100 Fun Facts About Christian Music

Who wrote the words to 'Amazing Grace', published in 1779?

John Newton had captained a slave ship before he became a clergyman at Olney, where he wrote the hymn to go with his New Year's Day sermon in 1773.

'How Great Thou Art' began as a poem in which language?

Swedish: Carl Boberg's 1885 poem 'O Store Gud' was translated into German and then Russian, and it was the Russian version that missionary Stuart Hine turned into English.

Which instrument accompanied the first performance of 'Silent Night' on Christmas Eve 1818?

Guitar: Joseph Mohr played it himself while he and composer Franz Gruber sang the carol at Christmas Mass, and the well-known tale that the church organ had broken down is unproven.

Handel made London his home, but which city heard the first performance of his Messiah in 1742?

Dublin: to squeeze more people into the new music hall, ladies were asked to come without hoops in their dresses, and Handel gave the takings to charities that included a debtors' prison.

Which gospel singer's 1947 recording 'Move On Up a Little Higher' sold millions of copies?

Mahalia Jackson, who sang at the 1963 March on Washington before Martin Luther King Jr. gave his 'I Have a Dream' speech.

The brothers behind the duo for KING & COUNTRY started out as backing singers for which older sister?

Rebecca St. James was born Rebecca Smallbone and sings under a stage name, which hides the surname she shares with younger brothers Joel and Luke, who backed her on tour.

What was early contemporary Christian pop of the 1960s and 70s initially called?

Jesus music took its name from the Jesus movement of the late 1960s, and its big 1972 showcase, the Explo '72 festival in Dallas, was dubbed 'the Christian Woodstock'.

The band Petra, formed in 1972, took its name from the Greek word for what?

Rock: petra is the Greek word in Matthew 16:18, where Jesus tells Peter, whose own name means rock, that he will build his church on it, so the name fits a rock band twice over.

Which Christian metal band sold more than a million copies of its 1986 album To Hell with the Devil?

Stryper took the stage in yellow-and-black stripes and threw Bibles into the crowd, a habit singer Michael Sweet says the band has always kept.

Which Christian singer, who died in a 1982 plane crash, gave his records away for voluntary donations?

Keith Green left his record label so that he could offer his 1980 album So You Wanna Go Back to Egypt for whatever each listener could afford, even nothing.

Which singer is known as 'The Queen of Christian Pop'?

Amy Grant made the first Christian album to go platinum, then crossed over to pop radio so completely that she scored a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.

Which 1991 album produced the No. 1 pop hit 'Baby Baby'?

Heart in Motion: 'Baby Baby' sounds like a love song, but its singer wrote the words about her six-week-old daughter, Millie.

Which Michael W. Smith single reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1991?

Place in This World came from Go West Young Man, and in 1992 the American Music Awards named Michael W. Smith favorite new adult contemporary artist, nearly a decade after his first album.

Whose rendition of 'The Star-Spangled Banner', aired during the 1986 Statue of Liberty rededication, made her nationally known?

Sandi Patty had sung for a largely Christian audience until her recording played during the broadcast, and the exposure landed her on The Tonight Show.

As of 2025, which artist had won more Dove Awards than anyone else in history?

Steven Curtis Chapman has about 60 of them. He and his wife, Mary Beth, adopted three daughters from China and in 2003 founded Show Hope to help other families adopt.

Where did DC Talk form in 1987?

Liberty University in Virginia: the 'DC' first pointed to Washington, D.C., and only later was it said to stand for 'decent Christian'.

What was DC Talk's 1995 album, whose title track became an anthem of Christian music?

Jesus Freak took an insult once thrown at zealous young believers and wore it with pride, setting the title track to a loud, grunge-style sound.

What is the name of TobyMac's road band?

Diverse City shares its name with TobyMac's 2004 album Welcome to Diverse City, which reunited him with his two DC Talk bandmates on a remix of the track 'Atmosphere'.

Which 1997 Kirk Franklin hit won heavy rotation on MTV?

Stomp borrowed the groove of 'One Nation Under a Groove' and added a rap from Salt of Salt-N-Pepa, a mix that carried a gospel choir onto pop and R&B radio.

What was the name of Kirk Franklin's first choir, which debuted on record in 1993?

The Family was put together by Kirk Franklin, who was given up as a small child and raised by a great-aunt who collected aluminum cans to pay for his piano lessons.

Which MercyMe song about the death of Bart Millard's father became a 2018 film of the same name?

