Summer Talkback Series - Sho Baraka on a Theology of Creativity & Vocation
Download MP3It's my privilege tonight to welcome you to our first talk back of the summer. We're so glad that you're here. My name is Ben Shaka and I serve as the local missions coordinator here at the church and we are really really excited to have this night together. It's also my privilege to get to introduce our special speaker tonight, Sho Baraka. I have been listening to hip hop music since the nineteen hundreds and that's how far back I go.
Ben Sciacca:And I was first exposed to shows album Turn My Life Up in 2007 which was released by Reach Records. And I was just immediately hooked as a fan. To this day, I still think he's one of the best wordsmiths in the business period. I love his music. In 02/2009, I think it was roughly around that time we were reminiscing at dinner, brought him out to the school I was working at called Restoration Academy.
Ben Sciacca:It's an urban Christian school in Fairfield. And we had arguably the most bootleg sound system that you can imagine. He was getting in like his very first hype song and the batteries conked out. Somebody had to run across the street to Bargantown to replace those. In the middle of the concert, sound was ricocheting around the gym.
Ben Sciacca:I was just really impressed with how he handled that and how he just poured into and loved our students and just pointed them towards Jesus. And so our paths continue to intersect through the years we're kind of reminiscing on some different things. And I am still a huge fan of show and his music. I have all of his albums, listen to him all the time. But it's been like fifteen years and I'll just consider you a friend.
Ben Sciacca:And grateful as reminiscing on the different ways he's poured into my life with wisdom and compassion and just even advising me on career advice. So we've stayed in touch over the years. He describes himself as a polymath. I had to look that word up. If you don't know what that means, it means someone who has a lot of knowledge about a lot of different topics and not necessarily expertise about just one or two things.
Ben Sciacca:As I got to know Shell, I was like that is an accurate word for this brother. He is a writer, he's a musician, he's a gifted speaker, he is a reader, he produces videos, he has appeared in Hollywood movies, he has written and produced his own theater and performed in those plays. And then one of the last times I had lunch, he's learning construction trades, doing stuff with his hands. He married an artist and he has a lot of knowledge on English Premier League as well and he's a Manchester City fan which I do hold against him. If you know anything about Premier League, that's a terrible team to cheer for.
Ben Sciacca:But there are few people that I can think of that know how and are able to make Jesus known in so many different ways. And so I cannot think of a better speaker to have tonight to tackle this topic of how do we make Jesus and his kingdom known through creativity and through the arts. And so we're proud to hear from him in just a moment. Couple of quick things, if you don't know already, I think it's behind me. If you'd like to engage in this conversation, you can on your smartphone, just go to slido.com hashtag, you'll see show s h o, and you can begin to upload questions that you would like to ask on the back half of this evening tonight.
Ben Sciacca:Our worship team director, Lauren Starnes is going to conduct the interview with show and try to answer or ask as many of your questions as possible. So go ahead and put those there. And also the final thing, Sho brought a few copies of his book. He saw that it was good. This is a fantastic must read and I believe he is accepting cash app and Venmo if you'd like to purchase.
Ben Sciacca:That, is that correct? Yes sir. Alright, so let me pray for us real quickly and then I'm going to invite Sharon to the stage. Father God, we just want to pause. Many of us have come from busy days, busy work.
Ben Sciacca:Some of us were probably just even tackling getting our children into childcare. We just want to exhale for a moment and just remind ourselves that we can be still and that you are God. And Lord, we thank you for this night. We thank you for show and his desire and willingness to be here. Thank you for what you've gifted him with, for this message that you've put into his heart.
Ben Sciacca:And I pray that tonight, you would give us ears to hear and hearts to receive what he has to say. And we pray that you'd be glorified. We love you very much in Jesus name. Amen. Please welcome Sho to the stage.
Jeffrey Heine:Amen. One two one two one two. I love you brother.
Sho Baraka:Yeah. Amen. Thank you Ben for that introduction. Yeah. It's been a while.
Sho Baraka:We've known each other for many years. I am those those reminded me of oh, this is fine. Reminded me of those days when I was just a I was just happy to to perform in front of anybody who was willing to listen. Those those days are long gone. More sophisticated now, so if the batteries go out now, I'm leaving.
Sho Baraka:I'm just letting you know, I am not having it. And they drive all this way for nonsense. Alright. So I am pleased to be here. Anytime somebody is willing to bring me to speak about the things of the Lord, it just it blesses my heart because I just know where he's brought me from and how he used the things that I love to change my heart.
Sho Baraka:And so I'm going to be trying my best to kind of talk about creativity, cultivation, art and how we can use our creativity and imagination to heal a broken world. And as I said, if there's questions afterwards, feel free to think of those questions, but I really want to just talk about how cultivation happens in your vocation, the workers are few. You could be called, but first the calling must change you. I'm encouraged by the missionaries that I meet. For instance, Pam's a podiatrist, she has beautiful feet.
Sho Baraka:Raheem is a boxer, he's beaten the best, but the toughest fight is when he's daily fighting his flesh. I know a doctor, his name is Jason, he prays that the Lord keeps working on his patients. Sarah works in fashion, she's no slave to the dollar, she's clothed in righteousness whether white or blue collar. Jimmy is a fisherman but he's found new purpose. He's fishing for souls but he calls it networking.
Sho Baraka:Ling works for a law firm out in Las Vegas but her favorite thing to do is the cross examination. Keisha owns a bakery with her husband Ramon, they always tell the kids not to live off that bread alone. Keith plays basketball and everywhere he goes, he has a defense for the faith while reaching for his goals. Theo was an officer and this might sound crazy, he's the only cop I know who wakes up to die daily. My cousin at the IRS we all love people at the IRS.
Sho Baraka:My cousin at the IRS, his name is Thomas. On many different levels, he deals with false prophets. Cultivation happens in your vocation, the harvest is plenty. You don't have to be an architect to rebuild the city. So, often times I come and I go to events or I go to conferences and they ask somebody to speak about art and creativity and the person does nothing creative on stage, and so that pains me, so I figured I'll do a little something creative for you guys just to kind of show you that I have a little skill, just a little bit, that I'm not just up here faking, I'm not masquerading as an artist.
Sho Baraka:I actually do this. I do this in real life. Art who am I? So my name is Sho Baraka, I grew up loving art. Stories as I believe shape our identity, it shapes who we are, it's identity formation.
Sho Baraka:I remember at a young age watching The Goonies, and for anybody who's old enough, you remember The Goonies, and that film changed my life. It made me want to go on adventures, it made me but more than going on adventures, it made me want to tell stories. I said, I want to tell stories like this for a living in some form or fashion. The Goonies is truly a story about anti gentrification and development, if you really dig deep. I just wanted to know if you guys are looking that deep into the nuances of the film.
Sho Baraka:But then I discovered a new love, which my mom pretty much forced upon me, was so, you guys know this problem, like, for Black History Month. Right? When you're doing a report during Black History Month, you're you're there's a couple of people laughing. There's a you're like, how long is it going take for the black guy to bring up race? My mom was like, look, this is what you're not going to do for Black History Month, you're not going do a report on Martin Luther King, you're not going to do Rosa Parks, everybody does that, you're going to have to do some obscure people.
