Bishop William Murphy Jr. is under scrutiny after video of his Watch Night service went viral.
Murphy, the pastor of The Dream Center Church of Atlanta, hosted a late-evening New Year’s Eve service. The service featured a DJ who provided entertainment, creating a concert-like atmosphere for worshippers as they welcomed the new year within the church.
However, instead of only playing Kirk Franklin’s “Stomp,” the sound system also bumped songs like “Swag Surfin’” by hip-hop group Fast Life Yungstaz.
A video featuring the song, which played minutes before the clock struck midnight, was posted by TikTok user, Travis Malloy. Shot from the dais, the 41-second clip showed the crowd jamming and doing the signature dance that goes with the hit song.
Attendees of the church can be seen wrapping their arms around each other and swaying from side to side, first in a slow rock and then in a speedy bounce.
The 50-year-old pastor was also filmed rocking out with the congregation in celebration, surf swagging with other leaders on the large dais.
Criticism of the Murphy’s church’s decision to play what some believed was the unedited song, which includes the N-word once and references drinking and getting high, spread quickly.
One visitor on the evening posted a different-angle clip on her Facebook, calling the church “ghetto” and repeating to her followers that “Atlanta is not a real place.” She said all she wanted to do is go to church to bring in the new year with the Lord.
“If you wanna club just go to the club. Don’t defile God’s temple,” someone else wrote.
Another sarcastically commented, “Let me know when they start twerking….. Maybe I’ll go back to church then.”
However, not everyone was against the use of the song “Swag Surfin,'” as they focused on Murphy’s message. One Instagram user wrote, “His message was powerful. He only played that one part of the song. Listen to the message before you judge. It was awesome.”
“My pastor preached about walkin it out this year no matter what & NOT LETTING the DEVIL take ur swag while we go to the next level!” Malloy said in the comments of the original post. “So we played swag surfin. nobody drank, smoked or fought. We praised.”
The Stella Award-winning recording artist and pastor responded to the criticism and backlash during an interview on “The Bigg Tigger Morning Show” on V103. He said he read online a few comments about the service and the use of the song, noting “I got word somebody was mad.”
Murphy said he was “proud” of the way he and his congregation “honored” God in this way. “It was absolutely divine. I’m a church boy,” he said adding that his church was preparing to celebrate 18 years of service on Jan. 15.
He credits the church’s longevity to being able to reach old and young folks, as 150 people got saved that night
“We’ve had to be very creative in how we engage culture,” he said before quoting verses from Proverbs 11:30. “That doesn’t mean you’re a smart guy, that doesn’t mean you’re the smartest guy in the room, it just means if you’re going to touch people, you gotta use wisdom.”
Murphy explained that he was teaching from Acts, Chapter 3, about a “man struggling since he came into the world. … and the Lord said tell the church to walk it out. and that’s how we go there.”
He said the idea came from his plan to help churchgoers know they are not alone.
“And so we put our hands around each other and started swag surfin,'” Murphy exclaims after revealing he looked up the definition of the word on Urban Dictionary. It states, “To be fly and be able to move through matters in an easy manner or to be able to go through your life soley on your swagger.”
He continued, “There was no cursing in our church. There was nothing that desecrated the house of God.” He also acknowledged that his congregation is full of old and young folks. “This is not your grandma’s church.”
When questioned about why people kept asking why the church didn’t use the instrumental track of the song, He responded, “Do you use the instrumental version in your car? Oh crickets, huh?”
The Bishop clarified for “religious folks” that the church did use the “clean version” of the song.
“This is why people are not coming to church,” he said, adding that his church is doing good work healing people and bettering relationships and marriages, etc., and this conversation is a distraction from that.
“This ain’t no game. God is with us. My approach to ministry, man, has been to keep it 100 [and] to talk to people right where they are.”
Murphy concluded that his church is “spontaneous” but he “did not plan” for everyone to be “swag surfin’.”
“Meet me at the Dream Center this Sunday, at 10 o’clock or 12 o’clock. We gone swag surf again,” Murphy added.