I Can Only Imagine began as a phrase Bart Millard kept scribbling for years after his father died; when he finally sat down with it, he says the lyrics took about ten minutes.

Which Christian pop-punk band named itself after guitarist Matt Hoopes's car?

Relient K borrowed the name of a Plymouth Reliant K, a boxy 1980s economy car, and misspelled it on purpose to set the band apart from the car.

Which band was founded in Marietta, Georgia, in 1991 by Mac Powell and Mark Lee?

Third Day grew out of a high-school garage band with the unlikely name Nuclear Hoedown, where Mac Powell and Mark Lee first played together before turning to songs about their faith.

Casting Crowns' frontman Mark Hall formed the band in 1999 while working as what?

A youth pastor: even after their debut album took off, Mark Hall and his bandmates kept working as youth ministers at a Baptist church outside Atlanta.

Where does the name of the band Switchfoot come from?

A surfing term: the Foreman brothers had surfed since childhood, and to switch your feet is to take a new stance on the board, facing the opposite direction.

In which city was Skillet formed in 1996?

Memphis: the founders had each spent years in other bands, so the name was a joke about tossing ingredients from all their styles into one skillet.

Which Christian band, founded in Mooloolaba, Australia, in 1985, later performed in the film God's Not Dead?

Newsboys play 'God's Not Dead (Like a Lion)' in the film's concert scene, and after the 2014 release the three-year-old song became the band's first platinum single.

Which Hillsong Worship song won the 2018 Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song?

What a Beautiful Name was written by Brooke Ligertwood and Ben Fielding simply to be sung at the church's own annual conference, and it went on to win the group its only Grammy.

In which Australian city was Hillsong Church founded in 1983?

Sydney: Brian and Bobbie Houston hired a public-school hall in the city's north-west for their first services, and the church was called Hills Christian Life Centre until 2001.

Which worship leader from Grand Saline, Texas, co-wrote 'How Great Is Our God'?

Chris Tomlin grew up on country music and Willie Nelson songs, long before his own worship songs became some of the most sung in American churches.

Elevation Worship comes from a church in which city?

Charlotte, North Carolina: pastor Steven Furtick and seven other families moved to the city in 2006 to start Elevation Church, and its worship team began releasing music the next year.

Which song spent 132 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Christian Songs chart?

You Say was written when its singer felt overwhelmed, and she calls it a song about her own identity; it went on to more than double the 61-week record of 'Oceans'.

Which singer, cut by American Idol, debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 in 2018?

Lauren Daigle tried out for the show more than once and was cut each time, then made the highest-charting Christian album by a woman since 1997.

Sixpence None the Richer, the band behind the pop hit 'Kiss Me', took its name from a book by which author?

C.S. Lewis: in Mere Christianity he pictures a child who buys a parent a present with the parent's own money, which leaves the parent pleased but none the richer.

Which gospel songwriter helped launch the Dove Awards and won the first Songwriter of the Year award?

Bill Gaither began as a schoolteacher in Indiana and wrote 'He Touched Me' while still teaching, leaving the classroom in 1967 once music became the full-time job.

Which Christian radio network began in 1982 as a single small station in Santa Rosa, California?

K-LOVE took its present name in 1988, the same year a wildfire burned down its transmitter and forced the station to move to another mountaintop.

Whose gospel choir sang on both Michael Jackson's 'Man in the Mirror' and Madonna's 'Like a Prayer'?

Andraé Crouch wrote church standards such as 'The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power' and later led a church himself, yet in the 1980s he was pop's go-to for a gospel choir.

Which Skillet album includes the hit singles 'Hero' and 'Monster'?

Awake found a second audience in wrestling: WWE used 'Monster' as the theme of its 2009 Hell in a Cell event and put both songs in a video game.

Which Switchfoot album won the band a Grammy in 2011?

Hello Hurricane was named for a woman the band built a house with after Hurricane Katrina; she had lost a leg in the evacuation and vowed to walk into her new home.

Which two men popularised 'How Great Thou Art' at Billy Graham crusades?

George Beverly Shea and Cliff Barrows were handed the hymn on a leaflet in London in 1954, and at the 1957 New York crusade the crowds had them sing it about a hundred times.

Which country, where 'Silent Night' was first sung in 1818, lists the carol as national heritage?

Austria: the Rainers, travelling folk singers from the Tyrol, carried the carol abroad and gave what is thought to be its first American performance, in New York in 1839.

