Jamie Grace

Aug 11

19 min read ⭑

“I don’t have to be the 21-year-old who was on an arena tour every three months. That doesn’t take away from the value of who I am in Christ, and it doesn’t take away the value in the message that I’m sharing with others — because, ultimately, his message hasn’t changed.”

If you listened to Christian radio about 10 years ago, you likely heard Jamie Grace’s hits — like “Beautiful Day” or “Hold Me” — almost every day. At only 17, Jamie quickly captured the hearts and ears of Christian audiences nationwide. Today, the award-winning singer/songwriter still creates and produces uplifting music that points people to God and reminds them of his unquenchable love, while also helping younger artists do the same. Although she took a break from touring for eight years, she’s now gearing up for a tour in Fall 2025, much to her fans’ delight.

Read her exclusive interview below to learn how she’s pouring into the next generation through her New Kids Choir and family-friendly studio, The Wonder Space. You’ll also get a peek into her favorite spiritual habits and Christian resources — and learn why it can be tough for her to rest and recharge sometimes.

The following is a transcript of a live interview. Responses have been edited and condensed for brevity and clarity.

QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT

Food is always about more than food; it’s also about home and people and love. So how does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind your web bio?

My go-to place is a chain Italian restaurant called Maggiano’s. It’s our family’s default celebratory restaurant. I think it started with my sister. She wanted to go there for her 21st birthday, so now it’s our default. Now it’s a little different now because we have little kids, so we don’t go as often. But I think we went there when we found out we were pregnant. The whole family was there. “Dad’s turning 50. Let’s all go to Maggiano’s!” It’s kind of our default place to go and celebrate.

From a logistic standpoint, it’s great because not only do we all love Italian food, but they have an insanely expensive option where you can basically get all you can eat everything. So no matter who wants what, it just makes sense. Then on a familial side of things, it’s getting increasingly rare for my whole family to get together to have a meal. My sister and I are getting older, and our kids are getting older and busier. Thankfully, it’s not rare for my husband, daughter and me to eat together. And sometimes we eat with my sister, her husband and their son. Usually, it’ll be the dads taking the kids somewhere or the moms hanging out. We also try to spend a good amount of time with my parents as well. But as far as all eight of us getting together, that is very rare these days. So when we can all very loudly gather at a table, it’s either going to be Maggiano’s, or it’s going to be someone’s home, which is also really special.

QUESTION #2: REVEAL

What “nonspiritual” activity have you found to be quite spiritual after all? What quirky proclivity, out-of-the-way interest or unexpected pursuit refreshes your soul?

It’s hard because I’m a pastor’s kid. I’m very churchy, so for me, everything is spiritual. But I would say rest. Of course, if you talk about Sabbath, it gets very spiritual, but the concept of hobby and play is genuinely difficult for me. I think this is because I got famous at 17. The idea of sitting, resting and being is a little bit foreign to me. And then also being a Millennial parent, I’m constantly thinking, I have to do this or my kid’s going to talk about me in therapy. It’s this constant How do I do, how do I fix, how do I solve, how do I heal, how do I work?

I absolutely love to play my Nintendo Switch. It is one of my favorite things on the planet. I love video games so much, but to actually give myself the grace to sit down for 30 minutes a week and play a game, there’s so much guilt and shame that just layers on top of me. If I think about resting, if I think about playing, if I think about enjoying life outside of my work, I wonder, Am I successful? Am I doing a good job? Do people think I’m washed up? Do I matter?

I love my work, and it’s not even so much the work in and of itself that I get caught up in, but it’s the concept of work. So then rest, unfortunately, becomes an afterthought in my book. Obviously, when I lean into it, it’s so rejuvenating and refreshing.

Sleep, on the other hand, is not a struggle for me. I love sleep. And the actual Sabbath is not difficult either. I love me some church. I will stop whatever I’m doing for church. I’m doing a little Bible study. I love the very direct line of Jesus and the Word — that’s not hard for me. But that middle ground of rest where you’re just having fun — that is a wild concept for me to wrap my head around and embrace.