Sho Baraka:And so she introduced me to the Harlem Renaissance. And the Harlem Renaissance, I'll kind of maybe talk about it a little bit more, but any one of the greatest movement, art movements that this country has ever known. And so in introducing me to the Harlem Renaissance, I fell in love with poetry, and like I was like, man, like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Carl Mcley, and I started to just read a lot of poetry, and then I started to write poetry. And then I got to high school and I noticed that all the girls like hip hop like rappers and I was like, I got to stop the poetry and start rapping. And so, my brother was here in the back, he actually was a huge influence on me and my rapping career and getting me started with rapping.
Sho Baraka:And so, one of the things about music and as you will know with film is that the things that are communicated often stick with you and they tell you how to live and it tells you how to do and you form your identity around that. And so, I think ultimately one of the things I want to communicate is that we're all telling stories in some shape or form or fashion. But even deeper than that, we're all creatives. Some of you guys don't see yourselves as creative, but I like to think that creativity is the act of trying to solve problems. And everybody in this room through some sort of activity, work or even storytelling, you're trying to solve a problem in some form or fashion.
Sho Baraka:And I think God demonstrates this beautifully in Genesis and throughout the scriptures. And so, one of the things I want do is just kind of go through a little framework that I've been just wrestling with, diving with, and and just this concept that some of you guys may be familiar with, you're deep theologians and just, you know, entertain me, just kind of nod your head if you're like, oh, this is great, this is my first time hearing that. And so and then we'll get into some stuff and some other some other nuances, but one of the things I love most is like the q and a, so please think of some questions. But one of the things I just really I came to was I I struggled with who I was when I became a Christian because I knew I always wanted to just be creative. I knew I had an imagination and when I became a Christian, felt like anybody who did anything outside of vocational ministry were JV Christians.
Sho Baraka:Like you go make money in Hollywood, but then you give your money to the real Christians to do the real work of God. And I wrestled with that, I generally wrestled with that and so because all the people that I admired when I became a Christian in college, all the men especially that I knew who were godly men were either pastors or campus ministers. And so I felt like, well, maybe the Lord's calling me to be a campus minister. And then I talked to the gentleman who and I went to school at Tuskegee University not too far from here, and I remember going to the campus minister at the time and I said, hey man, I think I may be interested in doing, you know, some campus ministry once I graduate. And he was like, hey man, just come on a come on a support raising trip with me.
Sho Baraka:And I went on that support raising trip with him and I saw what he had to do, was like, no, this is not for me. Don't call me, call me too. So I'm gonna have to make this money in the in in same playground. But what truly changed my life were two things, one, I discovered a group called the Cross Movement and the Cross Movement was a wonderful cadre of rappers from Philadelphia who were able to hold up the fidelity of the scriptures and at the same time not lose their cultural like competency. And to me, I experienced Christian music before that was extremely corny.
Sho Baraka:I remember in high school, a friend of mine trying to evangelize to me, he's like, hey, sure, you like rap. Right? I was like, yeah. You know all that. He's like, you listen to like a lot of Tribe Called Quest, Biggie, Tupac.
Sho Baraka:Was like, yeah yeah yeah. He like, got this rap group for you, it's Christian, you're love them. If you love those guys, you'll love this. And he hand me DC talk. Now, somebody in here is related to Toby Mac, you know, God bless him.
Sho Baraka:He's doing the Lord's work. He's doing the Lord's work. But it ain't Tribe Called Quest. And so, I remember taking that CD and throwing it out the window, said, nobody should be listening to this, sir. But no, respect to what they did, the Lord used them.
Sho Baraka:Amen. And so, hip hop was still in some ways, maybe even an idol in my life. And when I got to witness the wonderful works of Cross Women, I got to see that there were people who would saturate themselves in the word of God and at the same time they could wear the clothes that we were wearing, they could use the vernacular and the nomenclature that we were using, but yet not offend the gospel. And I said, that's what I want to be. And so, teamed up with a bunch of individuals in Texas and we started a group called one one six and we were running around being rambunctious for the Lord and then the second thing that created a pivot in my life was, well, I remember going back to California to visit my friends and family and I was talking to a friend in high school and he had known that I had released my first album.
Sho Baraka:And he was like, hey, man, yeah, listened to your album, he was like, but you know he said something akin to, it feels like you're only talking to like Christians cause I don't really understand what you're talking about. And I remember that hit me in some ways cause I was like, man, like I don't wanna in a sense, I I definitely believe that art can be for the church, but I was like, man, I also wanna see what it looks like to be art from the church. And so, I remember just being conflicted with what does it look like to be a faithful servant of the Lord, be creative, be excellent, but yet and still be wise as a serpent and pure as a dove. And I remember around 02/2010, I went to New York, we had a show in New York and we were just walking around Broadway and we end up walking into a theater where they were showing scroop tape letters. Now, had been familiar with C.
Sho Baraka:S. Lewis, I think I had read maybe just the first book in the series of Chronicles Narnia and or the yeah, Chronicles of Narnia. And I remember sitting in the theater, 300 people about in this theater, it was off Broadway but, you know, deep in New York and the play just struck me because I had never read Screwtape Letters at that point. And I remember afterwards, what was even more mesmerizing was the actor does a q and a with the crowd. He asked simple questions, he said, hey, how many people in here are familiar with C.
Sho Baraka:S. Lewis' work? And you know, a lot of people raised their hand. He said, many people in here actually believe in the god of C. S.
Sho Baraka:Lewis? Or how many people in here believe in a God and then, you know, a significant amount of hands, you know, lowered a lot of a significant amount of people lowered their hands, and then he said, how many people believe in the God that C. S. Lewis believes in? And obviously, there are even less people.
Sho Baraka:And then he just started asking more strategic questions and and what I noticed he was doing, I was like, this dude, he's being quite subversive right now. Like, he's this is like a pre evangelism, if you will. And I was very impressed and I was like, he in a way was subversively sharing the gospel with a very non christian secular crowd in one of the most non christian places in the world. And so I was like, I have to meet this guy, have to talk to him, end up meeting him, his name is Max McClain, some of you guys may be familiar with Max McClain who was the voice of the ESV bible, who's done lots of wonderful work. And at that moment is when I realized the Lord can use my work no matter where he puts me.
Sho Baraka:And so there's a couple things that I had to kind of come into and understand it and and so in some ways I'm gonna where do I point this? Is it on? Okay. Alright. So one of the things okay.
Sho Baraka:So I'm trying to skip okay. Yeah. Alright. So one of the things that I came to struggle with was I I didn't understand why no one up until that point had taught me that work actually mattered. Like, to me, it was about having quiet times, your personal relationship with God, maybe the emphasis on how do we love one another, but then it stopped there.
Sho Baraka:And I said, does God not care about how we work, what we do? Because to me, it seemed like we can have quiet times, can pray, but then create a living hell and it'd be all good. And so for me, said, you know what, what does God say about work? And I realized as I evaluate, and this is not necessarily anything show, didn't create this, but there are certain people who have, I guess you could say frameworks like this, and realized in Genesis, it is important for the creative, for the artist, for the Christian to have this understanding that God doesn't just create us for a personal relationship with him, he created us for relationships. Oftentimes, we say Christianity is about a relationship, it's about a relationship, an amen.
Sho Baraka:But I think we do ourselves a disservice and we preach an incomplete gospel when we say that we're only made for a relationship. God desires us to not only have a relationship with him, which is the most important, but also an understanding of ourselves. What does it mean to have a proper view of ourselves, to be submitted unto God as we were in Genesis? And then to have a relationship with others, what does that look like? How do we honor our relationships with others as God instructed us and intended us?
