Hip Hop artist, producer, and pastor Jerome Vierling has traveled the world, but there’s no place like home. The pastor of City Life Church in his native Lansing, MI, he leads by example when delivering love, compassion, and encouragement to people in his local streets and neighborhoods.
Jerome is also at home in the recording booth and in front live audiences. With two albums already considered classics – J.E.V. and Second Coming, he’s known for clever, relatable rhymes, creative visuals, and capturing listeners’ attention. Now he’s turned their eyes and ears to his long-awaited album One which was released October 1, 2022.
In THIS INTERVIEW, Jerome talks about his LP, being an MC and pastor, and what drives the outreach of City Life. THIS is for YOU!
Jerome, it’s always great to speaking with you! Your album ONE is finally here. What can listeners expect from it?
Man, the question that’s been pumping through my chest is, “How would you feel if it was your one?”
Seriously, if that person was yours what would you do? That’s how God sees people. With racial tension at an all-time high, with church separation and segregation always happening… Okay, so are all religions the same then? So why is Jesus exclusive to one? Why is he one way?
It deals with all these questions, these wonderings, and hurt and frustrations that people have. And I hope it invites more people into the conversation to be awake and to be active in love. I’m really thinking deep. Pray that it comes alive. More than music.
Do you pray before you record?
For my last albums I had 2 whole pages of prayer material. And I had scriptures I’d read almost every time. I’d spend an hour before I’d write just worshipping because part of it was to get the monster out of me. What I mean is this desire that I want to be great. But it’s about Jesus, right? And that’s what’s so beautiful. I’d still be for the Lord, his heartbeat not just dope beats and rhymes.
Now, I think it’s a little bit more organic as opposed to that was my regimen. I love the Lord’s Prayer. That allows me to pause, worship and – BOOM – make something!
How has being an MC helped you be a better pastor?
Wordplay. And being creative. You always have to come up with new concepts. So I think even today you have different styles of speaking.
Some look at the lecture setting, like God is lecture. I’ve got to read, but you’ve got media, you’ve got movies, and God works through those things too! You take [God’s] word and creatively through a narrative and a story you paint the parables and pictures people want to hear. Forty-one percent of the bible is written as a narrative. That’s story form. Jesus wanted to communicate that to bring people back home.
So rapping, using metaphors and all of that, creates concepts and illustrations. I feel like that’s exactly how God made me before I was born; a kid named Jerome, lives in Lansing, makes Hip Hop music, and he pastors.
You and your City Life Church family are devoted to being consistently, actively present for the people on the streets and in the neighborhoods of your community. What drives this unified devotion to outreach?
Our whole heartbeat for our church is love the city one life at a time. The whole essence of planting that was go lower in the city. Go to wherever people say it’s marginalized. We want to be present. Music helps us get there, and with City Life, pastoring a church helps us stay there to love people holistically.
We love that you’re an excellent role model of family importance and parenting, Jerome. Often when we see you, we see your wife and children too. With everything you’ve accomplished musically and as the pastor of City Life, how does being a parent drive all of that?
Being a parent, and as cliché as it sounds, you understand the love of the father. Nothing ever has taught me like God; just his heart of how he cares and how he wants to bless.
Some see God in a way that’s disciplinary and authoritative, but that’s not how you want to respond to your kids. Even when you correct them, you’re doing it out of love. You want them to draw close to you, not run. It’s literally carried over into my music, to issues I see nationally, globally, locally. I hope, even for people who don’t have good families, that what God has taught me transfers to others. |THIS ENT
[By Mr. Joe Walker]
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