Authentic Worship
The Messy, Beautiful Journey of Being Real with God
As one of the most recognizable voices in modern worship music, Benjamin William Hastings knows firsthand the beauty—and the burden—of creating songs about God in a commercial world.
In a recent conversation, Ben pulled back the curtain on what many Christian artists wrestle with behind the scenes—the tension between ministry and marketplace, between worship and industry.
“One of the ironies of what I do is navigating the tension between worship and commerce,” Ben shared. “Writing songs about God that are also part of an industry is complicated.” (00:56:19:12)
He acknowledged that while there’s incredible joy in creating music that draws people into God’s presence, it’s not always easy to separate the spiritual call from the professional pressure. “There’s always a part of me that wonders, Am I staying true to the purity of the message?” he said. It’s a quiet question that follows him into the writing room, into performance spaces, and especially into the business decisions that inevitably come with a career in music.
Manna or Popcorn?
To explore this theme more openly, Ben shared, “I wrote a song called Jesus on a Cruise that wrestles with this tension,” he said. “The lyrics go:
‘It’s manna to the hungry and popcorn to the pews,
A lifeboat to the lost, and Jesus on a cruise.’”
It’s a tongue-in-cheek but a piercing line—one that reflects both the sacred intent and the spectacle that can sometimes surround worship music. It was Ben’s way of processing the paradox that the same song can be life-changing for one person and background noise for another.
God meets us right where we are—whether we’re singing in faith or searching for it.
“It captures the duality of creating worship music,” he explained. “It can be deeply spiritual and meaningful, but it can also feel commercial and commodified.”
An Uneasy Grace
Despite the discomfort this tension brings, Ben believes it’s something worth leaning into—not solving.
“At the end of the day, I do believe I’m doing what I’m meant to do,” he said. “But I think it’s healthy for this work to feel a bit awkward, to require constant reflection. It should never become comfortable or complacent.”
That “uneasy grace,” as some might call it, isn’t a flaw in the system—it’s a feature of staying awake to what really matters. For Ben, that means being vigilant about his motivations, willing to ask hard questions, and staying anchored in the calling rather than the industry.
He doesn’t claim to have the perfect answer to balancing ministry and music sales, but he does know this: “Worship isn’t a product. It’s a posture. And if I ever lose that—if it becomes just content—I’ve missed the point.”
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