A few years ago, it felt like half of Christian Twitter was in a deconstruction spiral. Pastors fell. Churches imploded. Pandemic isolation cracked open all the tightly packed questions people had about faith, power and what it even means to believe. Artists were no exception—some left the stage entirely, others kept singing while wrestling in real time.
But now, something surprising is happening: they’re coming back. Not to the same stage, or even to the same genre. But to worship. And it sounds completely different.
Call it post-reconstruction worship. Or maybe just honest worship. It’s not churchy. It’s not safe or predictable or anything you’d hear on the radio. It’s often genreless, emotionally raw and lyrically unpolished—but in a way that’s starting to feel more like faith than the glossy anthems we once sang on Sunday mornings. If deconstruction was the fire, reconstruction is what’s rising from the ashes. And this new wave of music is proof.
Worship music today is going through a transformation, and not just from the artists who stepped away and returned with new clarity. Even within the mainstream, songs are getting more personal. Less about performance, more about presence. Less “hands up,” more “here I am.” Lyrics are shifting from vague declarations to deeply specific confessions—stories of pain, doubt, healing and grace that refuse to tidy up neatly by the final chorus.
Take John Mark McMillan. For nearly a decade, the “How He Loves” songwriter stepped back from the worship scene altogether. His 2010s work leaned more indie rock than praise set, and fans who followed his evolution saw an artist who never stopped believing—but definitely stopped pretending.
Now, after years of questions, grief and growth, he’s back with a worship album called Cosmic Supreme—and it doesn’t sound like someone returning out of obligation. It sounds like someone who’s in love again.
“I feel more like a worship leader than I ever have,” McMillan told RELEVANT.
“I used to think it was about being reverent or being clean. Now, it’s about zeal. It’s about loving God, loving people and being human in front of them both.”
That’s the shift. The new wave of worship artists isn’t returning because they found all the answers. They’re coming back because they’ve found a deeper God than the one they left behind—a God who can handle their humanity. And they’re writing songs that sound like that.
Joel Houston’s new project, for instance, is not your typical altar call. The longtime Hillsong United frontman spent the last few years mostly silent, processing his own relationship with church, leadership and faith in the aftermath of his megachurch’s very public reckoning. When he reemerged, it wasn’t with a worship album—it was with an indie side project with a sprawling, experimental record that defies genre, breaks form and bleeds honesty.
“Music is such an incredible gift that God’s given the world, and for us to kind of limit that to just what works in a church service or just what works on radio, it’s like we’re missing out on the breadth of what music can do to help serve us and serve individuals,” Houston said.
“These songs aren’t for Sunday morning,” one fan commented online. “But they’re exactly what the church should be singing.”
It’s not just solo artists making this shift. King’s Kaleidoscope has long documented their spiritual angst through boundary-pushing, genre-bending albums. Frontman Chad Gardner has never shied away from lyrical honesty, and the band’s catalog has read like a journal of faith unraveled and rebuilt. But their recent music—especially songs like “Joy” and “Forever Again”—is filled with light. Not in a cheesy, “everything’s fine” way. In a way that says: I’ve been to the bottom. God met me there. And somehow, I’m still singing.
Newer artists like Gracie Binion are leading this wave too. The deeper she got into her early career, the more questions she had. Was worship meant to be a business? Could something created as an offering also be a product?
“For some reason in my heart, it felt wrong to make a profit off something that was supposed to be a sacrifice,” she says. “I don’t think it’s wrong for everyone but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was getting it twisted.”
By 21, her contract had ended and she was at a crossroads. She still loved music, but the industry didn’t feel like home. So she stepped back. She settled into Chattanooga with her husband, plugged into a small close-knit church, and let herself breathe.
“I realized worship isn’t just what I do on stage. It’s everything I create, the way I live,” Binion says. “That shift changed everything for me.”
Lauren Daigle has been in this space for a while. Her 2021 track “Losing My Religion” wasn’t just a catchy title—it was a thesis. The song explored her shedding the rules, expectations and cultural baggage she once associated with faith and embracing a freer, fuller relationship with God. Daigle’s music has always carried a sense of soul, but now, it carries something even deeper: freedom.
Even major worship collectives are evolving. Housefires, One Voice and Elevation Worship have built platforms on vulnerability, often opting for raw, in-the-room recordings that feel more like prayers than performances. Their songs don’t gloss over the cracks. They lean into them. Pain is no longer a footnote in modern worship—it’s part of the process.
What connects all these stories isn’t a shared style or sound. It’s a shared willingness to stay. To keep asking hard questions—and then keep writing songs in the midst of them. That’s what makes this era of worship so compelling. It’s not marketing-driven or radio-friendly. It’s weird. It’s raw. It’s full of contradictions. And it might be the most sincere expression of faith this generation has seen.
Because here’s the truth: Worship after deconstruction doesn’t look like worship before it. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe God doesn’t need our certainty. Maybe he’s after our hearts, our doubts, our joy, our confusion—all of it. And maybe that’s what makes this music holy.
We don’t know what this movement will be called yet. It’s not exactly CCM. It’s not exactly indie. It’s not even “worship” in the traditional sense. But whatever it is, it’s honest. It’s sacred. And it’s just getting started.
