Lately I've been experiencing an increasingly growing appreciation for contemporary Christian music. For the most part it's not for the music I hear on the Christian radio stations or at church, but rather for hip-hop.

I'm the last person that I would have ever thought would like this genre but at this point in my life where many worship songs are not speaking to me, I find that the rap and hip-hop groups preach the gospel in a very full and un-watered down way.

There are some very talented artists out there in the Christian community right now. All genres seem to be becoming more refined and professional sounding. The sad truth is that many are also selling out to become popular in the crossover community. I have found many bands on Christian labels that have watered-down lyrics. With many of them, if you weren't informed beforehand you wouldn't even know they were Christian. This doesn't seem to be the case with Christian Hip-Hop.

With my new iPod and ever increasing mp3 collection on my computer I've been focusing lately on building an inspirational music library. Where my ears seem to be falling mostly are on the classics and hymns with their heart felt lyrics and moving music and also on hip-hop with the deep lyrics preaching the full gospel. Don't get me wrong, I still like a lot of stuff in between -- just not as high of a percentage in the other genres.