Sho Baraka:But then we see in Genesis one twenty eight thirty one that we have a relationship with creation, how we work and how we cultivate. Oftentimes, I used to hear work talked about as a sin, as something that was cursed, but when you read the scriptures, as I'm sure you've heard and known, that the instruction to work and to labor and to be creative was given before sin never entered the picture. And so therefore, I think my only deductive reason is that work and our labor and our activity is a form of worship, is an act of worship. Just like how we relate to one another, just how we see ourselves, these are all ways in which we reflect the glory of God and how we are submitted unto God. And so, if I'm not okay, there we go.
Sho Baraka:And so, we glorified God, right, because we recognized that being submitted unto God was a blessing, it was a beautiful thing, and then we were submitted unto God in our relationship with ourselves and how we saw ourselves, but we were also in service to one another. Right? And then lastly, we understood what it meant to be individuals who subdued creation for the glory of God. But then sin enters the picture. Satan comes through and he's here hustling and he's like, yo, but for real, he tells a very bad story.
Sho Baraka:He convinces us to give up the very thing that we already had which was a perfect position in the garden with lies and bad stories. And so, than being glorifying the God, rather than glorifying God and and understanding that that that order of of hierarchy was important and necessary, we want autonomy. Rather than being submitted to God in our understanding of ourselves, we see ourselves as idols. We desire idolatry. I think it's very clear in the scriptures where it says, God Satan uses this idea that he would be God just doesn't want you to be like him.
Sho Baraka:So, when we think about saying ultimately we are trying to be Lord and God's over our own lives. This mic is killing me. Alright. Then service the other, now we manipulate one another and then rather than subdue creation, we exploit creation. Rather than making things for the glory of God and for the benefit of other people, we exploit it for our own benefit.
Sho Baraka:And then, I'm a go back to are you controlling this or am I doing this because I feel okay. Because I'm like, this doesn't feel right. Alright. So go back to the the the golden shadow slide. And so one of the things that I feel is necessary is this it's probably the second slide.
Sho Baraka:It's I think it's the second yeah, that one. One of the things that I've I've struggled with is how do we begin to teach people a theology of work or a theology of creation? What does it look like to understand what God has instructed us or how God has instructed us on how to work and how to create and how to and how to serve? And one of the things that I love about work is that we could, when honored when when submitted unto the Lord, we can honor the Lord with our with our work. And the reason why I like Golden Shadow is because oftentimes we like to use like heroes and villains, but the reality is that things are not fixed, oftentimes they move along the spectrum, and so there are times when our work is honoring the Lord.
Sho Baraka:I think because of the practice of cultivation, it's a spiritual formation, it's an act of spiritual formation, how we labor and how we submit unto the Lord and how we service is is an attribute of the Lord that we're exercising, so it's a form of formation spiritually for us. As I said earlier, we're solving problems. And then the last one is is love made visible, a book called The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran, which is definitely not a Christian book and so I'm not promoting it. However, it's a wonderful book and this prophet is walking through this village and people are asking him questions and as he's departing, he say, teach us about family, teach us about love, and then one time he say, teach us about work, and he says, work is love made visible. How do you see your work and activity?
Sho Baraka:Do you see it as love made visible? However, we can also go to the shadow side of our work, and sometimes we make work an item, and we'll talk a little bit more later. But then we can also feel like we can be God over the things that we do and we manipulate it for our purposes, we manipulate it to take advantage of others and we chase success rather than service. You can go to the slides after. And so one of the things that I think I've I've kind of wrestled with or come to is this this process of, I call like a cycle of cultivation, and it exists in these three gardens because the reality is that we're not returning to Eden.
Sho Baraka:Oftentimes, we yearn for this utopia, but the Christian faith is not about returning to utopia. To me, I think it's about what does it look like to be individuals who understand how to be servants, how to be submissive, how to exist in attention like a garden of Gethsemane. And so, oftentimes, I think we and then we move on to this place of completion. So you can go to the next slide. And so, here's these here here are these so we start in a garden in our creation because here's the time of us theorizing actually, go through the next two slides so these can fill in, like, the next one after that, next okay.
Sho Baraka:So we go to this garden of this this garden of Eden and oftentimes for the creative and the person who is thinking, it's a time of creation, it's a time of theorizing, it's a time of of of good ideation. And then once you actually get to the praxis, you realize it's a struggle. And once you figure out that struggle, you try to get to a point of completion. The reason why I love this analogy is because our lives are like this. We oftentimes come to this place of, man, I want to create, I want to build, but then I also know that I have to exist in this garden.
Sho Baraka:And in the Garden Of Gethsemane, we see that Jesus is telling the disciples to watch and pray. To watch and pray. And because sin is crossing our it desires to master us. And so Jesus gives us a perfect example of what it looks like to exist in a space where there is betrayal, where there is denial, where there is laziness, but yet and still he gives himself for the benefit of other people. And this should be our practice, we can't just live in the theory of creation, we move to a place of struggle and it's going to be tension, it's going to be difficult.
Sho Baraka:But hopefully, we don't stay there, we look forward to a new heavens and earth where there is completion, where there's consummation, where there is it is finished and ultimately, we want to look back to where God how God did it in Genesis and say, can we say, is it good? And so as we are thinking about creation, as you are thinking about that particular project, as you are thinking about man, how can this impact people, we expect that there will be struggle through the process, but then we get to a place where we need to evaluate, as Paul talks about in second Corinthians, evaluate your salvation, making sure that you are God because oftentimes the Christian thinks just because you're doing it, that means that it's God at work. And I and I would beg to differ that oftentimes Christians contribute to a mess. We can contribute to burden and so it's necessary for us to be evaluators of our work, for us to constantly look back and say, what says the Lord about this particular work? Alright?
Sho Baraka:And so, let's go to the point. So in each one, I have these little attributes that I think are rather important. So as we are in the Garden Of Gethsemane, as you are cultivating, as you are creating, here are some things that I would like to challenge you to think about. One is how do you think about renewing your mind constantly? Before you even get to the point of putting pens to paper or putting hands to a tool, how do you renew your mind?
Sho Baraka:Because I can tell you right now, I have been in places where I've called myself an activist and someone who's fought for justice and I began to take on the rage of the world and the problem is is you cannot operate in godly places by taking on and using Saul's armor. And so for me, I think about man, in order for a Christian to do good work, we need to constantly be practicing the spiritual formation. And spiritual disciplines are not they're an admission of weakness. And so for us, we're constantly saying like, Lord, I need to be fasting, I need to be praying. In order for me to be creative, have to be renewing my mind and saying, what thus says the Lord.
Sho Baraka:And then the next thing is, and this is rather important for creators, is that we have to reject idols. And often times, we hear this and we think, and only the idols of the world, and amen. But I also think about the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus is telling them to beware of how the prayers of the Gentiles and the Pharisees and we have to be careful about positioning ourselves especially us who have performance, vocation, putting ourselves as idols for people. One of the things that I kind of struggled with was especially when I guess like between 2016, '20 '20 when everybody was up on justice and anytime something happened, felt like the world needed to hear from me. Well, I got to speak out on this issue.
