Cory Asbury Wanted to Ditch Christian Music, But God…

Published: May 4, 2026

By Kayla DeKraker

Cory Asbury recently opened up about how God led him away from a major country music project and shared why he’s going back to his worship roots.

“So it’s been a bit since we’ve talked,” the “Reckless Love” singer said in a Facebook video. “The last thing that you heard from me was I’m throwing away a country album to pursue this worship thing. I gave you no details, no backstory, none of the lore, none of the stuff that was going on. And so here I am to bring you up to speed with what God’s been doing.”

“Basically, I was running from my calling,” he admitted.

Asbury explained, “I was really frustrated by the industry of it all. Making money from worship music and the gospel was just such a weird feeling for me in my soul.”

It felt strange to charge people to come to a worship event, and he saw a lot of sin in the Christian music industry.

“I was really thrown off by the dirtiness of the industry. Honestly, the sin in it was rampant, the biggest names. Stuff that you would never wanna see, I was seeing it,” he revealed.

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“I just ran, ran as far as I could,” he continued. “I said, ‘You know what, man? I’ll retire. My family’s taken care of. I don’t have to do any of this stuff.’ And in that running, I was just getting cynical and jaded and bitter and frustrated at the church. The truth is, though, no one wants to live in that place. No one wants to wake up every morning wondering how they can tear it apart.”

Asbury then referenced Matthew 7:3-5, which says, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Asbury had accepted a $500,000 advance on a country music album, which he had nearly completed, ChurchLeaders reported, when God called him to leave it.

“We’re sitting in John Foreman from Switchfoot’s studio,” he recalled. “The Lord whispers to my spirit in an instant and says, ‘Be done. Stop running, move on to what you’re supposed to do, what you were made to do, what you were created to do.’ And I was like, ‘oh, dang.”’

Asbury decided to give back the money from his country music project and return once again to worship.

He said, “It feels like a callback to youth and zeal and that passion that you used to feel as a kid. You go to youth group and you just scream those worship songs at the top of your lungs, because you’re just so passionately in love with God and there’s nothing in the way…You didn’t have years of jadedness.”

To those feeling jaded, he said, “I’m hoping that you guys can grab ahold of this record and this move of God and be like, ‘Okay, there’s hope for me.’”