QUESTION #3: CONFESS

Every superhero has a weakness; every human, too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re all broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite, and how do you confront its power?

My weakness is two things wrapped in one. One is not being crippled by the fact that people have opinions about me. And then two is a constant comparison to my younger self.

I was having a conversation earlier this afternoon with a mom whose 13-year-old has had a good amount of public career success with their music. They’re trying to figure out how to slow it down so that she doesn’t burn out at 15. I was telling them that I’m not burned out. I love what I do, and I want to continue to do it forever. But one of my struggles is having had the type and amount of success I had from 17 to 25 years old compared to now, at 33, getting questions like, “What’s next? What are you working on? Are you going to go back on tour? When are you going to do this?” Meanwhile, I love my husband, love my kid, and still get to make music. I also have a ton of memories from a beautiful life lived. This is not anyone else’s fault, but it puts me into this headspace that says, Am I still good? Am I still worthy? Should I be doing more? Am I failing? Then I might think about what other people think of me.

In our culture, everyone my age has a think piece on some artists they used to listen to. We all sit around and say, “This is what happened with the Backstreet Boys and this album or Taylor Swift or Beyoncé, Act Three, mainstream and Christian.” Everybody between the ages of 20 and 60 has an artist that they’ll give opinions on: “Oh, they did this or that, or radio is not the same, or this TV show fell off and they cast this person,” whatever it might be. So I’ve had to accept that there are going to be people who used to be proud of me but aren’t anymore. There are likely people who might have liked the kind of art I made in my 20s but don’t like what I make now or who simply don’t know I’m still making art because it wasn’t memorable enough for them to lean in. We often want to stay away from that kind of thinking and say, “No, people love you. They think you’re cool and talented.” But both can be true at the same time. There are still going to be people out there who don’t like what I make and who aren’t going to support what I make. I have to learn how to be OK with that.

I spend a lot of time in my head about what people think, and whether I’m doing the right thing and making the right choices. It can get really loud, sad and crowded in there. I just have to choose to be really intentional — one, with the people I surround myself with because I have a lot of really great people in my life, and then two, always remembering why I started doing this in the first place. I was 14 and wanted to share joy and hope with people on YouTube. Thankfully, I’m 1,000 years old now, and I still get to do that, so I lean into the fact that I don’t have to be the 21-year-old who was on an arena tour every three months. That doesn’t take away from the value of who I am in Christ, and it doesn’t take away the value in the message that I’m sharing with others — because, ultimately, his message hasn’t changed.

QUESTION #4: FIRE UP

Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your current obsession? And why should it be ours?

I spend a lot of my professional time in my studio. I started producing my own music about 10 years ago. I started out producing but not engineering. Here’s a rundown of the difference: production is all about how the music sounds, while engineering is the physicality of moving the gear and the instruments and the computer to make it happen. A lot of producers do both, but not all engineers do both. I started producing my own music about 10 years ago, and then I started engineering it about seven years ago.

I’m so grateful because I’ve gotten to work really hard and build out a studio that I’m really proud of. If I’m not at church or with my family, I’m in my studio. I’m constantly working on how to improve my craft, make music that matters and write songs that tell good stories and lead people to Christ. I get to work with a few clients I absolutely love, one being my sister. She hasn’t released music in 10 years, and we literally started working on her project this past Sunday, so I’m really excited about that.

I also started a kids’ choir called New Kids Choir, and we just released their first album last month. I work on their stuff, and they’re here quite often. Then I take a few other clients here and there, usually young women who are the age that I was when “Hold Me” and “Beautiful Day” were coming out. That’s cool because I get to help them not just launch a career but also express themselves and make art that they’re proud of. My goal is to teach as many young women how to produce as I can, so I can work myself out of a job and there’s a bunch of girls out there engineering. That’s really where my heart is and where my focus is right now.

I’m planning on going on tour in the next couple of weeks, so that’s super exciting as well. I haven’t been on tour in eight years, so I’m excited to get on the road and make some music. I like making music, and I hope to make it for a very long time. It’s what I spend most of my days doing — very production heavy and trying to create cool films.

