Kymberli Cook:

Welcome to The Table Podcast where we discuss issues of God and culture to show the relevance of theology to everyday life. My name is Kymberli Cook and I'm the assistant director at the Hendricks Center here at DTS. And I am so glad that you have joined us today as we talk about—are you ready? because this is awesome—the world of breakdancing and the place it has in the kingdom of God. And we are joined by several breakdancers who are leaders within the Break Free Ministry and they've dedicated their lives to integrating breakdancing and their faith in Jesus Christ. So thank you so much, gentlemen, for taking time to sit with us at The Table today.

Michael Swalley:

Yeah. Kym, thank you for having us. And your listeners are probably like another breaking ministry. Great.

Kymberli Cook:

We hear this so often from DTS.

Michael Swalley:

So often.

Kymberli Cook:

So I think it'd be helpful for each of you gentlemen to briefly introduce yourselves to that listener and be sure to let them know how you ended up breakdancing and how you ended up in the ministry itself. So Michael, let's start with you.

Michael Swalley:

Yeah. Thank you, Kym. And again, it's good to see you again while we were at Dallas together.

Kymberli Cook:

Yeah. We used to sit in classes like Greek and biblical counseling and all of that.

Michael Swalley:

For me, the Lord saved me at a young age. I was born again at a young age. I didn't have a father growing up. I had a mom with MS. So the impact and effects of sin were very much in my life, I could see visibly and feel emotionally from a young boy, and yet it was truly the dynamic love of the church, the spiritual family of the church that God used to save me and put in my heart this passion for other men, other men coming from deep father wounds and not having that same dynamic church family to bring healing and the gospel and really the fatherhood of God.

So for me, growing up in a small town in Minnesota, it wasn't exactly the hip-hop breakdance hub of the world. So I wasn't really exposed to anything until after college. I was with Focus on the Gamily in Melbourne, Australia and had picked up breakdancing as a hobby, just a fun hobby. And I started to break and was with the hip-hop community in Melbourne. That was the first time for me to actually see there's a community, an underground active hip-hop and breaking community.

Kym, I would just practice with these guys at a YMCA. That's all I was doing just as a little athletic outlet. But I heard their stories and I heard the deep father wounding that many of them had, and these were men in their twenties and thirties—it's a culture of mostly men, there are men and women, but was interacting with mostly men—and they were repeating that process, right? It was this generational brokenness. And that, Kym, for me is when God broke my heart for breaking was a hobby for me. It was at that point then that it became a calling, and I knew then and we're much more, I think eloquent now, and our vision is much more clear. At that point, Kym, I was like, I want to reach breakdancers with the gospel. That was all I knew. So for me that was the start. So I was already breaking as a hobby, but that for me is in 2004 in Melbourne, Australia where I really felt like God placed that on my heart as a calling.

Kymberli Cook:

For you listening, this is Michael Swalley, who is, you're the executive director, right? Is that the correct title?

Michael Swalley:

Correct. Yes.

Kymberli Cook:

Of Break Free Ministry. So you're kind of the one who started it. And then we're also joined here by some of your regional directors and they also have other responsibilities in the ministry as well. So Fred, why don't we hear from you next?

Fred Johnson:

Sure. First, thanks for having us. My name is Fred Johnson. I'm 36, originally from Trenton, New Jersey. Right now I live in Philadelphia, so I am the city leader of our break free chapter here in city of Philadelphia. Not too far away from where I was born and raised, about 30 minutes across the bridge. And hip-hop is just, it's always been around. It's always kind of been around. I grew up in it, grew up around it just in my city. It was everywhere. Every element of just hip-hop culture in general was always kind of around me.

At a young age, I didn't see it or understand it to be a calling or a tool in God's hand. It was just my culture. I grew up in a traditional Baptist church, so there was kind of this tension/friction between hip-hop culture and my faith. But in the midst of that, the Lord just began to speak to me at a young age. I was about 13, about being called to the mission field. So I was super passionate about missions, about just cultures, different countries, and at the same time I was passionate about hip-hop.

And growing up I never saw this coming together of these two things. So in my mind I was thinking I would be in a three-piece suit establishing churches around the world. But as I look back now on that time and just seeing the wisdom of God, God had something a little bit more exciting in store for my life. So it's been these years, past few years has just been this coming together of my culture, of hip-hop culture as a whole and my faith and growing in depths of that understanding more this calling and then being able to go back into this same community, the same hip-hop community and tell people, "Hey, come to know Christ, but also find a place for mission. God wants to use this as a tool in his hands and it's something that he do to reach others."

Kymberli Cook:

Isn't it? So we do a lot here at the Center with vocation and calling and helping people understand that. And one of the things that we talk about—and Bill Hendricks actually talks a lot about—is this idea of God's graciousness in giving, basically if we have all been given a gift and a calling, God is gracious enough to make that sweet. So it's something that we actually want to do. So I love that you were saying, I couldn't believe I actually got to integrate these two things. I got to tell him about Jesus, which I wanted to do and I felt called to do, but I also got to do it in my own culture and in my own community and in this place where I already had a passion and just how sweet it is that the Lord is able to do that and is willing, quite frankly, to let us do that and to give a sweetness to the fruit he wants us to continue to create. And then Artem, lest we let you hide in the shadows and tell us about you and what you do for Break Free Ministry.

Artem Usov:

Hello, hello. Yes. Yeah, my name is Artem from Ukraine. I am now living in Spain for about one year and with my family, and I'm a regional leader for Europe and the missionary with Break Free for almost ten years.

Kymberli Cook:

Wow. That's amazing.

Michael Swalley:

It is. Wow.

Kymberli Cook:

And how did you end up in breakdancing or street dancing to begin with?

Artem Usov:

For me, well, obviously a story is very different because of the context of living as historically Ukraine after Soviet Union collapse, only starting to engage different cultures, TV shows, and hip-hop was one of those things that's blow Eastern Europe. And it's interesting that in the Christian world it was something similar happening. Some people call it awakening, that's a lot of churches, a lot of people start organizing. It was I think the awakening. And in my own context, the whole group of hip-hop people, about fifty people came to church and become believers, a whole group, a whole crew. And my parents brought me in the age of thirteen to the church. And this is how I first time get connected and engaged with the hip-hop culture and just right away wanted to do it was very attractive and interesting.

And interestingly enough, my first show and my first mentors was B-Boys, mentors from the church, my older brothers and Christian brothers that taught me how to breaking, but also taught me how to be a friend, a disciple of Jesus. So my identity was always connected with the hip-hop culture with the church. And my first showcases was evangelistic concerts with my city around, we tried to attract people using different elements of art and breaking as we had a big group of B-Boys breakdancers in our city. We try to attract people and then make relationships, get connected with them, share more about our lives and about who we are and how we live and then do next steps. So this is how I started, and it's been almost seventeen years in this journey. Evangelistic ministry and missions have been always on my heart and never thought it's going to be like that. And it's now very new season for us as a family also moving to Europe, building in Europe, learning new languages, learning new cultures, new communities, which is very diverse. Thank you.

Kymberli Cook:

Absolutely. What is the street dancing scene in Spain? Is there one?

Artem Usov:

Yeah, yeah, of course. I mean not only street dance, but the hip-hop culture in Spain is very big part of the culture. And me and my family living in city called Valladolid, it's a region Castilla y León, two hours north from Madrid capital. Everyone knows. And even though it's not that big city of 300,000 people, still we have around, I would say around ten dance schools and the hip-hop community and dance community. Street dance community is making the big steps of being pioneers of the culture in this city.

Kymberli Cook:

Awesome. That is so cool to hear about. All right. Well, we're going to get into that a li