Hip-Hop Continues to Grow Throughout the Episcopal Church

By Neva Rae Fox

 

The Hip Hop Mass is a blend of Episcopal liturgy and today’s Hip Hop music, complete with DJs, rappers and occasionally dancers.
Born in the Bronx during the hot summer of 2004. The Rev. Tim Holder initiated the concept following a harrowing hostage experience at Trinity, Morrisania. At first weekly in the Bronx, Holder took the Hip Hop Mass on the road and, since that time, its reputation and its appeal have spread across the diocese and the country.

After only two and half years, the Hip Hop Mass has been celebrated in over a dozen Episcopal dioceses, in prisons and detention centers for adults and youth, at seminaries where the spiritual leaders of tomorrow are trained, at church gatherings and meetings including the General Convention in Columbus, Ohio (June 2006) and the Province II Convocation, and at churches throughout EDNY from St Andrews in Staten Island to Christ Church in Poughkeepsie.

Media coverage has been widespread, too: articles in The Episcopal New Yorker, Episcopal Life, The Living Church, and other national publications; news reports on CNN, ABC, Fox, and NPR radio.
Hip Hop Mass has spawned a book (The Hip Hop Prayer Book), a CD (And The Word Was Hip Hop), a web site (www.HipHopEMass.org), plus t-shirts, posters and other print items. Holder says more books and CDs are on the way, including Reggaeton and Spanish Hip Hop.
Numerous honors have been bestowed upon Holder and the Hip Hop Mass, such as the Peacemaker Award by the World Council of Churches (2005), The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Leadership Award by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (2005), The First Decade Award by the Divinity School, Harvard University (2005) and the Peacemaker Award by the World Council of Churches (2004).
There is no denying that Hip Hop Mass is a trendsetter. And it’s still growing.

Holder was recently called to a church in Atlantic City, Diocese of New Jersey, but the legacy of Hip Hop continues in EDNY at St. Mary’s, Manhattanville. And, he reports, Hip Hop will be regularly celebrated in the Dioceses of New Jersey, Massachusetts, South Carolina and Alabama.
There are Hip Hop ministries springing up in North Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia, Massachusetts, Texas and Montana,” Holder explained. “And those are the ones we’ve heard about.”
What’s the future of Hip Hop Mass in the Episcopal Church? Holder sees it continuing as an evangelism tool to grow and spread to a generation of Hip Hop music lovers. “It’s a ministry that can ground itself in weekly worship,” he said.

Resources:
www.hiphopemass.org
www.churchpublishing.org

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