Tell us a little bit more about the Wonder Space and the New Kids Choir.

I started The Wonder Space about three years ago. I wanted to create a studio that was kid-friendly and family-friendly. It’s not a studio for kids, but it’s a studio that’s welcoming to all and is safe for all people to learn and grow in their craft and make cool art as well. I have had some great experiences over the years, and I’ve worked with some producers who have encouraged and supported me along the way, but I’ve also had some not-so-great studio experiences. I was a pretty reserved kid growing up, so there was a lot that I didn’t know about the world — things you wouldn’t expect kids to know at a certain age. The studio is where I learned some pretty intense words that probably wouldn’t land in a family-friendly movie. It’s where I learned some harsh language and was exposed to a lot of alcohol, even though I don’t personally drink. I always thought that studios were a fun musical experience while also being a professional experience. Unfortunately, I experienced a lot that was not that, so I wanted to create a space that was safe and fun. I often promote my studio as a dry studio, and I’m very proud of that. That’s not to disparage adults who are drinking responsibly; rather, it’s to emphasize that we are truly about making art here. Mistreating humans and using harsh language and all that kind of stuff — it’s simply not welcome in this space.

Back when I wanted to start recording some of my own music and asked questions, a few producer buddies of mine — Sean Hill, John John and Dibs out in California — wouldn’t just answer me. They would start asking me questions back and say, “Why do you want to learn that? Why do you keep asking these questions?” It led to this back-and-forth of me being mentored on production while I was in the studio as an artist. Even now, I purchased about half the gear in my studio because it was a direct recommendation from one of those three guys. I think it’s special that I get to do the same thing for the next generation and even to talk about Wonderspace and New Kids Choir at the same time. I’ve had a lot of people in my life pour into me in a very intentional way when it comes to my music and craft.

Around that time, it was a pretty good season for numbers, such as radio charts, for me. I played at a festival called Celebrate Freedom in Dallas, Texas, and Amy Grant was the headliner. I am one of her biggest fans. Since I was a kid, I had rehearsed how I would introduce myself to her, which involved telling her that we have the same birthday and our names sound similar and all this stuff. I met her and did my whole spiel. It was just great. She was so kind. Before I walked off, she said, “Hey, give me your phone really quick.” I gave her my phone and she put her phone number in it and saved it. She said, “There are a lot of men in this industry, and it’s tough. Use my number as much as you want,” and she meant it. I have reached out to her on occasion to ask her advice and get support from her. There are other women and a few dudes as well who have been super supportive, encouraging and intentional when it comes to investing in my music and my personhood. All of that is a huge part of the fuel for The Wonder Space and New Kids Choir. I feel so full in a good way, having had a very privileged childhood with parents who absolutely adore Jesus as well as having a lot of creatives around me during my teen years and 20s — I feel quite full. I can now turn around and ask myself, How do I love on the next generation? How do I make sure that they have these stories to tell about the generation before them as well?

In that same vein, I’m in the process of building a girl pop R&B group. I adore the three girls I’m working with, and I often get the chance to interact with their moms. Sometimes they give me homeschool advice, or if we’re having a late-night studio session, they might bring my husband and me dinner when they pick up their daughters so we don’t have to cook. It’s so sweet because these moms are loving on me, and then I’m getting to pour into their daughters. Then there’s a fourth generation: my daughter. She thinks the girls I’m working with are the coolest because they’re Christian teenage girls who love to sing. It’s this cool, multigenerational opportunity to gain wisdom and then pour it right back out. It’s incredible to be a part of that.

QUESTION #5: BOOST

Whether we’re cashiers or CEOs, contractors or customer service reps, we all need God’s love flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?

I think it’s really cool how confirmation oftentimes comes through Scripture and being able to experience things in everyday life that confirm it. Obviously, I don’t mean that to be incredibly literal, but when it comes to things like the “fruit of the Spirit” or the Beatitudes and things like that, the principles and the character of God — those things have not changed. I think it’s really cool. How do you know it’s God? To be able to lean into what the Word says and seeing the fruit of those things in real life.

