Elevation Church’s stated mission and reason for existence is “so that people far from God will be raised to a life in Christ.” When I first came across this idea, I thought “far from God” meant reaching people who had never had much use for God, or even religion more generally—agnostics or atheists. However, I’ve come to learn that the phrase is intended to reference an individual’s internal feeling about their relationship with the Lord at a particular moment in time, not a set system of beliefs.

Almost all of the Elevation churchgoers and worship leaders I speak to grew up with religion playing a vital role in their lives, and there’s a distinct pattern among them. None explicitly refer to it by name, but the concept of a faith journey strongly informs their personal outlook and relationship to the world—the idea that finding Christ, often in difficult personal circumstances, is a pivotal moment in helping to set your life on its proper course.

For Gatch, her low point came at the age of 24. At the time, she was fronting a for-hire cover band trying to make it as a performer of secular pop music. “The Lord was shutting door after door,” she tells me. “He was saying to me, ‘Worship is not your fallback; it’s what I have for you.’” So she took a dramatic leap, quitting her job and opting to become a volunteer vocalist at a church in her hometown of Charleston. A year and a half later, Furtick visited the church, heard her sing, and invited her to join the staff at Elevation.

Brock and Brown were on similarly divergent paths when Furtick pitched them on the idea of joining Elevation. Brock had recently interned in L.A., hoping for a career in TV and film music, and Brown had already gotten an apartment in preparation for a move to Nashville to pursue another musical project. And yet each of them ultimately came to Elevation because they felt called by their faith, a realization that this was what they were meant to do.

For others, the faith journeys are less musical in nature, but still follow a familiar arc. One of the more powerful testimonies comes from Andrew Ramsey, the Young Thug fan, who grew up in a deeply Christian household but stopped regularly going to church in high school. “My life fell apart—I had a three year battle with anorexia and depression,” he says. “Finally, I came [to Elevation Church] and it changed my perspective. It made me realize that all those setbacks were just setups. I run cross country now and have a career.”

It’s this idea of reaching those “far from God” that helps explain the strange paradox at the heart of Elevation—using one of the most notoriously profane styles of music to soundtrack weekly services and act as a beacon for faith in God.

Brown understands how easily the Worship team’s intentions might be misunderstood. “There’s conversations I’ve had with other people in the church where I grew up who aren’t quite OK with it—you know, a guitar in church is a bit radical,” he says. And yet it is precisely the radical presence of the guitar and the band each week that gives full voice to Furtick’s message that accepting Jesus as the savior doesn’t require sacrificing one’s identity, that the Lord loves working with seemingly “unqualified and even disqualified people,” as he writes in his book. For Furtick, rock’n’roll underscores the imperfection implicit in the journey to know Christ. Heaven may be the ultimate goal, but, as Brown explains, “It’s not always green pastures while we’re here. We get it, and try to reflect that in our songs. That’s the sort of realness I think all good music shares.”