle… further, we don’t ENCOURAGE the struggle or even the WONDER. I feel that we need to encourage our community to WONDER; to DISCOVER. 

I found so much irony in many of the lyrical lines used in the song… One line Frank Ocean used was “make it out alive” to mean “get through life” but that's the thing… nobody gets out of life alive. That’s the whole point. You die. And we as believers, SHOULD have a deeper understanding of this, but it’s almost like having a blue check mark and then just going through the motions and liturgy… rather than leaning into fully struggling with your vocation or purpose in life... The reason for why we are here… what are we meant to do here to encourage and support the community of people around us. 

I guess the point I’m getting to is that I believe that true success could be found in seeing WONDER in the individuals who comprise a community or a "church." I believe that wonder is the precondition for all wisdom and I would love to see more individuals embracing the struggle and truly being filled with wonder every day. I want to see more people WONDER.