“Notes on faith” is theGrio’s inspirational, interdenominational series featuring Black thought leaders across faiths.
Is it just us, or has there seemingly been a truth-telling tour rippling throughout the entertainment industry as of late? Its latest stop was a viral interview on “The Breakfast Club,” where Grammy Award-winning gospel artist and pastor Tye Tribbett made a revelatory admission: the current system and the structure of “the [Black] church is whack.” Tribbett’s assessment that “the church” is losing its relevance came in response to questions about the perceived decline of celebrity pastors’ personae in pop culture. Reminiscent of the warning delivered in his song “Sinking,” Tribbett said further: “The Church should be about the people, but the Church makes the people about the Church … They’re not serving and loving the people.”
While there is undoubtedly some truth in his comments, Tribbett has predictably received backlash from ministers like Pastor Mike McClure, Jr., who took to social media to say the musician should have kept his critique in-house — and alternately, could have highlighted spiritual colleagues doing the work of making ministry accessible.
Nevertheless, the question remains: How are the majority of ministers both living the life and preaching the gospel in accessible ways?
While many “saints” may refute the idea that the church is whack, Tribbett’s words were not lost on Pastor Melech E.M. Thomas, who entered the collective chat through footage of one of his sermons, demonstrating how he is redefining gospel music; music that uplifts him. Last Sunday, at the Payne Memorial AME Church in West Baltimore, Pastor Thomas delivered a sermon that has since gone viral, precisely because he spoke in an idiom and language everyday people can recognize, surprisingly using lyrics from someone he proposed is a “new gospel artist” GloRilla’s
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