How God Saved Me With Christian Hip Hop (Testimony)
This Is the Testimony of Caleb Williams Who Is Clear Hits Radio Station Manager/Founder.
“I guess you can say my life has been a spiritual roller coaster.
I asked Jesus into my life after seeing a flannel graph presentation in kids church and latched onto my parent’s example of what a Christ-follower should look like and they made sure that we learned quickly the beauty of different races & cultures.
My dad was an inner-city pastor at the time leading a young adult’s ministry, the Chicago Bulls were the most popular team in the world, and Ninja Turtles II was my favorite movie at that time because of the Ninja Rap song. So I guess Hip Hop has always been a part of my life, except all the Christian hip hop I had heard at that point was corny and made no sense.
By the time I became a teen, I began to live 2 lives completely. I would go to church and know all the right things to say, yet when I got home I would listen to music, play games, and watch movies that would say another thing.
As time went on, I became very good with my words. While I was physically intimidating, I quickly discovered that my words created wounds that lasted much longer than anything I could do physically. So I became an expert at verbally tearing people secretly while also leading the high school prayer events. I had become someone I couldn’t stand.
By the time I hit my twenties, I was very good at saying awful things about people – even the people who had done nothing but love and support me in my life.
Then one day, I got into a heated argument with my dad. We had verbal exchanges before in my life, but this one was different. I can’t remember all that was said, but it was bad. What I do remember is my day, looking down at me, holding back tears saying “That is the meanest thing anyone has ever said to me” and he walked away.
I was frozen, reflecting what came out of my mouth, and this led to me crying for the first time in the longest time. But this wasn’t a normal experience of crying, it lasted hours. To the point where I thought I would have to call 9 1 1.
Yet at that moment, my father – whom I had just verbally bullied to the point of tears – came down and joined me in tears. He forgave me, and we read scripture together for the first time in a long time.
At that moment, I recommitted my life to serve Jesus who showed grace to me through my earthly father’s loving embrace.
After that, I began rebuilding my relationship with my dad through music. We began to listen to his favorites, but he allowed me to share the music that I enjoyed too.
He taught me the art of listening to the words, and messages of a song. And that was when I realized that I had let the lyrics of the music not just be something I enjoyed, but it had become something that I would use to mold myself as a person and the words I used in my everyday conversation were the words in the songs.
So I began to reflect and pray. I asked God that if there was such a thing as good Christian hip hop, to please introduce it to me.
God was faithful!
I came across so many amazing artists, and even some of the artists I thought were corny were awesome!
I began to immerse myself in the music, the culture, and finished my degree in radio!
It was at this time I recognized that there is a need for this music and that I was not the only one God was using this music to change.
Because of Christian Hip Hop – I fell back into the arms of my Savior, and for the past 10 years I have slowly begun to learn the heart of the artists, and what makes them so passionate to write music about the struggles they have encountered, and how Jesus is the foundation to all that they do.
For the past 10 years, I have dreamt about this. I have sought wisdom and counsel with people who don’t understand Christian Hip Hop – but fully believe that God is using it to build a new generation of faith leaders.
I pray as we are here listening together, that we can enter this journey together supporting these artists to continue to pursue God’s heart & in that inspire them to continue to make amazing music to impact us and those who will stumble upon this.
Thank you so much for checking us out, and if you are looking for music like I was years ago, WELCOME! I pray that Clear Hits can become a home for you to find the music that you have been craving, and God uses it for your life like he has mine.
Serving Jesus,
Caleb Williams
