0 Comments
Skillet's official video for "Sick of It" off of their new album RISE. Get RISE (Deluxe Version) on iTunes: http://smarturl.it/risedlx Get RISE on iTunes: http://smarturl.it/skilletrise Get "Sick of It" on iTunes here: http://smarturl.it/sickofit Never miss another update! Subscribe to The Grok Radio Blog! Every day we present the best in Christian music, and culture! News about your favorite artists, uplifting devotions and FREE music! Subscribe below!
By Morgan Lee October 3, 2013|10:16 pm After protesting a police order forbidding them from feeding the homeless on a city-owned parking lot, a Washington-based Christian group intends to disregard the ban and help those in need by carrying out its normal programming this week. Based out of Olympia, Crazy Faith Ministries (CFM) has offered food to hundreds of homeless people twice a week for the past two years. However, last week the police department ordered the group to cease its operations at the parking lot. The email claimed the operation was "blocking vehicle traffic and parking," and that "garbage and debris [was] being left behind after your event."
Tuesday, October 1, the GRAMMY-nominated and Dove Award winning band The Choir is launching a month-long Kickstarter campaign to fund their upcoming 15th studio release along with a brand new live album. Partnering with Livestream, The Choir will broadcast a free online acoustic concert tomorrow evening from 8-9pm CST to celebrate the upcoming album releases. The members of The Choir - comprised of Steve Hindalong, Derri Daugherty, Tim Chandler, and Dan Michaels - are thrilled to be recording new music and continuing their musical journey after many years together. "Music is a journey for us," shares Daugherty. "It's this path that we've been going down, and as we've traveled it more and more over the years through the release of our independent albums, tours and being connected through social media, we've realized that not only is it a journey for us but that it's a journey for our audience too. They have truly become part of our story." Click here to find out more about this campaign with a video interview featuring Daugherty and Hindalong. Continuing their tradition of creating a weekend experience built around the release of new albums, an exclusive group of Choir supporters will have the opportunity to attend the recording for the live album on March 1 of next year in Nashville. In addition to securing Gold Circle seating, these fans will be part of the closed rehearsal that day, dinner with The Choir and spend the following day sharing private excursions around the city. Daugherty continues, "By working in partnership with our listeners, we believe we will have the ability to spend more time in the studio to craft songs, create and experiment. We think by doing that we're going to inspire ourselves and from that inspiration we're going to make music that will inspire others. We feel like at this point we can make one of the best records we've ever done." The Choir’s Kickstarter campaign officially launches at midnight tonight. Be sure to link to the campaign profile here: http://www.kickstarter.com/profile/thechoir To follow The Choir's online concert tomorrow evening, visit:https://new.livestream.com/thechoir/thechoir. We are proud to announce the launch of the Official Grok Radio/CYI Worldwide Free store. Get evangelism materials, Grok Radio swag and lots more. Everything is free, although we do have suggested donation amounts. Donations help to fund our ministry work! Come check it out! http://www.cyiworldwide.com/store.html NEWS SOURCE: Gorilla PR
October 7, 2013 (Nashville, Tenn.) October 7, 2013 - The Gospel Gangstaz have announced the official release of their new full-length Defenders of the Faith, due to release November 5th on Trendency Records and Camp 8. The album's title refers to the group's commitment to defend and promote their faith in the midst of the ever-increasing darkness in our world. The album is undeniably a return to form for the legendary hip-hop group that many consider to be the "godfathers" of Gospel rap. In fact, many of today's top Christian rappers are on record as stating they are Christians and/or pursuing their artistry today as a direct result of the group's music. With fourteen incredibly solid tracks including the first single "Walk With Me," the Gospel Gangstaz have a healthy complement of tracks to choose from for future singles. The single is being released digitally October 8th with two distinctly different covers to choose from. On the heels of a historic career including Grammy and Dove Award nominations as well as record sales in the hundreds of thousands, the west coast-infused flavor of the Gospel Gangstaz is once again ready for prime time. Defenders of the Faithfeatures high profile guest appearances ranging from the multi-platinum gospel duo Trin-i-tee 5:7 to the legendary bassist Bootsy Collins (who rose to fame as a member of James Brown's band and, later, Parliament-Funkadelic) and his elder brother, Catfish. With veteran radio promoter Kendall Duffie of D3 Entertainment on board for the life of the project, a full court press is now underway to reintroduce the group to old fans as well as a new generation of Gospel Rap fans who might never have heard the group. The current lineup of the California-based duo is comprised of two of the three original founding members including Mr. Solo and Chille Baby. What sets the group apart from many in the gospel rap community is their credibility among the rap community as a whole - both Christian and secular alike. Their music can stand up against virtually any other music topping the charts. Trendency Records' President David C. Coleman states, "It's truly an honor to be working with the Gospel Gangstaz. They have a clear vision of how their gifts can be used to follow the example of Jesus Christ and take this revolutionary message of love and redemption to the streets. These are genuine men of God who aren't afraid to challenge some of the conventional perceptions regarding the proper way to reach those in need. Our goal at Trendency Records is to bypass much of the noise that surrounds these discussions and allow our artists to get out into their communities and reach those who might never have the opportunity or desire to step foot in a church. We believe segregating ourselves behind church walls is counter-productive in achieving the Great Commission." For more information on The Gospel Gangstaz, please visit: IMAGospelGangsta.com Facebook.com/GospelGangstaz Twitter.com/GospelGangstaz After Turning Theological, Christian Hip-Hop Turns CriticalWhat Shai Linne's takedown of Joyce Meyers suggests about Reformed rap.
