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The Revolution of a Broken Man

By Melissa Riddle

"Do you want a revolution?!" the ringleader shouts rhetorically and is answered by a cacophony of voices and laughter, "Wooooop, woooop!" He repeats with even more urgency, "Do you want a revolution?!"

Although he wrote and sang about it with conviction and landed at the top of the gospel charts with it in 1998, Kirk Franklin didn't really get it.

Now, after four years of discipleship, under the influence and mentoring of Christian men and women in his life, Kirk Franklin has experienced a new revolution: "For the first time in 29 years," he says, "I know who I am. And it's not who I always thought. Music is not who I am; music is what I do," he says, incredulously. "I am a fully loved child of God not because of what I do but because of what Jesus did, and I am who I am in Him by nothing I could ever do."

It's a revolutionary truth, he says, to know that "God wants me more than He wants my gift."

But Franklin has discovered that revolution comes at a high price. For him the price has been a season of wilderness and brokeness.

The Breaking Season

That "wilderness season" started in the summer of 1998.

To begin with, Kirk and his pastor of several years had parted ways, their relationship ending because spiritual authority and business do not mix well. Not only did Kirk lose a father figure, he also lost his church home.

He dove straight into his work.

He put his music on hold to pursue a television sitcom offered to him by Universal Studios and ABC in the wake of his unparalleled recording success. For Franklin, the hype was mind-blowing. ABC had even planned to change their regular "TGI" Friday night promo spot to "TGIF: Thank God It's Franklin!" Then the word came down: it's a no go.

"It really knocked me on my knees," he says of the news. He'd never experienced professional failure of any kind, and to be honest, Kirk Franklin had been enjoying the Hollywood hype.

"So there I was," he says, "a church boy who got a chance to be in Hollywood. The church didn't prepare me. You know, what we do is supposed to be for the glory of God. And when you get in that world and your flesh is like on 10, that world is a flesh feeder."

To pull the rug out even further, Franklin's professional failure took a devastating and personal turn. In September of 1998, members of God's Property, the second group Kirk had helped form, filed a lawsuit claiming he owed them money. Two years later, members of the original group he founded, The Family, would file another, claiming he abandoned them for younger, greener pastures, so to speak.

He was struggling with the ramifications of the first lawsuit, but when the second one came along, the wind definitely shifted. "With the first lawsuit, it's easy for the public to say 'Aw, Kirk helped those kids and now those kids are tripping' because of the money.' But when the second lawsuit hit, the people began to say 'Now wait a minute. What's going on with Kirk?'

"In the eyes of many I was guilty."

While both lawsuits were eventually settled out of court, the backlash of the gospel community impacted not only the sales of the two albums that released during those years, but also, at least temporarily, his ability to lead. Franklin began to doubt his calling, his gifts and even his faith. "You start doubting yourself in every area," he says of that time.

In retrospect, he says, spiritual success and ministry success do not equal intimacy with God. He likens it to Moses wandering around for 40 years before attempting to free his people. "Now mind you," Franklin says, "He was in the king's palace before he went into the wilderness, but just because he was in the king's palace didn't mean he was ready to deal with the king. And so just because I was moving around and doing these big things didn't mean I could see what God saw."

The Word-made Man

What "God saw" must have been what pastor Tony Evans saw when he spotted Kirk Franklin sitting in his worship service. Kirk was a bit confused at what Evans saw or didn't see. Every church he'd gone to in recent years had catered to him as a celebrity, providing special parking and VIP seating. But not this one. It was the first time, he says, that "I realized that I had gotten conditioned and comfortable with that. And I started seeing my pride and my flesh really doing acrobats."

And when the pastor finally shared with Franklin what he saw in him, the singer was amazed. "He said to me 'I see a young man who, if his inside can catch up with his outside, he'd be a great man of God.' He saw all of the spiritual acrobats I was doing but saw no depth."

God had drawn Franklin to Evans' church, Oakland Bible Fellowship, just about the same time Kirk's professional life began to unravel. "He said to me at the beginning of the friendship that 'Every great man of God that God ever used, God broke them before He used them.'"