One of my favorite Scriptures is in Ecclesiastes that says, to paraphrase, “Hey, kid, you’re not that cool. There is nothing that you’re going to come up with, nothing that you’re going to do, that will beat anything that I’ve already created.” Again, not a direct quote, but it is something that has been incredibly grounding and healing for me — a continual reminder that that’s where it starts, where it goes and where it ends. That anything I could create or do or be inspired by fuel — God’s hand is already in it, and the fruit of it is always his work at hand.

I ended up getting a tattoo on my arm that says “extraordinary,” but the ordinary is in brackets, because that’s the me part. My sister designed it, which is super cool. It’s always fun meeting people who are big fans of her and getting into a conversation about that. I get to say, “Oh, yeah, she designed my tattoo. And she’s my sister.” I love it so much. What a time. That’s definitely something that I lean into as much as I can, especially when I feel the pressure of trying to live up to being a teen star. I’m often stressed about that, remembering the world told me I was cool and seeing my name in lights. It’s not that those are inherently bad things, but that’s not at all where his grace lands. His grace is in the good that he does and in the good that he is — and I’m simply a vessel of all of that.

QUESTION #6: inspire

Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied habits that open our hearts to the presence of God. So let us in. Which spiritual practice is working best for you in this season?

I think a lot of us are still recovering from 2020, which technically lasted through 2022, because so many things were different for a while. For me, that was so intense, heavy and isolating. I do have a mental health diagnosis, and the recovery was really difficult as far as learning how not to be afraid to be around people. So in this season, we’re coming up on a year and a half that we’ve been at our church, and that has been my favorite thing ever. We visited a few churches before we joined ours. They were good churches, but they just weren’t our home church. Being in that consistent community with believers has been so great. I didn’t realize how much I missed hearing a message and then hanging out with a bunch of people whose hearts were in the same spot right after it.

I am a pastor’s kid through and through. I want to stay at church two hours after it’s over. I can’t help it. I like to get there for the middle service and then hang out during the third one so I can see everyone. I like being there a lot. It’s a good practice when it comes to studying the Word and growing in the Word. Of course, the stuff that we do on our own, like reading the Bible throughout the week, is important, but I’m kind of a cliché. If you can lock in with a healthy church community and that genuine Bible study, that’s just some beautiful stuff.

QUESTION #7: FOCUS

Looking backward, considering the full sweep of your unique faith journey and all you encountered along the way, what top three resources stand out to you? What changed reality and changed your heart?

I like hymns a lot. I’ve been studying a lot of hymns and then looking at the stories behind them. I think a pretty common one that people know is the story behind “It Is Well,” and I work a lot with the new kids at the choir. I teach them a lot of hymns as well. That’s been special because we look at the hymn and then talk through the text and about what’s relatable from the year that it was written to today. We discuss what people were going through then and how they were somehow able to lean on the Lord and still call for him. So hymns are a really big one.

The second one coincides with that because we have music going in our house most of the day, so I do a lot of hymns lo-fi or Christian lo-fi. Now, sometimes we do regular lo-fi, because it’s great, like hip-hop or pop lo-fi, whatever it might be. I’ve just noticed that even in the background, I can recognize the songs through their melody. I like to listen to worship music, but truth be told, if I turn on some of my favorite worship songs, nothing else is going to get done. I’m going to end up all up in that. I can’t clean the house to worship music because then I feel I need to talk to the Lord. There’s something really special about listening to instrumentals in the lo-fi, instrumentals of hymns in the background. As those melodies pop into your head, it develops a practice of worshiping literally through everything. For example, while I’m troubleshooting with my cameras, I might all of a sudden remember, It is well with my soul, and then go back to what I’m doing. It could also be because I have ADHD, so I try to intentionally set myself up for good distractions because I know that it’s inevitable with my brain.

The last one is The Voice Bible. I don’t know who published it, but they gifted it to me years ago. It’s sort of written or arranged as a script, but it’s still the regular Bible. That one is a huge blessing because I love how it’s written, and I love the trajectory of it.

