By: Deborah Johnson Wood
A new Grand Rapids church will have a
distinctively urban look, feel and worship style in the hope of
attracting people from the hip hop culture. The Edge Urban Fellowship,
the 12th church plant by Kentwood Community Church,
received authorization this month from the Grand Rapids Planning
Commission to hold services in a former photography studio at 2252 S.
Division – a 14,000-square-foot building that's been vacant for about a
year.
"We
are the first hip hop church in Michigan," says Troy Evans, pastor.
"We're taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ and making it relevant to the
hip hop culture using the music, the style, the decorations conducive
to the worship style of people in the hip hop culture. If you like rock
music or southern gospel you have a place to go, so what about the hip
hop culture? Now they'll have a place to go and not have to change the
way they dress or they way they look."
Interior renovation plans include a hallway that will look like an alley complete with graffiti.
The congregation can create graffiti on
removable panels in the sanctuary during the preaching as a way to
visualize the message.
"We're going to show the youth how to take their (artistic) talents and offer them up to God," Evans says.
Another departure from traditional
worship services is that the worship "sessions," a term based on hip
hop recording sessions, will be on Saturday evenings instead of Sunday
mornings.
Evans, former pastor of Christ Like Outreach
and a former gang member, travels nationwide conducting gang prevention
and intervention workshops. He also trains law enforcement in gang
prevention and will be conducting training at the church, he says.
Work begins in June; the first worship session will be September 26.
Source: Troy Evans, The Edge Urban Fellowship
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
Photo:
Edge Urban Fellowship, the 12th church future home -S Division
Photograph by Joshua Tyron -All Rights Reserved
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