Lecrae Calls for “Humble Excellence”

In a recent interview for his upcoming film Journey to Bethlehem, the artist spoke to CBN Digital about the calling on believers.

Christians, according to Lecrae, have long suffered from “little brother syndrome,” content to imitate secular culture rather than create it. 

“We tend to just follow suit [because] there may be some insecurity there. So we’ll copy culture, we’ll condemn it, or we’ll critique it, but we won’t create it. And historically, we’ve been known for creating culture — we’ve been known to be culture creators, and we serve the greatest Creator of all time, and so that should be inspiration for us to go out and do amazing things.”

He continues to say that there is a fine line between speaking out and using music to point others to Christ: 

“We want to work in humble excellence,” he said. “At the same time, we want to be innovative and creative, and we want to be distinct and transformative. And so, sometimes, we’ll lean in one of those quadrants more than the other. We’ll say, ‘Well, we’ve gotta be distinct; we’ve gotta tell and challenge the world [with] we don’t do this and we don’t do that. We gotta transform things and we’ve gotta show them the different picture this looks like,’ or, ‘We’ve gotta just be humble and excellent.'”

In walking that line, Lecrae believes we must lean on discernment. “I think the tension in living in all those spaces and just kinda praying and saying, ‘OK, God, is this a time to be distinct? Is this a time for humble excellence? Is this a time for innovation? What is this?’ And just relying on God to give you wisdom in those moments to do that.”