TOMMY KYLLONEN
SOUTHEASTERN HELPED HIP-HOP ARTIST, PASTOR HONE MINISTRY TECHNIQUES

Christian rapper and pastor Tommy Kyllonen started as a rebellious preacher’s kid in Philadelphia. He says Southeastern helped him channel his rebelliousness into new ways to reach and disciple the hip-hop generation.

Working with a homeless ministry in Philadelphia sparked Kyllonen’s desire to evangelize in the inner city. After passing out sandwiches and blankets in subway stations, Kyllonen (pronounced “ki-LOWnun”) prayed for the homeless men he served. His involvement with a youth ministry in the city further fueled his interest in urban ministry. Kyllonen says he transferred to Southeastern from a college close to home to pursue his new call away from the negative influences of non-Christian friends and others.

Southeastern prepared Kyllonen to become a pastor by helping him sharpen his communication skills, develop new evangelistic methods, and gain substantive experience in ministry. Since he graduated from Southeastern in 1996, Kyllonen has become the senior pastor of a 600-member church that integrates hip-hop music and dance into its ministry. Kyllonen also has released five hip-hop CDs under the stage name Urban D. (The “D” stands for “disciple.”) Kyllonen’s sixth CD will be released by EMI, which records major artists, such as Grammy-winning vocalist Norah Jones. Kyllonen also has just inked a deal with prominent Christian publisher Zondervan Publishing House to publish his first book.

Kyllonen says Southeastern English professor Dr. Rickey Cotton taught him how to better communicate through writing, which he employs in his sermons, song lyrics, and new book. In both his book and his new CD Kyllonen discusses experiences that shaped him for ministry and explains how hip-hop can be used in ministry.

In addition to Dr. Cotton, religion professors at Southeastern also had an impact upon Kyllonen. When he first enrolled at Southeastern, Kyllonen tried to get out of taking religion classes that he didn’t think would help him become a youth minister. Thankfully, his academic advisor changed his mind, he says. Now, Kyllonen finds that his classes in church history and theology have equipped him to explain how Christianity differs from other religions.

A course on the book of Job with Dr. Steve Fettke also helped Kyllonen prepare for ministry. Research Kyllonen performed for a paper about the high rates of drug abuse and poverty in a Philadelphia neighborhood gave Kyllonen a glimpse of the suffering he would encounter in urban ministry, he said.

While Kyllonen learned plenty at Southeastern, he also came with ideas of his own. A former Southeastern evangelism professor was supportive of Kyllonen’s non-traditional ideas for community outreach, which included organizing basketball leagues and hip-hop concerts. For the professor’s evangelism class Kyllonen designed a basketball league to reach a city neighborhood. Kyllonen used this outreach model in his senior-year internship at First Assembly of God in Clearwater, Florida. Sixty teenagers participated in the basketball league he started, and over 30 of them began attending the church’s youth group.

Kyllonen graduated in 1996 and became the youth pastor at Crossover Community Church in Tampa, Florida. The evangelistic methods Kyllonen learned at Southeastern helped him create a new type of church that taps into a musical culture largely shunned in mainstream church circles. During worship at Crossover, rappers improvise lyrics to catchy beats played by record-spinning deejays. At Crossover, a previously condemned culture has been reclaimed to honor Christ and minister to people who might never attend a traditional church service.

In addition to using hip-hop in worship, Crossover offers classes to hone talents in a Godly—versus a worldly—way. The church offers rapping, breakdancing, hip-hop dance, and music production classes for all ages. In 2000 Kyllonen began teaching his hip-hop brand of ministry to others through an annual conference called Flavor Fest. The conference—held at Crossover but drawing ministers from around the country and abroad—teaches leaders how to integrate hip-hop into their ministries.

In 2002 Kyllonen became the senior pastor of Crossover, which has grown to host three services and mainly consists of people who weren’t regular churchgoers before attending Crossover. To keep growing as a pastor, Kyllonen has begun Southeastern’s Master of Arts in Ministerial Leadership program. “I don’t want to see us stall out,” he said, “because I’m not continuing to learn and pour into myself.”

Amid signing record deals, negotiating book contracts, continuing his education and pastoring a growing church, Kyllonen remembers the role Southeastern played—and continues to play—in helping him grow in his ministry. “I just wanted to go do it, but I needed to be shaped for what was ahead,” Kyllonen said. “Southeastern laid a great foundation for me.”