'Way Maker', a worship hit for Michael W. Smith and Leeland, was written by Sinach, a singer from which country?

Nigeria: Sinach released the song in 2015, and as American covers climbed the charts in 2020 she spent twelve straight weeks as Billboard's top Christian songwriter.

Which 'father of Christian rock' wrote 'Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music'?

Larry Norman had already reached the Top 40 with the rock band People! before his 1969 solo debut, Upon This Rock, often called the first Christian rock album.

Which record label did Calvary Chapel launch in 1971?

Maranatha Music was started by pastor Chuck Smith as a nonprofit arm of the church, to get the songs his young hippie converts were writing onto records.

Which rapper co-founded Reach Records in 2004 with Ben Washer?

Lecrae says he grew up admiring gangsters and was stealing and getting arrested as a teenager, yet ten years after starting the label his album Anomaly topped the Billboard 200.

Which band crossed into the pop Top 40 in 1996 with 'Flood'?

Jars of Clay, formed by students at Greenville College in Illinois, took the name from Paul's picture of people as plain clay jars holding treasure.

Which singer-songwriter behind 'Awesome God' died in a car crash in September 1997?

Rich Mullins, already a hit songwriter, went back to college to study music education, then spent his last years teaching music to children on a Navajo reservation.

NEEDTOBREATHE's frontman was nicknamed after which college football coach?

Bear Bryant gave Bear Rinehart his nickname, and it fitted: before the band took off he was a Furman University wide receiver named South Carolina's player of the year for 2002.

Brandon Lake rose to prominence as a worship leader at Seacoast Church in which city?

Charleston: while leading worship there, Brandon Lake paid for his 2016 debut album, Closer, with a crowdfunding campaign instead of a record deal.

Which Phil Wickham single went Platinum and topped the 2014 year-end Christian Airplay chart?

This Is Amazing Grace was co-written with Josh Farro, formerly of the band Paramore, and first recorded by its other writer, Jeremy Riddle, before Wickham's version took off.

Which rock and roll star won all three of his competitive Grammy Awards for gospel recordings?

Elvis Presley never won a competitive Grammy for rock and roll. He was nominated fourteen times, and his gospel album He Touched Me brought the second of the three wins.

Which hymn is the band of RMS Titanic said to have played as the liner sank beneath the Atlantic?

Nearer, My God, to Thee is the tune some survivors recalled the string ensemble playing, and films about the disaster have kept the hymn tied to the sinking ever since.

Which composer, aged 14, is said to have written out Allegri's guarded Miserere from memory in Rome?

Mozart heard the psalm setting at a Holy Week service in the Sistine Chapel. The tale rests on one letter his father Leopold sent home in April 1770, and historians doubt parts of it.

Which Nashville hall, the Mother Church of Country Music, opened as the Union Gospel Tabernacle?

Ryman Auditorium was conceived by Thomas Ryman, an owner of saloons and riverboats, as a tabernacle for the revivalist preacher Samuel Porter Jones.

Which singer's soundtrack to The Preacher's Wife became the best-selling gospel album of all time?

Whitney Houston starred in the 1996 film opposite Denzel Washington, and the album went on to sell about six million copies worldwide.

The hymn 'Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee' is sung to a melody from which composer's Ninth Symphony?

Beethoven wrote the tune for the choral finale known as the Ode to Joy, and Henry van Dyke fitted his poem to it in 1907.

Which rock band's album Fallen was recalled from Christian stores after members rejected the label?

Evanescence had been promoted to the Christian market until its founders said publicly that they were not a Christian band, and the record company asked retailers to send the album back.

Which rapper's 2019 album Jesus Is King won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album?

Kanye West's win was his 22nd Grammy, which briefly tied him with Jay-Z as the most-awarded hip-hop performer until Jay-Z won again later that night.

Which 1971 musical based on the Gospel of Matthew sent the song 'Day by Day' into the pop charts?

Godspell began as a project by drama students at Carnegie Mellon University, and its hit single reached No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1972.

Which folk-rock star marked his conversion to Christianity with the 1979 album Slow Train Coming?

Bob Dylan alienated many existing fans with the record, yet its single Gotta Serve Somebody won him a Grammy for rock vocal performance.

Which American Idol winner released 'Jesus, Take the Wheel' as the first single from her debut album?

Carrie Underwood kept the song at No. 1 on the country chart for six weeks, and it won Grammys for both her vocal and its songwriters.

Which soul star behind 'You Send Me' first found fame leading the gospel group the Soul Stirrers?