I love Nichole Nordeman. She doesn’t do as much music anymore, but she wrote this book called Love Story. It came out 11 years ago, but I really love it. It’s about God’s love. The title is Love Story: The Hand that Holds Us from the Garden to the Gates. She’s one of my favorite songwriters, and the way that she tells the Bible story is incredibly innovative and captures me in those moments. It also makes me want to go and read the story from the text as well, which I always think is a good sign. Being reminded of God’s love is something that never gets old. That’s one that I’ll go and pick up every couple of months, read a chapter and be like, “Yeah, still got it,” and then put it back.

Certain things can be godsends, helping us survive, even thrive, in our fast-paced world. Does technology ever help you this way? Has an app ever boosted your spiritual growth? If so, how?

There’s an app called Dwell that I really like. They got me in the beginning because they have audio versions of the Bible that you can play music behind (which is scientifically proven to be beneficial). The second reason I love it is that the people reading the Bible are not known voices. I don’t mind hearing from a celebrity pastor, and I get it — I have influence and often do projects where I’m reading the Word, so I’m not against it. But I first heard about it because it featured everyday voices reading the Word. There was no bias or no distraction. There were a couple of other things, too, that were innovative. I think there’s a timer in the app, an alarm that gets set. I’m a huge tech person, so it’s crucial for me that it has those specific things, because I could listen to it while going to sleep or doing anything else. It has a mixer on it, too. You can adjust the levels of the voice to the music. I like all those details and find the app super helpful.

QUESTION #8: dream

God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?

I know my next project is going to be more of a worship project. I’ve done worship songs in the past, and I’ve been leading worship since I was 5. It’s a huge part of my life that I’ve always been open to when people ask it of me. If someone says, “We want Jamie Grace for our women’s conference. Can she also lead worship the next morning?” I’m like, “Yes, I would love to. Thank you.” You know, I’m always so pumped, but for the most part, my music is not congregational and it’s not Sunday morning music. I’m really excited to lean into that more and be more intentional with that.

I have been a little concerned because I know that making a worship album can sometimes be a career move. That’s always scared me because I never wanted to transform a calling into a career move. I’ve been in rooms where people said, “Well, hey, if this doesn’t work out, maybe we’ll do a worship album.” And so that’s always scared me. That’s a part of the business that I work in, which is an awkward mix of conversation. You’re talking to the men in suits about business and finance, and then all of a sudden someone’s reading a Scripture. That’s always made me nervous and apprehensive and pushed me further away from industry things.

At the same time, I know worship is something I really value. I had no intention of singing at my church when we joined. Mind you, it seats about 300 or 400, so they figured out pretty quickly that I was there. I sing on occasion there, and it’s been awesome. It’s been a blessing. I wouldn’t change it for anything. But it’s put more of a burden on my heart; I know that leading worship is something I want to do beyond one or two songs on a record. I want to make it a full project. That’s what’s coming up next.

“You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses,” Paul wrote to his protégé shortly before his death. “Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others” (2 Tim. 2:2, ESV).

Earlier, Jamie Grace shared how she felt burdened to pour into the next generation just as others had poured into her. Her goal is that, hopefully, the next generation can, in turn, pour into others, too.

Paul felt the same way. Like Jamie, he understood that the love of Jesus isn’t something that must only be preached to the masses — it also must be transferred heart by heart, generation to generation.

Who can you pour into in this season of your life and ministry? It doesn’t have to be fancy or formal. Maybe offering a Christ-centered listening ear to one of your children’s friends. Or going out to coffee with someone who’s in the same position you were in not too long ago.

This world needs you, friend. It’s time to pass on the love you’ve received.

Jamie Grace is a songwriter, artist and producer known for a style of music influenced by pop, Southern Gospel and early 2000s Christian music. She is a Dove Award winner and a Grammy and Billboard Awards nominee and recently surpassed over 140 million YouTube views, where her career started when she was a teenager. In 2023, Jamie Grace opened The Wonder Space, a recording studio in metro Atlanta, and self-produced her latest album, Dreamers. She also launched New Kids Choir to invest in the artistry and careers of the next generation of creatives. Her Fall tour is set for August and September 2025.