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Break Dancing in the Sanctuary?
If you like hip-hop and you’re a pastor, what do you do? You combine them.
by Emily Wierenga

Ill Breaks Crew, an outreach to hiphop lovers, is bridging the gap between Jesus and a generation of neglected music lovers.

Pastor Youngdo Kang (second from left), and other members of the hip-hop church Ill Breaks Crew, regularly meet at Tim Hortons.

Founder Youngdo Kang, until recently family life pastor at Bramalea Baptist Church in Brampton, Ontario, says the outreach – which held its first meeting in May of 2009 – has been on his heart for awhile.

“This is a group of people that needs to know Jesus, and don’t have many avenues to hear about Him,” says Kang, who served at Bramalea for three and a half years. “I like hip-hop, and I’m a pastor, so I thought, Why not try to put them together?

“It [hip-hop] started off as social conscience music, used to express the sadness and hardship of living in the ghettos,” explains Kang. “The four artistic elements of hip-hop are the MC, DJ, graffiti artist and break dancer. These are usually thought of as bad things, but some of their good aspects are community, creativity and uniqueness – things that aren’t unlike what a church is.”

So far, Ill Breaks Crew consists of nine young people from Bramalea who appreciate the symbolism and sounds of hip-hop. Meeting every Wednesday at a local Tim Hortons, the group discusses various artists, swaps CDs and studies the Bible. The need that Kang says exists in

the hip-hop community has encouraged him to expand the ministry and develop the Church of City Lights.

“One of our main focuses is to outreach those in the hip-hop community,” says Kang, 34. The group has started handing out samples of hip-hop created by Christians, and is planning an outreach concert for Easter.

“A lot of young people don’t know a world that hasn’t had hip-hop in it. Meanwhile, most [hip-hop lovers] don’t feel welcome in churches, so we need to intentionally reach them.”

Emily Wierenga is an author based in Blyth, Ontario. Her book, Save My Children, is available through Castle Quay Books.

Originally published in Faith Today, May/June 2007.

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