Sam Cooke drew crowds of young fans to gospel concerts, and his move to pop provoked a backlash from religious leaders.

Which soul singer recorded her best-selling album live at a Los Angeles Baptist church in January 1972?

Aretha Franklin sang with James Cleveland and a community choir over two nights. The sessions were filmed, but the documentary made from them did not premiere until 2018.

Which country legend sang with Zach Williams on 'There Was Jesus', a Grammy-winning Christian duet?

Dolly Parton recorded the duet for his album Rescue Story, and it won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song in 2021.

Which gospel-tinged rock hit full of references to Jesus was written by Norman Greenbaum, who is Jewish?

Spirit in the Sky came to Greenbaum after he watched country singer Porter Wagoner perform a gospel number on television and decided he could write one himself.

Which Venetian composer of the sacred choral Gloria was nicknamed the Red Priest for his hair?

Antonio Vivaldi was ordained at 25 but was soon excused from saying public Mass because of a health problem, and his Gloria was rediscovered and revived in 1939.

Which German composer's tribute to the printing press supplied the tune of 'Hark! The Herald Angels Sing'?

Felix Mendelssohn composed it in 1840 for the 400th anniversary of Gutenberg's invention, and an English organist fitted the carol's words to it in 1855.

Which English hymn writer based 'Joy to the World' on Psalm 98 and is credited with some 750 hymns?

Isaac Watts first published it in 1719 under the title The Messiah's Coming and Kingdom, and more than a century passed before Lowell Mason paired it with the tune sung today.

Which reformer wrote 'A Mighty Fortress Is Our God', known as the Battle Hymn of the Reformation?

Martin Luther wrote it in German as Ein feste Burg, and the poet Heinrich Heine later called it the Marseillaise of the Reformation.

Which style of unaccompanied Latin church singing is named after a pope shown taking dictation from a dove?

Gregorian chant was credited by legend to Pope Gregory I, but scholars believe he only ordered a compilation of melodies and that the style took shape later under the Carolingians.

Which blind American hymn writer produced more than 8,000 hymns, among them 'Blessed Assurance'?

Fanny Crosby wrote so many that she used nearly 200 pseudonyms, because publishers were wary of filling their hymnals with one person's work.

Which early Methodist leader wrote over 6,500 hymns, including 'Love Divine, All Loves Excelling'?

Charles Wesley was the younger brother of Methodist founder John Wesley, and the pair spread their revival across Britain through preaching and hymn singing.

Which hymn did Horatio Spafford write after his four daughters died in an 1873 Atlantic shipwreck?

It Is Well with My Soul came to him as his own ship passed near the spot where the girls had died, while he was sailing to join his grieving wife in England.

Which historically Black university's Jubilee Singers toured from 1871 to raise funds by singing spirituals?

Fisk student singers performed spirituals for Queen Victoria during an 1873 tour of Britain, and Jubilee Hall on the campus is now a National Historic Landmark.

Which gospel standard did Thomas A. Dorsey write in 1932 while grieving for his wife and infant son?

Take My Hand, Precious Lord became the favourite song of civil rights leader Dr King, and at his request it was sung at his funeral in April 1968.

Which 18th-century hymn became a 1969 pop hit in a gospel arrangement by the Edwin Hawkins Singers?

Oh Happy Day began as a 1755 hymn by the English clergyman Philip Doddridge, and the choir's version reached No. 4 in the United States and No. 1 in France and Germany.

Which gospel singer of 'Strange Things Happening Every Day' was later dubbed the Godmother of Rock and Roll?

Sister Rosetta Tharpe took the record to No. 2 on the chart that later became the R&B chart in 1945, and Johnny Cash named her as his favourite singer when he was a child.

Which family gospel group, led by a father called Pops, topped the charts with 'I'll Take You There'?

The Staple Singers were formed by Roebuck Staples with his children Cleotha, Pervis and Mavis, and they first sold well with acoustic gospel-folk records.

Which 'Let's Stay Together' soul singer became an ordained pastor and a gospel recording artist?

Al Green founded his own church in 1976 and made a run of gospel albums from 1981 to 1989, winning eight Grammys in a soul gospel category.

Which vocal group behind the country hit 'Elvira' spent decades in Southern gospel before switching genres?

The Oak Ridge Boys trace back to a 1943 act called Wally Fowler and the Georgia Clodhoppers, and they stayed in gospel until moving to country in the mid-1970s.

