After nearly 30 years in the Christian music industry, Sanctus Real noticed a troubling pattern: hope, once central to the church’s message, was fading.
It was that realization that prompted the Dove Award-winning and twice Grammy-nominated band to release their latest single, “The Difference,” a track that centers on their core belief in the transformative power of Jesus.
“When you believe in Jesus, we have a hope that’s greater than this world,” lead singer Dustin Lolli told The Christian Post. “And the only thing in us that changes is because of the belief in Jesus and what He does through us.”
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know.
Lolli, who joined Sanctus Real in 2016 following the departure of former lead singer and co-founder, Matt Hammitt, said the song was born from ongoing conversations about what seemed absent in many churches the band visited across the country.
Written with songwriters Matt Armstrong and AJ Pruis, and sparked by a guitar riff from founding member Chris Rohman, the single continues the band’s recent thematic focus on spiritual resilience and recovery.
“It seems like people are missing the hope part of Christianity,” Lolli said. “We always start writing with that question: What message do we want to send? We take it seriously.”
For Rohman, the theme hit close to home. He said “On the Mend,” an earlier release, reflected his own struggle with anxiety, which once forced him to step away from touring. “I got help from a Christian counselor, and it helped,” he said. “But what really changed me was surrendering everything to Jesus. Healing takes time, and it’s not always instant.”
Mark Graalman, the band’s drummer and another founding member, said music has long served as a tool for healing in his own life. “When you combine God’s Word with melody, it sticks with you,” he said. “As a kid dealing with anxiety, I learned Scripture through songs. Music helps put truth in your heart.”
Graalman reflected on the long road the band has taken since their formation in Toledo, Ohio, in the mid-1990s. “We literally put it in our band name: we want to be real,” he said. “We’re not spiritual giants. We’re just guys who still need grace.”
That commitment to authenticity stands out in an era defined by social media curation and hype. “In a world of filters and hype, being real matters,” Graalman said. “We want people to see God’s strength in our weakness.”
In recent years, a notable number of artists from the early 2000s Christian music scene — Hillsong’s Marty Sampson, Hawk Nelson’s Jon Steingard and DC Talk’s Kevin Max, to name a few — have publicly deconstructed their faith, prompting conversations about the sustainability of belief in high-profile ministry.
While motivations vary, many artists have cited disillusionment with institutional church culture, spiritual burnout and unmet expectations in the Christian music industry as key reasons for distancing themselves from Christianity.
But Sanctus Real has remained committed to their original mission, something Rohman attributed to early mentorship and a long-standing focus on collective spiritual accountability.
“We were teenagers when we started and had a youth pastor who met with us regularly,” he said. “We try to stay open-handed with every major decision.”
Reflecting on the trend of his CCM colleagues leaving the faith, Lolli, who previously served in church ministry, posited that the deconstruction movement stems not from a rejection of Jesus, but from disillusionment with church culture.
“People aren’t deconstructing who Jesus is,” he said. “They’re questioning the things around Him that didn’t hold up. … If your faith was in church culture or a leader who failed, that’s going to fall apart. Deconstruction isn’t always bad. The question is: where does it take you?”
Rohman expanded on that thought, saying, “I look back to my family, and I guess the way that I look up to my parents and my grandparents, and I think all the things that we’ve tried to do with the band, whether it’s decision making from very early on, I can honestly say that we really sought out what the Lord wanted and not what our own motives were.”
He added, “We were very blessed to have great counsel, like a youth pastor that would meet with us every few weeks as a band, because we were teenagers when we started, we were very young. We grew up together. We watched each other get married. We watched each other have kids. And now some of those kids are 20 years old. We’ve been through a lot together.”
Despite a long run of commercial success — including eight No. 1 songs, 19 Top 10 hits, and more than 2.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify — the band said they remain focused on spiritual impact over industry metrics.
“Every night, someone tells us a song helped them through something hard,” Lolli said. “We write in small rooms, and somehow God uses those songs in big ways.”
Graalman recalled a concert at the Mall of America where a young boy, recovering from heart surgery, woke up singing their song “Confidence.”
“That was his anthem,” Graalman said. “That’s what makes this worth it.”
Rohman noted that “Confidence” was written at a time when the band was uncertain about its future. “Dustin was new, and the pressure to keep the band going was real. That song still gets a million streams a week. We didn’t expect that,” he said.
Their latest single, “The Difference,” echoes the group’s central message: true change starts with faith in Jesus. The chorus reads: “You are the difference/ You are the change/ You are the reason/ I’m not the same.”
Sanctus Real is on tour with JJ Weeks and preparing for a larger headlining tour later this year.
“We believe in face-to-face ministry,” Graalman said. “We don’t want a screen between us and the people.”
Lolli said that personal interaction with fans has always been a core part of their mission. “It’s easy to feel disconnected with so much of music going digital,” he said. “But when we stand on a stage and see faces and hear stories, it reminds us why we’re doing this.”
As the band continues its work on the road and in the studio, its members say their mission remains the same: to point listeners back to hope, not as an abstract idea, but as a person: Jesus Christ.
“What humbles me still to this day is, you know, it doesn’t matter the size of the show,” Lolli said. “Almost every night, somebody comes and says, ‘Hey, that song you guys wrote wrecked me or changed my life.'”
Graalman added, “It’s just amazing that these songs get written and released. It’s like throwing a rock in a pond and watching the ripples. You don’t know how far it’s going to go.”
He shared one more story: “A family came out to a show with their little boy who had the same heart condition that our former lead singer’s son had. When he came out of surgery, he woke up singing the chorus of ‘Confidence.’ That song gave him hope.”
Rohman said the unexpected reach of their songs keeps them grounded. “We’ve had seasons where we weren’t sure we could keep going,” he said. “But hearing stories like that, that’s what keeps us going.”
“Jesus doesn’t just give hope,” Lolli added. “He is the hope.”
Leah M. Klett is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: leah.klett@christianpost.com