Sho Baraka:I got to speak out. I got because they need to hear what I have to say. Nobody has to they don't need to hear what I have to say. I would proposition that we need a tenth fruit of the spirit and that tenth fruit of the spirit is to shut your mouth. The Lord does not need for us to have commentary and and and the problem is is that social media puts us in this position that we feel like we have to be present, we have to constantly be on.
Sho Baraka:And the issue is is that there's always an issue, there's always something to speak on and the Lord does not need us and we'll talk about this concept the rest in the last one. But yes, renew your mind. Artists, creatives, we constantly have to be renewing our minds, especially if you are in spaces where you know that people are antagonistic against the the gospel and the Christian ethic. You must be because it's so easy to take on the anger and the angst of the people you're around and the Christian does not have the luxury of living a life without hope. We just don't.
Sho Baraka:And so the last thing is that we must be content. I love GK Chesterton, he has this quote he says, contentment ought not mean in English but it's or it ought to mean in English what it means in French is that when you are reserved to say an attic of a house that it's not that you don't you can't hope or aspire for something greater than that attic but you appreciate all that the attic offers. And in a similar sense, we must understand that the Lord has given us the opportunity to be his conduits and whatever comes from that work, I pray that we can be content in that. Because when you show discontentment, that's just not an offense to your circumstances, that's an offense to God saying, God, I know better than you in this particular circumstance and you should have given me more. And so, I think it also gives us a sober mind and a sober disposition when we create and you're able to say, you know what, I let it go and whatever you do with it Lord, be it your will.
Sho Baraka:And so renewing our mind, rejecting idols of our of all kinds, even ourselves, but also practicing contentment. But then, that's the theory, that's that's where we operate in the creation process or in theorizing process, but then everybody has ideas and theories and Michael Tyson said, until you get punched in the mouth, then you have to see what real life is about. And so, in the Garden Of Gethsemane, we to take those theories and put them into practice, and here's some things that I think are rather important. I think it's utterly important that you involve your work and your creativity in the process of other people, even if that's either teaming with people, the service of other people. I I I believe that there is no way in which, and I apply this to to art as well, obviously this is going be a very deep a spiritual statement, but I think it's important even in the work we do.
Sho Baraka:There's no way for us to to to this may come. There's no way for us to to be assure of our assured of our salvation within the scriptures without one another verses. The bible clearly talks about how we can't show love, so so in order for us to to show our salvation and be approved, it requires other people. And in the same sense, I think art is not just created for in the isolation of ourselves or the work we do, it is for the purposes of others, and we must also celebrate other people. And I know that's difficult for a lot of us artists, and one of the things I forget the it was a Japanese novelist that I was reading, and he made this statement that I was like, hey man brother, he says, I never share my art with other artists because artists will kill you.
Sho Baraka:And I've realized that don't share your art with well, your art with me, don't expect good feedback from me. But say for instance, you know, I'm a hip hop artist and there's another individual who's a hip artist, I encourage those individuals to take the insight that I give them very lightly. Because often times artists like to tell people how to do it the way that they would do it. And we have to be mindful of that, but I will say, how do we, even in that, learn how to join and celebrate others? When I'm I think it was Mark nine where, yeah, Mark nine, the disciples are going out and they're trying to perform these miracles and whatnot, and they come back and they complain to Jesus like Jesus, there's other disciples out there doing great works.
Sho Baraka:Why is that possible? I don't like that. I don't like the fact that other people are getting to shine. And Jesus says, if they're not against us, they're for us. And I think this is a disposition that we should have as artists.
Sho Baraka:It's not just to use people, it's not just to use them as pawns to accelerate our career, it's to genuinely celebrate people. And I can tell you, I struggle with that. I look at other artists and I say, I know him better than him. Why is he getting all the love? But when I get to those places, if I know this person, what I try to do is I say, you know what, Lord?
Sho Baraka:I try to pray for that individual at that moment and if I know him, I text him and I say, hey man, I'm I may lie a little bit, just pray that the Lord is doing, you know, not that the Lord because that's not a lie, I do want them to be successful, but I'm like, man, I'm happy for you, blah blah blah, know, etcetera etcetera. And over time, what that does is, even if it does nothing for them, it does something for my own heart. And I think that's rather important. The other thing is that we must get to a place where we see dignity and difference. That people, not just racial difference, not just ideological difference, but all types of differences are beneficial for our creation process.
Sho Baraka:And inviting people into the process and getting insight. Now, don't lose who you are and I also think there's a very different thing between appreciation and appropriation. So you don't want to appropriate. There's a movie that I love, once again don't recommend you guys watching it. Now you guys are dope, watch the movie.
Sho Baraka:Do the Right Thing by Spike Lee, there's a thing that is just amazing. Spike Lee, real quick, is a young man who works in a pizzeria, he's the only black man who works in his pizzeria with other Italians. The sons of the owner are kinda like, you know, they play around, they joke, one of them always uses the n word. And Spike Lee asked him, he says, pulls him aside and said, why do you always use the n word? He says, all your favorite people are n words.
Sho Baraka:And so he's like, he said, no, who's your favorite basketball player? Michael Jordan. Who's your favorite singer? Prince. Who's your favorite comedian?
Sho Baraka:Eddie Murphy. He says he says, all your favorite people. He says, no no no no no. They're but they're not really black, they're different. And I oftentimes think this is how we consume culture sometimes.
Sho Baraka:We consume culture from people, we love the product but we don't love the people. And I think the more we can invite difference into our world, whether that be financial difference, whether that be location difference, whether that be whatever, I think it makes us better artists, it makes us better creatives, it makes us better cultivators. Repent and repair. This is really interesting because it moves into the next session, which I think is rather important because we are all prone to to make to make some some terrible stuff, to contribute to the detriment, but the beauty is is that we also have the wonderful opportunity to repent and to bring repair. And this is valuable in the work within the garden, when we're struggling, when we're realizing we're in this process of what does it mean to practice a person who isn't familiar with repentance, to me is not a Christian.
Sho Baraka:If you are the type of individual who does who never says, my bad and how can I fix that, then you do not know the grace of the Lord? And so, wonderful example of this is, you know, I was gonna use a Marvel Tony Stark reference, but I feel like there's too many experts in here and Ben and I were having a conversation earlier, he may call me out on my my hot take. But anyway, let me go to something that's more historical. So for you guys who know, Alfred Nobel was an individual who created a particular powder that was used within dynamite. And the apocryphal story goes that one day his brother died, right, but he the newspapers printed as if he had died and so it labeled it the the head the heading was the merchant of death dies.
Sho Baraka:And so when he saw this he was grieved because he said, man like I never wanted or had intentions to create something that would cause such so much damage. And so for at that point he said, from now on I am going to repair whatever damage I do and so as we know the Nobel Prize is something that is created and he gave his money not only in re his money for to charities, to to innovation, and now we have the Nobel Prize for people who are doing similar things. This is a way of repenting and repair. And then we move into this idea of completion. Once we get to a place, once we look at our work and we say, man, it is I guess you can say finished to some degree for you artists who believe in finished work, You get to an evaluation, you say, man, what what about this can I how can I celebrate this better yet?
Sho Baraka:But the one thing that I really want to encourage us to do is get to a place of rest, and the world does not incentivize rest at all. And especially for us individuals who are on social media and you want to be an influencer or your livelihood is tied to algorithms and being present, the world forces us to be present. And I remember having a conversation with Andy Crouch and he made this statement, he said, money is always in a hurry but art isn't. And I think in a similar sense, when we don't rest, it is showing that we don't trust God with the things we create. I love this book called A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and it's a very strange book, once again read it.