Owen Strachan [ posted 5/30/2013 7:41AM ] Original Article: CHRISTIANITY TODAY Just five years ago, uttering the phrase "Christian hip-hop" in the average evangelical church would have met with blank stares. All this has changed as artists such as Lecrae and Flame have exploded in popularity—winning awards, selling out shows, and racking up millions of downloads. Young believers have responded enthusiastically to the movement's blend of doxology and pedagogy. But Christian hip-hop is showing signs of entering a new phase. Call it the "critical phase," one in which artists broaden their program to address cultural issues in evangelicalism or the public square. In April, Sho Baraka, a rapper and elder at Blueprint Church in Atlanta, released a song entitled "Jim Crow" that uses strong language—including the controversial word nigga. The song drew a heated response and engaged Christian leaders. "It's being used in the same way that it was used in Uncle Tom's Cabin," noted Ken Jones, senior pastor of Glendale Missionary Baptist Church and a relative of Propaganda, a spoken-word poet. "Part of the baggage that [the term] will carry is that people are expecting a Sunday school lesson, and they're not necessarily going to get it." Daniel White Hodge, author of Heaven Has a Ghetto: The Missiological Gospel and Theology of Tupac Amaru Shakur, approves of language that reaches "the general human experience." "People aren't interested in coming to some crusade, saying a little prayer, and then thinking that their lives are going to be okay," he said. "Christian art tries to answer ultimate questions." Rapper Trip Lee said he probably would not use the word, but noted that hip-hop is about provocation. "It's a bold, in-your-face art form," he said. "It lends itself to movements—often rebellion against God and morality, but it can be used as a counter-rebellious force in society." But Thabiti Anyabwile, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman, said Christian rappers should note the call for pure speech in Ephesians 4:29. While this verse applies primarily to speech inside the church, its principles also "ought to go outside the church with hip-hop," he said. "That's part of what is going to make it an effective witness." "Jim Crow" is not the only recent rap song to ignite controversy. Shai Linne's recently released "False Teachers" states that advocates of the prosperity gospel are "heretics Christianizing the American dream." Linne calls out a number of prominent pastors by name—including Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, Paul Crouch, T. D. Jakes, and Paula White. White's son, Brad, publicly responded to Linne, calling the song "pure cannibalization without biblical reference" and arguing that the rapper had maligned his mother's genuine faith in Christ. Linne defended the song in an open letter. "Paula White lists 'financial abundance' as one of the promises of the Atonement," he wrote. "This is false. It is also a slap in the face to the millions of godly saints … who do not live in 'financial abundance' like many of us live here in America." Observers wondered whether Linne should have named false teachers publicly. But theologian Bruce Ware cites passages such as 2 Timothy 2:16–18. "Warning against false teaching is a mandate," he said. "False teaching comes through false teachers, so you have to warn your people about certain people whose teachings will lead you astray." "Jim Crow" and "False Teachers" raise different issues, but reflect evangelical rappers' growing desire to speak to sociological and theological issues as their influence in the church grows. "You can deal with tough subjects," said Anyabwile. "But you need to do so in a way that meets [that] litmus test." Original Article: THE SPECTATOR The last month and a half has seen perhaps the worst anti-Christian violence in Egypt in seven centuries, with dozens of churches torched. Yet the western media has mainly focussed on army assaults on the Muslim Brotherhood, and no major political figure has said anything about the sectarian attacks. Last week at the National Liberal Club there was a discussion asking why the American and British press have ignored or under-reported this persecution, and (in some people’s minds) given a distorted narrative of what is happening. Among the four speakers was the frighteningly impressive Betsy Hiel of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, who has spent years in Egypt and covered Iraq and Afghanistan. There were lots of stories of Muslims protecting Christian neighbours, but there were also incidents with frightening echoes; Hiel described a man riding on his bike past a burned down church and laughing, which brought to my mind the scene in Schindler’s List when local Poles make throat-slitting gestures to Jews en route to Auschwitz. Some of this has been reported, but the focus has been on the violence committed against the Brotherhood. Judging by the accounts given by one of the other speakers, Nina Shea of the Center for Religious Freedom, the American press is even more blind, and their government not much better; when Mubarak was overthrown one US agency assessed the Muslim Brotherhood as being ‘essentially secular’. The night ended with historian Tom Holland declaring sadly that we are now seeing the extinction of Christianity and other minority faiths in the Middle East. As he pointed out, it’s the culmination of the long process that began in the Balkans in the late 19th century, reached its horrific European climax in 1939-1945, and continued with the Greeks of Alexandria, the Mizrahi Jews and most recently the Chaldo-Assyrian Christians of Iraq. The Copts may have the numbers to hold on, Holland said, and the Jews of Israel, but can anyone else? Without a state (and army) of their own, minorities are merely leaseholders. The question is whether we can do anything to prevent extinction, and whether British foreign policy can be directed towards helping Christian interests rather than, as currently seems to be the case, the Saudis. The saddest audience question was from a young man who I’m guessing was Egyptian-British. He asked: ‘Where was world Christianity when this happened?’ Nowhere. Watching X-Factor. Debating intersectionality. Or just too frightened of controversy to raise Muslim-on-Christian violence. Bishop Angaelos, leader of the UK Copts, also expressed disappointment at the response from other religious leaders, saying that if Christians burned down 10 synagogues or mosques, let alone 50, they’d be going over to show their sympathy and shame. The most outspoken British religious leader has been Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, and the debate brought to mind something Rabbi Sacks recently said about Middle Eastern Christians, comparing their fate with those of the Jews in Europe, and quoting Martin Luther King: ‘In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.’ |
Welcome!
The official Christian Culture blog of Grok Radio! Subscribe Here:
|