MercyMe’s New Album Reminds Christians to Turn to Christ amid Division, Uncertainty
Christian band MercyMe’s latest album, Always Only Jesus, aims to remind believers to look to Christ during times of division and uncertainty.
Some of the songs on the band’s eleventh studio album, released on Oct. 21, were taken from a list of 40 songs MercyMe members penned during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, the band also released its tenth album Inhale, Exhale.
“This record is the songs that are hopefully pointing directly at Jesus and saying, this is the one thing that matters,” MercyMe guitarist Michael John Scheuchzer told The Christian Post in a video interview. “We can disagree about everything else in the world, but as believers, if we can come together and point to Him and agree on Him, then we can really see some change in the world.”
Frontman Bart Millard noted that people became more divisive during the pandemic, including Christians who took hard stances on political and social issues on social media.
“I don’t know how much healing is in that versus we need to find the common denominator – that’s Jesus,” the singer said. “That’s the only thing that’s going to unify the Body of Christ. So, with Inhale, Exhale being about a lot of clever lyrics and us just wanting to try different stuff and having the time to do it, this one’s more about … it really is about Jesus!”
The band discussed some of the songs on the new album, such as “Always Only Jesus,” which is meant to unify believers by looking back to Christ. Another song, titled “To Not Worship You,” touches on people who have gone through doubts about their faith in God, to the point where they have deconstructed their beliefs or abandoned the faith altogether.
“The whole deconstructing of faith became like the flavor of the month; it felt like,” Millard told The Christian Post. “Having conversations about all that, especially the deconstructing of faith, we know people have gone through it. I’m like, I think we’ve all asked the same kind of questions, like why do bad things happen to good people? But I just didn’t get an Instagram account and start talking about it that much.”
“I think we’ve always kicked the tires of our faith, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re stepping away from it,” he added. “The song [“To Not Worship You”] for us, personally, it was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I have doubts, I wonder, I question a lot of things, but the one thing is it’s to stop and actually remember, ‘Oh, You’re the God that moves mountains.’ Eventually, it’s like, who am I to ever think of not worshiping you if I truly understand who You are?”
The band also highlighted another one of their new songs, “Better Days,” as it reminds believers that the future is in God’s hands regardless of present circumstances.
“We were seeing the stats of depression and suicide and all that stuff and divorce rate because people literally having to be in under one roof for so long,” Millard said. “The one thing that I kept going back to, and I’d written it down a few times, was, ‘The hands that are holding tomorrow are still holding on to us.'”
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Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Terry Wyatt/Stringer
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer. He is also the co-hosts of the For Your Soul podcast, which seeks to equip the church with biblical truth and sound doctrine. Visit his blog Blessed Are The Forgiven.
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