Sho Baraka:Some very absurd things happen in there, but there's a scene or there's a there's a there's a part in the book where in this city called Macondo, there is an insomnia outbreak from candy. So they eat this candy and people can't sleep for months. And everybody thinks this is a great thing because it's like, oh, we can't sleep, well, we'll just get a lot of work done. And they do for many nights, many weeks, people are just working, working, working, but eventually people start making mistakes because their memory begins to slip. And what happens is, the author makes the statement he says, because they never slept, they forgot how to dream.
Sho Baraka:And oftentimes, I think that's what we do as artists by constantly being busy, by constantly being on, we forget how to dream. We forget how to be creative. Think about your favorite artists of all time, and it could probably be a musician. When I often think about this analogy, I think about a musician. Their first album is always amazing because they've spent their whole life working on this album.
Sho Baraka:And then what happens? They get a different tax bracket, there's these expectations, and they feel this need to have to replicate what they just did, and so the next album is pretty much trash. And you're like, this is terrible. And then they have to get to a place where you know what, I have to rest, I have to realize that the things that got me here was that I lived life. I think of Miroslav Voth, theologian, and he talks about this idea of it's it's interesting because him and Lauryn Hill have this, both great theologians, have this wonderful framework about ascension and descension.
Sho Baraka:Marislaw Vof talks about the ascension up the hill is the the process of going to fellowship with God and then once you fellowship with God, you descend to the people to give wisdom and insight. And Lauryn Hill talks about how the industry oftentimes incentivizes us to continue to climb the hill to get to the peak, but the reality is is nothing lives at the top. And they want you to stay there, live there, never get off the top of the mountain, but life happens in the valley. And so for us to be credible, resourceful artists, we have to live in the valley. You can climb, but you have to descend, you have to come down.
Sho Baraka:We just don't live in the under the glory of God forever and just get the glow, you have to descend to say, thus says the Lord and hear people hear me. And so, this is important within the rest. I think we must find healthy rhythms of rest. And then lastly, evaluating what excellence. One of the things I hate Christians saying is that because we're Christians, we should be the best at this.
Sho Baraka:We should be the best. We should be the best. And it's like some of us are just not talented. However, one of the things that we should be is faithful and obedient. So excellence doesn't mean an excellent outcome necessarily, but it means excellence and faithfulness and obedience to the task.
Sho Baraka:No one should ever be like like, hey, like if you're at work and you you're like, hey, I'm a Christian, like, you're a Christian? Because you sure don't work like one. But I think we must evaluate and step back and say, man, is this good? Is the Lord? I guess you can say, is this when I think about good, good in when he says in Genesis, it's I think I pronounced it right, Tov, t o w b, Tov, and the word means to be like charitable, to be a blessing, to be beneficial.
Sho Baraka:So when we step back and we're evaluating our work and we're and we're celebrating, we ask ourselves, is it good? Is it beneficial? Is it charitable? And then what we do is we start the cycle all over again. This is life, I think about this in marriage as well.
Sho Baraka:You come together and you're like, hey, we're having great times, oh, you know what? Here's the struggle, You know what? But then we're going to come to a place of redemption, and then guess what, we're going to go back and we're this is a cycle in which we exist in. And so, this is kind of like the framework, hopefully it made sense, there's opportunity for questions and dialogue. I'm stopping right now.
Sho Baraka:Thank you all for Do you want me to move this?
Lauren Starnes:Thanks, Ben. Look at this guy go servant hearted. Where
Sho Baraka:wherever you're not sitting. My car.
Connor Coskery:Can I interest you
Lauren Starnes:in a chair?
Jeffrey Heine:Bless you.
Connor Coskery:And that
Lauren Starnes:was awesome. Thank you for being here and just sharing wisdom and and sharing experience of what God has done in and through you. What a gift it is to be shaped and formed by actually living life and get to experience God and not some theoretical gospel but in a real way.
Sho Baraka:Amen.
Lauren Starnes:That he actually comes and he lives with us. And so you guys, just to remind you, can ask some questions if you are pondering anything. We used to only do this via this microphone and then somebody would run around the room like a mad person just handing it off as we did it and now we're just so savvy. So we have this website right here.
Sho Baraka:Don't know how to ask questions. They make statements
Lauren Starnes:Yeah.
Sho Baraka:And give sermonettes.
Lauren Starnes:And then you're
Jeffrey Heine:like sit down.
Sho Baraka:The mic from them and you're just like
Lauren Starnes:Yeah. So not only are you getting your steps in, but you're also having to be a bouncer at the same time. Just like, stop talking. So instead, we get to see your questions and then Slido will be the bouncer for you. But continue to do this.
Lauren Starnes:It'll update on here because technology is wild. A lot of really good questions so far, just based on what you've said. And the show's probably freaking out because he was like, you have anything prepared to ask me? I was like, nope. Just on the spot, my dude.
Jeffrey Heine:Which is gonna be
Lauren Starnes:great. Good. He loves it. It's like early days of batteries going out.
Jeffrey Heine:So some of the questions, it's
Lauren Starnes:a good mix of people in the room who would identify as being an artist and those who are in different fields of work kind of trying to find truth within these statements too. Let's start. We'll do a softball. You ready? What are the most important rhythms and practices you do to renew your mind?
Sho Baraka:Yeah. It's a good question. One of the things I often so I'm not gonna say I do this all the time, but just cost just having a more than a morning rhythm of prayer and devotion and it doesn't always have to be so I guess one of my struggles growing up was feeling like because let me say it. Let me start here. For those people who are pastors and theologians and spiritual leaders, try your best not when you're discipling other people to make them pastors and theologians.
Sho Baraka:Teach them the tools and the resources on how to be thorough and equipped in the gospel, but allow them to be who they are. Because for many years I felt like the way that I had to like have quiet times was to sit down, have a bible, a concordance and like Hebrew translate and it just and I did that for many years and I felt like insufficient if I didn't do that. And so, now my my modern rhythm sometimes is just writing in journals to the Lord or listening to music, singing worship unto the Lord. It could be going on a walk, being in nature. That's something that I've done a lot more recently is just I feel like because I'm tied to a screen so much, it's like how can I just get out and allow the Lord to talk to me through nature, through his creation?
Sho Baraka:So one of the things that I I I will say on a very practical is I try to block my my days out though, so in like four hour increments and so like for this four hours just I I try my best to say I'm only going to focus or do this and then this next hour I'll do this, but as Ben said I'm a polymath and I get distracted so easily and oftentimes I allow good things to get in the way of godly things. And that's not healthy, but I try to have a calendar. My calendar is crazy and so it is probably lord of my life and so in a lot of ways I try to be very kinesthetic in the sense that I can see this, I know this, alarms and you have to not answer your phone. I turned all my notifications off on my phone, so like on phone calls, text messages, none of that. I'm actually trying to get to a place where I go to a dumb phone, like I'm literally trying to get away from my iPhone.
Sho Baraka:And so, yeah, I think you have to find out what what is realistic for you, and then once you find out what's realistic for you, how do you create real legitimate schedules around that. So if you're a writer and one thing that I'm trying to get to is to be a more prolific writer is to write as often as I can, and no matter if it's good or not just write. Don't even like you don't have to do anything with it, everybody doesn't have to see it, let's just write. Yeah. So those are some practices.
