Volume 2: June 2006
Ministry Unwrapped
Hip Hop In The Church
by Jeff Yale
Graffiti on the signs and walls, a patio of table tops painted with covers of hip hop albums, a full-sized basketball court and a skate park are just the first things you notice as you pull into the parking lot of Crossover Community Church in Tampa, Fla. When you enter the building you are not greeted by a couple dressed in their Sunday best offering free coffee. You are entering a the hip hop church. You most definitely will feel loved and accepted, but you won't find the "traditional church experience" here.
In the sanctuary, the walls are lit up with pictures of the Tampa skyline. The lights dim, and the DJ starts spinning his beat. Lights focus on a group named Harmony, similar to the kind you would expect to see in an urban
nightclub setting.
While the group is singing, the presence of God fills the place and people start worshiping Jesus. While Harmony sings, the lyrics are presented on four TV monitors.
After worship, everyone is welcomed and offered a free full-color magazine about the church. They're also given a CD filled with hip hop songs and personal testimonies about life-changing experiences with Jesus Christ from music artists in the church body.
After prayer and a multimedia presentation, everyone meets the pastor of this thriving congregation, Tommy Kyllonen. On this Sunday, he's wearing a Philadelphia Phillies cap backward and a warm-up jacket of his hometown's basketball team, the 76ers. He stands behind his pulpit, which resembles a large can of spray paint, and starts to do his thing--be a voice of God to a culture that traditional churches have not embraced.
Kyllonen, also known as hip hop artist Urban D, is the man behind this church. He was born into a pastor's home in Philadelphia, and the two most important things to him when he was growing up were Jesus Christ and hip
hop culture.
Near the end of high school, Kyllonen had a hard time blending Jesus with his culture, and he started to rebel. As he began to search for answers and seek God, he accepted the call God had on his life. In 1996 he graduated from Southeastern Bible College.
After graduation he took a job as youth pastor at Crossover. The church had 40 adults in attendance on Sunday mornings when he started, and only four young people. Kyllonen had his work cut out for him.
During his first year he started a basketball league, put on hip hop concerts and held outreaches that grew to 60 the number of kids in the church. The next year that number doubled. Over the next several years more than 200 kids attended, while the Sunday morning service stayed traditional and still drew about 40 people.
The church went through three senior pastors in four years, and by 2002 it was obvious that God had prepared the church for Kyllonen. Tommy had seen how God used the blending of hip hop culture with the gospel in the youth ministry, so he took the opportunity to build the church in the same way, all the while fully relying
on God.
Crossover has gone from one service that reached 40 people to three weekend services and 500 people. Each year the church hosts an urban workers conference at which people from all over the world learn about
hip hop ministry.
Kyllonen has taken the elements of hip hop culture--music, dance and graffiti--and applied it at Crossover to reach that culture like no other church in the world.
"They want their worship, study and service to be a piece of their daily lifestyle, not segregated into Sunday mornings," Cameron Strang, founder of Relevant magazine, says of Crossover.
"Hip hop is everywhere," Kyllonen points out. "From radio and TV to selling clothes and even cars. I want to impact this culture with the life-changing message of Christ, not just here in Tampa but around the world."
Crossover Community Church is proof that hip hop and the church can co-exist. For more information about Tommy Kyllonen or his ministry, visit the
Crossover web site.
Jeff Yale is associate youth pastor of Real Life Church and the youth director of the Florida District of Foursquare. He is based in Tampa, Fla.
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