The Fake Revival
How AI Worship is Duping the Church
It started in one of our weekly pastor meetings.
A friend queued up what he said was a new Jelly Roll worship track.
He leaned back, misty-eyed, and spoke of how the song moved him.
But something in me froze.
The voice wasn’t Jelly Roll’s.
The phrasing was off.
The choir sang words the lead didn’t.
The auto-tune sounded off to me.
Not everyone has trained ears, and if you’ve never messed with AI audio, you wouldn’t catch half of it. I don’t blame him (or the rest of the room, for that matter) for believing it was real.
I like to make up fantastic bedtime sagas for my boys, and sometimes in the mornings, I’ll create an AI soundtrack that recaps the story from the night before as we drive to school. I know my way around AI.
I’ve also worked with voices my whole life. I know a voice.
This wasn’t a man pouring out his soul in a song.
It was a machine pouring out code that was posing as a man.
🕵️♂️ The Investigation Begins
Later that night, I traced the song.
Turns out the “Jelly Roll worship song” was actually “When My Spirit Is Weak” by World Hive.
You can find it yourself right now on Apple Music and Spotify.
My Process
Check the credits:
“℗ 2025 10003372 Records DK.”
That’s DistroKid’s imprint — a self-serve distribution tool. Not a label. Not a producer. Just an upload portal for anyone with $20 and a Wi-Fi signal.
And the release date?
Saturday, September 27, 2025.
Not Friday (the global industry release day since 2015). Saturday. Out of rhythm. Out of order.
Then I opened the World hive artist page.
Dozens of singles. Different languages. Wildly different styles. Some even released on the same day. I found way more automation than artistry.
🎨 The Tell-Tale Signs of AI Worship
Look at me go, I made a table:
Once you know what to look for, you can spot the fakes pretty quickly.
⚠️ Why This Actually Matters
You might say, “So what? People were moved. God can use anything.”
But hold up.
If the foundation is built on deception, the structure can’t be stable.
You can’t build a move of God on a lie — even if the melody sounds holy.
That emotional moment you felt?
It wasn’t the Spirit. It was the science of dopamine.
AI has learned how to press the same emotional buttons that worship does — without the Spirit who gives them meaning.
This isn’t worship.
It’s the imitation of incarnation.
Sound without sacrifice.
Emotion without embodiment.
A shadow without the fire.
If you can’t name a living, breathing worshiper behind it, it doesn’t belong in your sanctuary.
🙏 The Heart of the Matter
Worship has never been about polish.
It’s about presence.
This is literally my “secret.” The special sauce that make my teams at churches, camps and conferences so good.
When it comes to choosing musicians for my teams, I choose heart over craft every single time. I don’t need Eric Clapton’s. Give me the mediocre guitar player that struggles with 6/8 but has a tried and tested overflowing heart of worship. The vocalist that can only sing melody but will joyfully show up early to help set up and smiles when they sing. The drummer that gets off of the click every now and then but sings at the top of their lungs the entire song. Give me them. Every time. Any day.
And no, that’s not a dis. Ask anyone on any of my teams and I’m pretty sure they know that about me already anyway. It’s actually the greatest compliment I could give them.
Here’s why: If I lost my ability to sing tomorrow, would I lose my ability to worship? Or if I lost an arm and couldn’t play an instrument anymore, would that make my offering of worship any less to God? Of course not. We know better.
My musical ability is not what makes me a worship minister.
My soul and who holds it is what makes me a worship minister.
So, pro-tip to my worship leaders: Value the contribution of their souls over their hands, because that’s what’s eternal. Everything physical will be made new someday, but our souls are forever.
When Abraham built an altar, he didn’t drag marble into the desert, he stacked what he had and offered it.
When David wrote his saddest psalms, he didn’t use his royal position, he used repentance.
When Jesus sang a hymn before going to the cross (Matthew 26:30), it wasn’t for a streaming release; it was surrender.
AI can copy sound.
It cannot copy offering, repentance and surrender.
Please hear me: None of this means that excellence in the craft of music doesn’t matter. It’s just a reminder that it’s secondary as worship ministers.
AI might mimic form—melody, chord progressions, textures—but it cannot offer a soul. It can only simulate devotion.
Even if your heart stirs, the foundation is hollow. People moved by a simulated worship song may end up building trust on a lie. When the next track by that same artist twists theology, the influence is already earned, and young Christians are more likely to believe them now. That’s the bait-and-switch of false worship.
Industry Is Waking Up (Slowly)
Spotify says it has removed 75 million “spammy” AI tracks in the past year.
Their new policies tighten rules on vocal impersonation, deepen content mismatch detection, and roll out a spam filter to demote mass uploads.
Spotify also makes clear: they are not banning AI music—they want responsible use and disclosure.
The scale is staggering: 75 million removed tracks is nearly comparable to Spotify’s existing catalog.
What we see in worship is a microcosm of a larger battle: algorithmic deception vs. genuine art. The church must not cede ground.
A Call to Discern
I know people cried over that fake Jelly Roll. I don’t deny the power of music to stir the heart. I’m actually writing about that next.
And anyone can get duped (I thought the IRS was sending me to jail once...). It happens. We learn and move on.
But the real issue is that worship is not just emotion, and we really need to dig deep to make sure that the emotions we are feeling are from the Holy Spirit. It’s truth offered, hearts surrendered, and God glorified, not machines copying what looks holy for dopamine hits.
If you lead worship arts or are responsible for what your people hear, be their filter. Let AI assist arrangement, translation, notation—but don’t let AI write, create or lead worship. The enemy loves the illusion of holiness without the cost of surrender.
We’re fighting a spiritual war inside streaming catalogs. The next fake worship track might shift theology, mislead a soul, or fracture trust in your congregation. I’m not saying that you have to be paranoid. This is just good pastoral care.
Let us lead our people to living praise, not algorithmic echoes.
Grace and Grit,
-Roscoe
So true!