Elevation Rhythm Reveals Mission to Spread Gospel to Gen Z
By Movieguide® Contributor
Elevation Church’s youth ministry band, Elevation Rhythm, wants to spread the gospel to Gen Z through their music.
The band recently released two albums, “Growing Pains” and “This Is The Gospel.”
“I really think Gen Z just wants something authentic,” Elevation Rhythm member Josh Holiday told Relevant Magazine. “They’re really good at finding out what is or isn’t genuine. So, we want to give them something real that they can relate to and that can encourage them, no matter what they’re going through right now.”
Holiday shared the band’s vision for their first album, “Growing Pains.”
“We touched on a lot of different subjects, but we really wanted to talk about emotions and apply truth to those emotions that we knew our youth were feeling at our church,” he said.
Elevation Rhythm’s second album, “This Is The Gospel,” engages with a different topic.
“On their latest release, ‘This Is The Gospel,’ [Elevation Rhythm] get[s] back to the basics, laying out plain truth for a world desperate for something to believe in,” the band’s website shares.
“With this album, we wanted to switch it up and start with the truth,” he stated. “We wanted to make a truth-focused project. For us as a team and as a ministry, we’re new. We felt like we needed to have a project that really proclaimed the truth that we believe in. We’re not ashamed of the gospel. We believe in Jesus Christ. We believe in salvation. We believe in those things.”
Holiday continued, “We wanted that to be known publicly, so people know who we are first and foremost. Before we do another song, we wanted people to know that this is the God that we believe in. This is Christ. He is the center of everything that we do. This is the good news. This is the gospel.”
The musician also shared what message he thinks Gen Z needs to hear.
“I think that they need to hear that they’re loved,” he expressed. “I think there’s an identity crisis that happens with our now generation. Fame looks different than it did 10 years ago. Before, fame was almost unattainable. It was like, ‘Oh, that would be famous. You got to be on TV.’ But now, the TV has become the phone. Getting on the phone is as simple as uploading something and people are instantly responding to whatever you’re saying.”
“There’s so much that’s shaping their identity,” he added. “There’s a need for people to know how Christ sees them. The next generation needs to know how Jesus sees them. It’s going to be hard sometimes. It’s going to be confusing when you’re growing up with all the lies that the world is telling you. But we just need to be just as loud with the truth as the world is loud with the lies.”
The band carried this message even into the album’s cover design.
“We started out making about 200 individual crosses trying to capture a wide visual on different artistic representations of the cross,” they posted on Instagram.
“Everyone’s walk of faith looks different but the power of the gospel will always lead us back to the cross…that’s what we hope this album art does,” the post concluded.
Both albums can be found on all music streaming platforms now.
Movieguide® previously reported on Elevation Worship:
Elevation Worship leader Chris Brown celebrated his recent Grammy win for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album for the group’s collaboration with Maverick City Music, Old Church Basement.
“I will never forget that little basement where this beautifully wild season between our two groups began,” Brown said while accepting the award. “This has been the most amazing thing watching our two ministries create something together that we could’ve never created separately…”
“We didn’t really know what to do with some of what we were writing,” Brown told CBN. “We weren’t writing specifically with this album in mind. We just kept creating and having fun with friends over the last year. Then we made the decision to just put everything on this one project and let it all exist together.”
