Lecrae closes out Ravi Zacharias' memorial service with tribute rap song ‘Tell the World’
Lecrae closed out Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias' memorial service Friday with a tribute and rap performance.
“I'm sure there's a few people wondering what in the world was Ravi doing hanging out with rappers, and it's because he's actually working on his rap album. As he was teaching me apologetics, I was teaching him how to rap. So we did not complete it,” the Grammy Award-winning artist joked during the service held at Passion City Church in Atlanta, Georgia.
“But sincerely, what in the world does tie a kid straight out of hip-hop culture to a scholar from Delhi, India?” he said of Zacharias, who died on May 19 from a rare form of bone cancer.
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Zacharias' daughter, Sarah Davis, announced her father's passing in a post titled “Ravi Zacharias, Now With Jesus,” on the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries' website.
Lecrae shared the apologist’s impact on his life, saying, “I used to find myself rapping in front of thousands of people, traveling on the road and leaving the stage to hurry back to my tour bus in order to devour his videos and his lectures,” Lecrae revealed.
The Reach Records founder said it was important for him to expose all of his friends in rap music to Zacharias.
“As a former atheist who did not become a Christian until I was an adult, I wanted my peers in the culture who didn't believe to have answers to hard questions,” he said.
“I wanted them to be able to know why there is evil in this world and where was God in the midst of suffering and injustice. I would digest Ravi’s lectures in front of these prestigious universities and I would craft the insight into my own language, or just rap it. And because of him, I now have these answers to hard questions.
Lecrae then performed “Tell the World,” one of his more overt Christian songs, to tell the “world about Jesus,” as he said Ravi would do.
After his performance, Pastor Louis Giglio, who hosted the memorial service, ended the celebration of life by saying, “What 74-year-old man has the best hip-hop artists in the world close out his memorial service?”
“This is special, I know some of you are just like, what just happened? What just happened was Ravi Zacharias just happened right here in this moment!” Giglio declared of the diversity seen at Zacharias memorial service.
Others in attendance included Vice President Mike Pence and former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow.