At Evans' church, Franklin found solid, biblical teaching and discipleship that would guide every aspect of his life.

Since the age of 12, Franklin had struggled with pornography. He had been sexually active from a young age. And although he'd been raised in the church, he had never once been taught what the Bible has to say on the subject.

When he became a Christian at age 15, he went to his pastor seeking help. "The pastor said, 'Ah, boy, you're young. You'll grow out of it.' But I never grew out of it. I grew into it. When I was 17 I had a child out of wedlock.... After I got married, I told my wife. I sat her down one day, and I shared with her my struggle with pornography.

"For years I'd go to great pastors that I really look up to, even after I'd done an album, going to them crying letting them know that I had this problem. But all I'd get was some oil, somebody laying hands on me, trying to lay me out in the floor, and that's not going to fix that problem."

But in the summer of 1999, when Evans gave Kirk a copy of Steve McVey's book called Grace Walk (Harvest House), he finally began to learn what he should've been taught years ago. "God started really giving me victory in the area of pornography," he says.

For the first time, Franklin says, he began learning and reading and understanding who he is in Christ. "I began to be discipled, and my pastor started talking about how we have the mind of Christ and those [impure] thoughts are not my thoughts. I said 'What?' It was Greek to me, Tony Evans talking about how it's not me, but Christ living in me. I had read that Scripture before, but I had never had anyone tell me that before, that I'm a dead man walking.

"Then when you listen to cats like Charles Stanley or David Jeremiah or Jack Hayford or Ann Graham Lotz, you become a sponge, and you think 'Where in the world has this kind of preaching and teaching been?' ...I'd been blessed to minister to God's people but didn't know true ministry myself. And I never would have known that on the mountain. God only shows you that in the valley."

After years of thinking he knew exactly where he was going, Kirk Franklin was given the tools, the grace by which to live. "I've learned to understand that it was all part of a bigger plan. The plan was God breaking me. I couldn't have made it through this season if not for the discipleship, the teaching and the humbleness, what God has allowed me to go through."

Brand New Day

Although it was recorded in 2000, Kirk Franklin's latest release, The Rebirth of Kirk Franklin (Gospo Centric), announces to the world the revolution he's experienced in his life. A live recording, Rebirth is almost prophetic in that it came in the middle of his dark night. What it signals is a new season of ministry, worship and growth.

"Whether it's the Dove Awards, touring and album sales, time in the studio or on tour buses," he says, "it's easy to forget that this world is not my home; it's so easy to want to set up camp and stay." Our success or failure is not measured by society's standards, Franklin says. Our success is measured in how well we love, how well we serve others.

Toward that end, Kirk says, he's determined to spend more time with his wife, Tammy, and their four children, ages 6 months to 13 years, who remind him of his true purpose in life.

He surrounds himself with mentors, people who can speak truth into his life. They know him and hold him accountable to the truth. "My wife's father is an incredible man of God. So, he's affected my life. And God has given me a couple of good friends who hold me accountable, and they make up so much of my joy."

Franklin also spends a lot of time reaching out to his niece, whose mother, his sister, has been in prison for the last 10 years. He considers being a strong example to her an important responsibility and a privilege.

This year, he will also be sponsoring a mentoring program at the high school he attended, making time to talk to youth about the realities of life and what he's experienced.

"What I try to do more than anything is be very honest and very transparent, whether it's about the pornography or girls or whatever… because I came from a very promiscuous lifestyle, just trying to find love the sex way. So I try to talk about those things and be open about the mistakes I've made.

"I feel like one of the greatest gifts God has given me through this season is to be able help people. And you only help people by showing them your battle scars."

When it all comes down, Kirk Franklin-who redefined and revolutionized gospel music for the world-has finally met His maker, the author of his life and the giver of his gift. He's had a revolution, from the inside out. He will never see himself the same way again. He will never be the same again.

"This season of testing," he says, "has shown me a God that I never knew-just like Job says in that last chapter when God gave him everything he lost back and even more, Job, who had been a servant of God all his life, said, 'Before this, my ears had only heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You.'"