Lauren Starnes:Awesome. It seems like the the call to renew our minds is because the Lord knows that we are prone to Absolutely. Take form into the things that we consume. So as you're thinking about I mean, it doesn't even have to be a young artist, but somebody who is learning a new trade that is growing in a new workplace and needs to interact with experts in the field so that they can learn to produce good art.
Sho Baraka:Yeah.
Lauren Starnes:How do you guard your mind and your heart towards the things I think that you said something of making art that doesn't offend the gospel Right. But may not always be work that is explicitly gospel forward.
Sho Baraka:T bone Burnett, know, legendary writer and singer had this statement where he says, you can often make music about the sun or you can make music about what the sun helps you see. And I think that is a perfect example. I think Tim Keller has similar analogies where he says, you know for writers as long as you don't change the problem which the problem is sin and the solution which the solution is Jesus, there's a whole lot of space to be creative and and you know innovative. And oftentimes I think we feel restricted but the Lord is you know giving us a lot of space to be creative and I often live by that kinda like man, no matter if I'm writing directly about the sun which is Jesus or what Jesus helps me see, I think there's a beauty very similar to Max McClain and Screwtape's letters or other works of individuals like CS Lewis or you know, that have done great evangelistic work in a way that maybe a sermon won't do because people won't be able to won't engage it because of its religious nature. So But yeah.
Sho Baraka:So
Lauren Starnes:That's awesome. There are a couple of questions. Tying two together of those in the room who aren't within the creative arts, How do you honor God within your work? What does that look like practically for a lawyer? What does it look like for a teacher?
Lauren Starnes:What are they creating within a workspace?
Sho Baraka:I I just so the I think about the the points I'm not going to remember all but ultimately I think one of the things that we have to see is that nothing we do is for our own benefit. And so whether we are working, whether we are serving our spouses, like the Lord calls us to die to ourselves. The Lord calls us to serve other people greater than ourselves. And so, if you're going to be a lawyer, if you're going to be in education, what does it look like to do that as unto the Lord, as unto a way that is going to be beautiful for the service of other people, that has a right view of yourself, but using the resources not to create as Martin Luther King would say, we oftentimes talk about the mercies of God but but but create a living hell for people to live in. And so in a lot of ways, I've never understood people who didn't under who who wouldn't concede if you will to some idea of systemic sin.
Sho Baraka:Right? Well, if we are individuals who create systems and we sin, then that means we can create sinful systems. That means we can create injustices. And then the Lord's redeeming of us, he's not just calling us to redeem our personal relationship and just ignore the things we created, he's also saying, man, what does it look like to not only see yourself as a sinner who needs redemption, but the work you've done needing redemption? We see this with Zacchaeus, as an individual who is probably performing one of the worst kind of jobs you can in in Israel at the time and recognizing how he's exploiting people and once he has this encounter with the Lord, he says, not only is my personal relationship needing to change, but the work that I've done, I need to repent and repair.
Sho Baraka:Jesus does something extraordinary when he intercedes for the prostitute woman who's about to be stoned, he looks at this this situation, he recognizes that for all intents and purposes the men are the the law, they can stone her, but they themselves take advantage of a law that you know, they mess around and they sleep around and they do all this stuff, but they're going to stone this woman and he says, ye without sin cast the first stone. And so he's saying there's something wrong with the system here, but then he turns around and he looks at the young woman and says, go and send no more. So there's this idea there, which I think is very pertinent, that he's addressing the system, he's addressing the the relationship between the individuals, but he's also saying, you have a personal responsibility to stop being a hoe out here. And in a sense that's what I was telling us all, stop being hoes. You know what I'm saying?
Lauren Starnes:Direct quote.
Sho Baraka:And so yeah, that's the direct quote. That's in Hosea.
Lauren Starnes:That's right.
Sho Baraka:And so
Lauren Starnes:You're you're not wrong.
Sho Baraka:Yeah. Amen. And so therefore in our work I see a similar situation, it's like we're all participating in some way. So I don't believe, this is my own personal belief, the elders of the church could rebuke me or correct me afterwards. I just don't believe that work is amoral.
Sho Baraka:I believe the moment we put our hands to the plow, we're creating a belief system in something. You may not woo what you're creating, but you're contributing to somebody's belief system, and so if you are creating just for the benefit of the company without and this company doesn't care about the well-being of the people they're providing for, then that lord you're promoting is the slumlord. It's a lord who doesn't care, but we often see our work as something that is separated from morality just like I believe stories are propaganda. Everybody who tells a story, there's an intent behind that story. There's a purpose behind communicating that.
Sho Baraka:Now it may not be vicious, may not be vile, but there's something that they're trying to promote and communicate. And the Christian should see stories as a as a way of telling truth. We should always hope that the facts get in the way of bad stories and when we see bad stories, we should ourselves try to figure out how do we create good stories to combat to be unapologetic for bad stories. So I just think about the responsibility of us as cultivators, as creators that no matter what we do, we are creating the way we work. How about this?
Sho Baraka:The way we work testifies to the type of God we believe in.
Lauren Starnes:Yeah. And what a gift it is that we aren't all called to dwell within this building throughout the week. But when I look at this room and I think about the people who are scattered all over the city that are working within hospitals and dwelling within their own homes all day or working with excel spreadsheets. God love you. That that you're interacting with a world that would have never stepped foot into a
Sho Baraka:church Absolutely.
Lauren Starnes:And carrying a light that is needed and necessary.
Sho Baraka:Yeah. I did a musical he mentioned years ago in Memphis about the sanitation workers strike that happened in 1968 and I think about the value ever since doing that musical I thought about the value of sanitation workers. And when people didn't pick up the trash, the city was like a rotten hell, a rotting hell. And we nobody knows this is a sanitation worker until their pet their trash is not picked up. Mhmm.
Sho Baraka:We think about how the spread of diseases can happen. And so all of us have value in the flourishing of our cities, in the flourishing of one another. And so every job has importance. It you don't your work doesn't have to be tied to some social good in order for it to be God honoring. All you have to do is work.
Sho Baraka:It's simple. That's good.
Lauren Starnes:If there are any, what a good Christian artists have inspired you? Who who are you listening to?
Sho Baraka:Who
Ben Sciacca:are you Yeah.
Sho Baraka:I as I said, if I just go through kinda like history, cross movement, old school, if imagine for you guys who aren't into Christian hip hop, if you are familiar with hip hop, the cross movement to me and to many of us were like the Wu Tang but Christian. So it was like a million of guys, there was just like 35 guys in a group and they were just hard, it was just like, you like saw them walking down the street, be like, I'm across the street. But they loved the Lord, and they were theologians. Like I had never heard first of all, they had introduced me to like, oh, like R. C.
Sho Baraka:Sproul, like all these individuals, Hank Hanegraaff, like they were rhyming stuff like, hypostatic union, was like, what is the hypo? And so it just gave me an appreciation. So cross movement, Kanye West. I'll say this though, Lauryn Hill. Now Lauryn Hill to me in her yeah, I'll just move on.
Sho Baraka:Lauryn Hill, Christian I mean, Fred Hammond, gospel music, like, so I love gospel music. It gospel music taught me how to be expressive, how to allow myself to just kinda just allow the Lord to just do what he wills in me. So, you know, but I'm trying to think of more. So present day obviously, you know, there are good artists out there. I think of you call it Indie Tribe, no big deal.