Which German composer ended his church compositions with the initials S.D.G., meaning glory to God alone?

Johann Sebastian Bach added the letters, short for the Latin Soli Deo gloria, to some of his secular works too, and a modern record label devoted to his cantatas took them as its name.

Schubert's 'Ave Maria' began as a setting of a prayer sung by Ellen Douglas in which Walter Scott poem?

The Lady of the Lake gave Schubert seven songs to set in 1825, and the opening words of this one may have prompted the later fitting of the full Latin prayer to his melody.

Which Christmas carol was set to music by Adolphe Adam, the French composer of the ballet Giselle?

O Holy Night began as the 1847 French poem Minuit, chrétiens by Placide Cappeau, and the familiar English version changed the meaning of the original words in notable ways.

Which king is popularly said to have begun the custom of standing for Handel's 'Hallelujah' chorus?

George II is supposed to have risen at the London premiere, obliging everyone else to stand, yet there is no convincing evidence that he was even present.

Which composer of The Mikado wrote the tune 'St Gertrude' for the hymn 'Onward, Christian Soldiers'?

Arthur Sullivan composed it in 1871 at a friend's country home and named the tune after the friend's wife.

Which hymn, written by a dying clergyman in 1847, is traditionally sung before kick-off at the FA Cup final?

Abide with Me was first formally used before the 1927 final between Arsenal and Cardiff City, and its opening and closing verses are sung about a quarter of an hour ahead of the match.

Which anthem of the US civil rights movement is thought to descend from a hymn by Charles Albert Tindley?

We Shall Overcome reached the movement in 1959 through the folk singers Guy Carawan and Pete Seeger, after striking tobacco workers had sung an earlier version in the 1940s.

The spiritual 'Kumbaya' was sung early on in which culture of the islands off South Carolina and Georgia?

Gullah is most likely the dialect heard on the earliest known recording, made in 1926, although the song may not have started among its speakers.

Which hymn became the altar-call song of Billy Graham's crusades and the title of his autobiography?

Just as I Am was also the altar call song at the 1934 revival meeting where Graham himself was converted, more than sixty years before he borrowed its name for his memoir.

Which abolitionist adapted 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' from the soldiers' song 'John Brown's Body'?

Julia Ward Howe wrote her version in November 1861, and The Atlantic Monthly printed it on its front page in February 1862.

Which Christian singer's marriage to his dying first wife Melissa is told in the 2020 film I Still Believe?

Jeremy Camp is played by KJ Apa opposite Britt Robertson, and the story comes from the singer's own book of the same name.

Which singer from American Idol's fifth season later won a Christian album Grammy for Overcomer?

Mandisa finished ninth on the show, and the award made her the fifth American Idol contestant to win a Grammy.

Which gospel act reached the pop top 40 with 'Shackles (Praise You)' from the debut album Thankful?

Mary Mary peaked at No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100 with the song, which climbed even higher abroad and reached No. 5 in the United Kingdom.

Which Bob Carlisle ballad, written for his daughter's 16th birthday, won the Grammy for Best Country Song?

Butterfly Kisses also took the Dove Award for Song of the Year, and Carlisle wrote it with Randy Thomas for his third studio album.

Which banking term do the initials of the San Diego rock band P.O.D. stand for?

Payable on Death was pitched by a band member's girlfriend, who worked in a bank, after three members of a thrash metal band called Eschatos recruited a rapper as their singer.

The Winans family, whose gospel singers include BeBe and CeCe, comes from which American city?

Detroit is where brothers Marvin, Carvin, Michael and Ronald, the second to fifth of the Winans children, grew up and formed the quartet The Winans.

Which Durham-born singer, once of the Caravans, is often called the First Lady of Gospel Music?

Shirley Caesar joined the group at 19 after approaching its leader Albertina Walker in 1958, and she went on to receive a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Which Texas city hosted Explo '72, the week-long gathering nicknamed the Christian Woodstock?

Dallas filled the Cotton Bowl each night, and the closing eight-hour festival put Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson on the same bill as early Christian rock acts.

Which psalter of 1640 from Massachusetts was the first volume printed in British North America?

Bay Psalm Book copies are now so scarce that one of the eleven known survivors of the first edition sold for $14.2 million in 2013, then a record for a printed book.

Which 12th-century German abbess composed Ordo Virtutum, arguably the oldest surviving morality play?

Hildegard of Bingen left more surviving chants than any other composer of the Middle Ages, and she wrote the words as well as the music.