Kanye West, Rock Stars and Spiritual Awakening

A number of years ago, God gave me a prayer burden. He moved me to begin regularly praying for five young pop/rock stars.

I had absolutely no interest in them or their music at the time. But God moved me to begin praying for them. I won’t mention who they are, but the interesting connection between them is that all were raised in a Christian home, made a profession of faith when they were young, but by their lifestyle, appearedto have walked away from their Christian roots.

I have been praying now for five years. One of the reasons I have been faithful in prayer is that I realize that each has millions of followers on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other social platforms. I thought, “Can you imaging what could happen if the Holy Spirit gets ahold of one or more of them and they start telling their followers about it?”

What indeed.

Though he is not one of the five, I have been fascinated and excited by the recent conversion of rapper Kanye West and what has happened. While he has been terribly criticized (regularly by even Christians), there is absolutely no doubt that Jesus has been using him in an unprecedented way.

Because my prayers for my five have also moved me to read and research everything I can about them (a good intercessory practice so we can pray with knowledge), I also had interest in reading about Kanye . . . and watching. Though I am not into rap music, I watched in awe his live Facebook “Sunday Service” performance a few Sunday nights ago from Joel Osteen’s church (which was seen by millions by the way). It was a powerful worship experience—that included a very simple, short, verbal presentation of the gospel. It reminded me of the simple, Holy Spirit-empowered message Peter gave on Pentecost. Remember what the results were then?

Now, Kanye has put together an “opera” on King Nebuchadnezzar, which includes reading through the entire book of Daniel! While I have not seen the performance, I saw twitter comments from two non-Christian millennials who had, and both commented how it moved them to get a Bible and read the story of Daniel themselves. “Speak to them through Your Word, Lord!”

If a rap opera can move non-Christian young people to read the Word of God, Brothers and Sisters, I think we are on the verge of the spiritual awakening we have been praying for!

Don’t believe me? How about this?

Probably as a result of Kayne’s openness about his new-found faith, rock star Justin Bieber, recently was emboldened to challenge his millions of followers that they should “put their trust in Jesus”!

Criticize if you have too, but I am convinced that God is starting to pour out His Spirit to awaken many to His Son Jesus. But He is not using the method we wanted Him to use.

He is not using the traditional Church that expects revival to simply “perk up” their Sunday morning worship service to make it better. No, He is going direct to the masses through unlikely instruments—young and famous pop/rock/rapstars.

Instead of criticizing, pray and watch with excitement!

–Jonathan Graf is the publisher of Prayer Connect magazine and the president of the Church Prayer Leaders Network.