Sho Baraka:I hate doing this now because now if I don't say somebody, reach records guys like Lecrae who I started with.
Lauren Starnes:This is like your award ceremony. Yeah. Exactly. Should have you all say the right person, my mom, my Reggie in the bag.
Sho Baraka:Yeah. Reggie in the But I'll say this though, so I'm sure other artists will pop up but one of the greater influences in so I think I became a better artist, a better writer when I stopped listening solely to hip hop music. Because I grew up pretty much a hip hop head, and then at some point I was like, you know what, I really at some point I kinda got old and I was like, I'm tired of just like waking up at 09:00 in the morning or 08:00 in morning and listening to hard hitting rap. It's like, I need to slow it down a little bit. And so I started listening to jazz and so once I started listening to jazz that kind of expanded my musical acumen.
Sho Baraka:But then I and I don't know how like this may be seen in here, but John Mayer was an artist that really don't know.
Lauren Starnes:Don't know. He's an image bearer?
Sho Baraka:It just depends. It just depends. I don't know what kind of space I'm in. I think this is Presbyterian. Right?
Sho Baraka:Y'all No. No. Y'all Presbyterian. Don't act like a person. And I saw somebody smoking a cigar outside, drinking a grandma, you know.
Sho Baraka:So and the reason why I love John Mayer is because, and I love singer songwriters, I just say singer songwriters in general, because they there's this there's this challenge of saying things in the in the the unobvious way. And so that's how I've really challenged myself to say, you know what, how can I be, I guess you say a little more esoteric in the way that I communicate? And I think about gravity, that song. There is no greater song about total depravity in the world. What makes a man with all the love that his heart can stand, dream of ways to throw it all away.
Sho Baraka:Gravity, what do you say, stay away from me. Like it's it's just crazy, it's like you know, there's an admission there that I think is really honest and I think we're starting to find Christian artists to do that a little bit more, but I think for the longest time Christian artists felt like they had to be preacher, teachers and they couldn't be vulnerable in their art and they would they lacked authenticity And so I think there's a there's a there's a maturation in a growth company that's happening that is really good and healthy.
Jeffrey Heine:That's good. That's good.
Lauren Starnes:How do you find the balance and the tension of the monetary need of doing work and also the honoring of? That it that's an offering before. I think artists get pinned for this a lot too. Especially in the church. I think that all the artists in the room would be like, man, how many times have you been asked to do something that you do for work but do it for the church because there's like an intrinsic beauty to it.
Lauren Starnes:Absolutely. How do you hold the balance of it?
Sho Baraka:Alright. Can you so I thought you were going somewhere.
Jeffrey Heine:You ask a Go
Lauren Starnes:go towards the Okay. How do you how do you make a living
Sho Baraka:Yeah. Okay.
Lauren Starnes:Towards the art that you're doing and how do you honor God when there is like monetary value attached to the art that you do.
Sho Baraka:That's a you know, so there's so my own personal conviction I heard a dude this is this is this is funny. I don't I don't know if this is my belief but this I heard I have a friend who said the wise man told him he says, do you believe that God is everywhere? And he was like, yes. He says, well then go where the money is.
Lauren Starnes:And now every job you take you're like, I'm just doing what he told me to do.
Sho Baraka:He said, so but one of the things that I I realized about myself is that I am I am the worst kind of artist for today's market. I am just and so I'm gonna give you information on how I operate that I don't think is is good. Like publicists, if you go especially in the music business, if if you're you go to a a publicist or anybody and they they'll tell you that is the worst advice because I do believe truly that we should rest. I believe in taking breaks. I've even before social media was like had a choke hold on the music industry, I always took three years in between albums.
Sho Baraka:And it wasn't like I intentionally took it three, it was just I guess it was just a natural rhythm of mine. My first album came out in 02/2007, my second one came out in 02/2010, '2 thousand '13, '2 thousand '16. And now it's been almost a eight year. It's been eight years since that album in 2000 no, nine years. Crazy.
Sho Baraka:Nine years. I was like my math. Nine years since my release in 2016 and I'll be releasing the album in a couple months so definitely go and look for it. But the one thing that I realized is that I truly believe in what Boff and Lorne Hill talks about this concept that we have to live, and I don't believe in just making art just to make art because to me it has to come out of the abundance of my heart. Right?
Sho Baraka:I believe in what is the Lord speaking to me in this season. Too many not only and this is just good for ministry in general, too many of us think we can go from like a revelation to immediately we need a platform. And I think that's actually handicapped a lot of great creativity because virality is a great incentive because you don't need to go through a local market anymore. If order for somebody to just be known they can just go from a thought to TikTok and then all of a sudden they're touring nationally. But back in the day, you needed to play in clubs or you played at churches and you built a following, people judged your voice like, oh, that wasn't good.
Sho Baraka:And you're like, okay, well, me go back and work on that. And you live life and you got insight and but now we we skip that and for me, I I just need to live. I need to be developed. I feel cultivated. The same thing with Paul.
Sho Baraka:Paul gets this revelation and he disappears for I think what three years in Arabia. But that will never happen today. And I think that's the problem with the Kanye West is that we Kanye becomes a Christian, we're like, oh, we need Kanye on our team because now Christianity is cool. Let's put him out in front. And then he gets out there and says the most ridiculous things.
Sho Baraka:And then we're shocked when he lived like it's like, no. It's like, what did you expect from a narcissist or an individual who was once a narcissist and now like so in a lot of ways I think it's even narcissistic work for us to think that we always need to be heard. And so this is why I say, man, rest, retreat, let the Lord speak to you. But that is not good advice to people who are trying to pop in this world today because if you stay away from Instagram and TikTok for weeks, the next post you put up may not get up, may not be get may seem. And so there's a dichotomy there because I there's a tension there because I definitely want you to make money.
Sho Baraka:I want you to live. I want you to survive. So you have to figure out what that balance is. You have to figure out where how am I gonna negotiate with my own personal ethics the things that I truly believe about God, about myself, and the work that he has me to do. And so for me, one of the things that I've done is I for only a short period of time in my life could I solely live off music.
Sho Baraka:Now I have three children, they're full of pretty much two of them are adults and I just can't live off of the the the the feast and famine kind of life. And so I said, you know what, the first time this happened I think was in 2014, '20 '15, when I said I need a I need a job. I need to find something that I can do that actually helps or aids my creative life. And so the ever since then I've tried to keep a job so that would allow me to also still be Shobaraka, the polymath who does all the things. And so right now I am an executive executive, my gosh, I wish I was an executive.
Sho Baraka:I was a I'm an editorial director at Christianity Today and so but it allows me to still be able to travel, to do things like this, to make music. It actually benefits them for me to be this individual. And so that way, that's a check that I know that is always coming. You know what I'm saying? And I don't have to make music unless I want to make music.
Sho Baraka:And I think if you could put yourself in that position, amen, so that way you're not a slave to the algorithm into the system, you can say, you know what, I wanna make art that's not in a hurry.
Jeffrey Heine:That's good.
Lauren Starnes:I'm sure that it's good stuff. Okay. So thinking about it's not a season of rest, but it is a season of living out in front of people. Mhmm. How do you remain humble in a culture that I think that we make idols out of anything that we can?
