The Yuinon is not a church, (as in denomination or building) but as
born again believers we are the church.
We are not positioning ourselves to “police” the body
of Christ, or be the authority for anything or any issue, we believe
God’s word does/is that. However, we thought it would be helpful
for those interested to be able to see and read what we believe.
We believe the Bible to be the verbally inspired
Word of God. It is inerrant, infallible and the final authority
in all matters of life and faith (II Timothy 3:16).
We believe God is one. Eternally existing in three persons:
Father, Son & Holy Spirit. (I John 5:7) We believe
in the deity of Jesus Christ, (John 1:1, 14) His humanity,
His virgin birth, His sinless life, His miracles, His bodily resurrection,
His ascension to the right hand of the Father and His imminent personal
return in Power and Glory. We believe salvation cannot be gained
apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. We believe
the Holy Spirit indwells individuals upon their heart’s realization
and their mouth’s confession that they are sinful by nature
and in need of a mediator to bridge the chasm caused by sinful humanity
(through Adam) and a Holy God. Only Jesus Christ has the credentials
to bridge this gap. (John 14:6, I John 2:22-23, 5:11, 20) Upon
this admission and acceptance of Jesus Christ by personal invitation,
salvation is gained, and eternal life is secured. The Holy
Spirit enables and empowers the believer to live the Christian life.
We also believe in the perpetuity of all the gifts of the Holy Spirit
identified in I Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4:11-16.
We believe the church is for worship, Christian fellowship, discipleship
and evangelism. We believe in unity but not at the expense of truth.
These truths consist of the whole council of God as found in His
progressive revelation of Himself from Genesis to Revelation.
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Agreement on these essentials is the foundation from which we build
and mature into men and women of God who are able to defend the
faith (I Peter 3:15-16), equip the saints to do
the work of ministry (Eph. 4:12), and advance the
kingdom of God on earth (Matthew 28:19, 20). We
believe that the exercise of these essentials in corporate worship
affords a diversity of (orderly) expression (I Cor. 14)
on which no one denomination has a monopoly. Unity does not mean
uniformity.
In our belief of God’s inspired word, we understand that
the craftiness of men (Eph. 4:14), as
well as the motives of men (II
Peter 2, II Tim. 4:3) and Satan’s ability to disguise himself
as an angel of light (II Cor. 11:13-15) are real
and may involve a church’s mixture of the abovementioned
essentials with blatant, minor, and gradual deviations including
“new” and or lopsided “gospels” that
can hinder, damage or prevent the long-term maturation and stability
of believers thereby hindering the mission of the church and our
ability as believers to glorify God in all of our activities and
services.
We believe that congregational size has no bearing on the validity
of a ministry. We believe that a Christian’s loyalty is
not to a bishop, pastor, denomination, or to faith in itself, but
rather to God, the object of our faith and the principles and precepts
found in His complete Word. Because God is sovereign and knows
those who are truly His (John 10:27-29), He will
correct those who need to be who are humble and submissive to His
Holy Spirit and His use of His body of believers to edify each other
according to love, truth spoken in love, (I Peter 4:7)
and iron sharpening iron (Proverbs 27:17). We believe
in being peacekeepers, mediators, and engaging in care-frontation
when and where necessary. We believe any formal disputes that go
beyond the individuals directly involved can be resolved through
prayer, humility, God’s Word, and the objective council of
elders and pastors. |
We believe in and have seen the use of hip-hop as a ministry tool
God can use to reconcile the lost to Himself. We believe this
is the best use of this art form, the music of this generation
and this is our intention as The Yuinon.
For skeptics of the marrying of this music with Christianity, we
ask: Who is the giver of gifts? Is Satan a creator or a perverter
of that which is good? Can gifts be reclaimed and used for God’s
glory? And lastly, ever heard of Thomas Dorsey and do you know what
we now accept as “gospel” as a sound was like before
he and other pioneers injected it with the honest and emotional
musical expression of their day? The gospel is always about
content (the good news of Jesus’ birth, death, burial
and resurrection as the provision for God and man to be reconciled)
it is not a sound, neither is it only legitimated when its sung,
or sung by certain people. A beat or a poetic recitation that includes
this content as described is a valid. Labeling the hip-hop done
by believers that clearly expresses this purpose and intent as “holy”
or “gospel” is not necessarily something
we agree with but we do understand the use of those labels by those
who use them.
We also believe and understand that there are Christians who do
hip-hop with intentions that go beyond or do not include edification
and evangelism as the primary objective. We do not forbid or speak
against their right to express themselves through rhyme, however,
because of our intentions as The Yuinon with this
music (which is based on the urgent spiritual state of our communities
and the world; Ephesians 5:15) we distinguish between what we
support as “fans of the genre” and what we endorse as
hip-hop ambassadors to a lost and dying generation. |
