Creating a “rap” from the Bible (Youth)

Description: I found an interesting activity for “youth” in the Catholic Youth Bible Activities Manual (ISBN 0-88489-560-2) that turned Chapter 2, passages 1-4 of Hebrews into a rap song. The students were first asked to divide into groups, read the passage, and discuss “why the Hebrews needed a call to pay attention”. After this, each group would develop a rap song based off the passage, being attentive to beat, volume, mood, etc…in an attempt to maintain the original message found therein. Lastly, the students perform the rap and then discuss amongst themselves the need to pay attention to God’s word…and evaluate any and all distractions that inhibit us from doing so.

Summary of Heft: The Heft text speaks on the modern problem of youth being “absent from traditional congregations” (p. 1). He addresses the question of “[how] religious traditions can pass on [faith understanding and practice] to their next generation of believers”. Those of Gen X, Gen Y, or the Millennials. Getting these youth involved is vastly more complex given our modern consumer-driven and digital culture. The need exists then, especially in a place like the United States, to find creative ways to translate faith understanding to each successive generation.

Heft does give suggestions as to how we can better transmit faith these generations. First, he says a central key is getting parents more involved in their faith…which will in turn get the children more involved. Secondly, people need to engage and ask the youth what they believe. Youth need guidance and “practice talking about their faith” (p. 70). A third suggestion is to nurture religious practice in their lives. Finally, Heft suggests that we (as religious educators) stop listening so religiously to the prevailing “learned” experts on modernity (e.g. sociologists, psychologists, etc.)….and instead listen to the “historical and theological wellsprings of one’s own religious faith” (p. 72).

In short conclusion, I think the activity described above could be useful in drawing out the question of “what do you believe?” in the youth. Parents could also participate in this activity in some way. --Making the faith interesting and relevant in the youth’s lives is important from my point of view, and using “rap” (something modern) to get a point across and to transmit faith is an activity worth consideration. Any modern way in which we can translate faith understanding and practice to our youth culture should be at least open for consideration…