This very short sermon can be found on YouTube. It has been viewed over 3 million times. I believe this has been widely popular due to these facts: The message is straight to the point, delivered in a modern and creative way, and the person rapping goes against the stereo type of typical rappers, she is a white woman. My criticism is that if you are not familiar with pop culture, than you will not get much out of this because she mainly uses references to it. It is directed at a specific audience, people who are age 20 something’s and younger.
The key terms in this One Minuet Sermon are GONNA (going to), EVERY, NEED, and YA (you). Those are the most frequently used. At first, I wanted to go back into the text and take out the word gonna because I thought it was not a very meaningful word. But, I realize that it is a significant part of the text because it is an action that prefaces most of the nouns.
The first thing she says is, “To be a survivor in this amazing race with the need for speed you need God’s grace.” She is setting the stage for the words to follow. Throughout her sermon she references an abundance of pop culture that we are constantly going for. We are running towards these things in our race.
Words that support GONNA are WASTE, OPRAH, NONSTOP, DESPERATE, WANNA, WITHOUT, AND STUPID. These fall into the Pop Culture cluster.
Words that support NEED are ONE HOPE, CHOOSE, GRACE, LIFE, FORGIVEN, SEE, WINNER, COUNCIL, AND TRUTH. These fall into the Call to Action cluster.
Most of the other words fall into those categories of Pop Culture and Call to Action words. In the sermon, she talks mainly about the negative things that we are going and doing. A majority of the words in the clusters are Pop Culture. Because she covers a lot of ground in short time words are not repeated frequently.
These clusters are opposites. Each is leading to a different direction and end point. The negative connotation that goes along with the words in the Pop Culture cluster suggests that cluster is not going to win the “race” or lead you to “God’s grace.” The cluster of Call to Action words will take you to the finish line.
The wordle placed the words ONE HOPE in medium size letters right next to NEED. This is ironic because this is what we actually need, the one hope, not the latest TV shows.
Metaphor is used throughout this sermon frequently. She uses pop culture references into a sentence with meaning. Like the first line, “to be a SURVIVOR in this AMAZING RACE” both are popular TV shows, but she gives them a different meaning.
In the sentence “No American Idol or Council tribe has a final answer that will satisfy ya,” she implies that we watch these TV shows to fill a void within us. She is speaking to a direct audience who knows and can relate to the television shows she is speaking of.
Although she only says it once, she uses a Call to action phrase “you must choose.” What must we choose? To either follow the Pop Culture cluster or the Call to Action cluster.
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