Lauren Starnes:Mhmm. I think we do it with in sports. I think we do it within music. I think we do it within Absolutely. Really profound theologians and thinkers.
Lauren Starnes:Like we we want to start to watch the thing that we see that is good. So how should somebody remain in the golden when they're pulled into the shadows not of their own doing but by others
Sho Baraka:Yeah.
Lauren Starnes:Placing them on a pedestal?
Sho Baraka:I'm a man on this stage wearing a scarf around his neck. Humility is not my strength.
Lauren Starnes:Lord, we pray for show. We pray for show.
Sho Baraka:It's you know what? I don't think it's both it's both probably some of the most difficult things, one of the most difficult things you can do, especially if you are truly talented and you know you're talented and people affirm your talent, and at the same time, it just sounds very weird, it's also not very difficult if you're in community with people. I'll never forget this, when I first started when we first started kind of so I started in with a in a label with Lecrae, like myself Lecrae, Tripoli, Tadasha, we all started as just friends on a college campus. The Lord took us from just performing at the like these little detention centers in Denton, Texas to youth camps to then fast forward many years later, John Piper just like inviting us to his home, partnering on it, don't waste your life to it. And so I remember at a in a somewhere around that time when we were touring the world, I had a pastor, I had a friend who was a campus minister with me when I was in college and then now he's he's a church planner and pastor in North Carolina, and he he invites me to come to perform at one of his church at his church in an event.
Sho Baraka:And I I mind you, I don't think too highly of myself, but I also am like, I mean
Lauren Starnes:I'm gonna wear a scarf on stage
Sho Baraka:I don't I'm gonna do. I'm gonna hit him with this scarf, you know I'm saying? So I get there and I you know, we were actually we were actually roommates at one point in time. So I get through the event. First of all, he has like some dude in a busted car pick me up and I'm like, the car is barely stood like running, I'm like, not tripping because I'm, you know, I feel like, oh, it's cool, I'm not tripping.
Sho Baraka:But I get there, it's a back to school event and it's huge, there's a lot happening, and there's a whole bunch of volunteers running around. So him and his wife, they say, show, it's good to see you. Hey, can you grab those chairs, stack them up over there, we need you to help fill some backpacks. And I'm like, I'm the talent sir. And I and I just I started stacking chairs, I started laying out, putting out backpacks, and I think he did that on purpose.
Sho Baraka:I think he did that on purpose. But I honestly think it's the kind of thing that we all need, especially for individuals who run around talking about the local church, talking about community, but then you actually think you're greater than the community that you serve in. It was a constant reminder and I think it was also good that I've always been under the the auspices of like my brother as a pastor and people that I've kind of come along with who knew me before we were you know, the rock stars or whatever. I'm nowhere near the rock star of the crate. But when we see each other it's just like, that's just show.
Sho Baraka:And to know like no matter like what I do even when I fail, even when I be when I and I show the worst of myself, oh, that still show. Even when I get nominated, I'm in a Hollywood movie which they're all terrible so don't go look for them. They're like, oh no, that's that's still show, you know what mean? And so for me, I think the answer to that is community, like you need to be in community. The tension is for those who travel a lot, you can believe, you can start to read the clippings, can start to believe the post, the likes, the whatever, and then you come back feeling like you're special.
Sho Baraka:And guess what? You are special, but you're not special. Like the Lord has called you to be another individual who participates in the mutual edification of the building up of one another. And so you have no you may be more popular but you still have been called to serve. So for the last two years I have a friend who asked me to lead us us, we call them city groups at our church, to ask me to lead a city group.
Sho Baraka:And for the last two years, I you know, full disclosure I in some ways have begrudgingly led that group not because I felt like I was better than the group, but because I truly didn't want to. And and here's my and I and hopefully this I think this will help. The reason why I begrudgingly did it is because I truly I don't wanna say begrudgingly, that's not right. I did it because I felt like the Lord called me to do it even though I wasn't passionate about doing it. Let's say it like that.
Sho Baraka:And the reason why is because I truly believe that the Lord calls us in three different ways. I believe sometimes he calls us according to our skill. Like you clearly have a skill like Bezalel in Exodus thirty one thirty two thirty three where he says build this thing, he filled them with the spirit, great craftsman, built the temple, do great things. Samson was filled with the spirit, had great strength, people who are great warriors. The Lord says there's a skill that you have and I need you to serve me.
Sho Baraka:Then there are some who he calls because of a need. You don't have to have a skill set. It's just because there's a need here and I need you to do this. Moses is a great example of that. And it it there's no negotiating, there's no like, well you got the wrong person, God.
Sho Baraka:He's like, I didn't ask you that. It's like, I just said there's a need and somebody needs to fill that. And then the third one is, is sometimes he calls us to suffer. And this is the call nobody wants obviously. But when we see Paul he gets knocked off the horse and he says, I think it's Aeneas or Ananias, he says, go tell him how much he will suffer for my for for for my sake.
Sho Baraka:We see that with Hosea and Gomer. We see that oftentimes that the Lord and it's not suffering in the sense that it's a consequence of any sin, it's just a way for us to connect to the Lord and know the Lord deeper, and for us to empathize in some sort of way. And so for me leading this group, I saw this as a need, and I felt because not only her but other people were asking me, it's like, man, you know what, Lord, if this be something that you truly want me to do, I'll do it. And I felt like I did it as long as I could and and so yeah, I think there are times when we serve the Lord because of need and he places us in places because of need. I'm gonna shut up because I forgot what the question was.
Lauren Starnes:That's great.
Jeffrey Heine:That's great. I was gonna ask
Lauren Starnes:you for like a benediction over the people of this place like if if everybody is moving into different spaces as we leave, and that feels like a great benediction whether we are called because of skill, called because of need, or called to suffer. Amen. That he is the one who calls and that we are the one who gives a faithful yes.
Sho Baraka:Amen.
Lauren Starnes:I'm a pray for us and then Dwight's gonna come up and tell us more things probably.
Sho Baraka:Tell us more.
Lauren Starnes:God, we thank you. We thank you that you are a God who creates whether it is in beauty or whether it is in function. You are a God who is sovereignly reigning over all things. And that you are a God who has knit us together in particular ways to make much of you. And so I pray that whether we are called by skill, called because of a need or called into suffering that we would be people who glorify the name of Jesus
Sho Baraka:Yes, father.
Lauren Starnes:Into a world that is in desperate need of hope and renewal, of a gospel that is true, of a gospel that that saves because of your hand and not because what we offer to this world. And so I pray that you would be a light through us. God, would you use every interaction with coworkers? Would you use every grumbling of our spirit as we are given tasks that we might not want to do? Yes.
Lauren Starnes:Would we be a people that are set apart as we joyfully enter into each day knowing that you are at work in our midst? God, remind us that there are people in our workspaces in our lives that know nothing of you. And we were given good news to take to the ends of the earth. And so I pray that we would be faithful, that the excellent work that we do would be the faithful yes that we give to our king. God, thank you for who you are and who you have called us to be.
Lauren Starnes:That you could have redeemed this world in so many ways and yet you invite us in. What a gift it is to be used by the almighty. What a gift it is to be filled with the spirit that raised Christ from the dead and the one that will carry us through even if you do call us to suffering. Lord be with us. In Jesus, we pray that you would come.
Lauren Starnes:In the name of the father and the son and the spirit that we pray. Amen.
