Seeing the Forrest for the Trees: Lessons in Conviction From Forrest Frank’s Dove Awards Decision

Forrest Frank broke the Internet again, and this time, it involves one of the central events to modern Christian music culture: the Dove Awards. Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or just aren’t that online/locked into CCM discourse), you probably know what I’m referring to, but to make sure we’re all on the same page… here’s a brief overview of what happened and why people seem to care so much.

Some context

Who is Forrest Frank?

Don’t worry, I won’t spend too much time here, considering how intertwined this pop star has become with Christian popular culture, but I do think it is the right place to start. In short, Forrest Frank is a Christian artist that, over the past two years, has used his catchy modern pop instincts (hip-hop leaning production/catchy melodies), Christ-centered lyrics, and hyper-effective TikTok/IG Reel marketing strategies to quickly become one of the most beloved artists in faith spaces. You’ve likely heard music from his previous artist project known as SURFACES (including the viral song “Sunday Best”), but recently, he’s leaned heavily into making music for directly Christian audiences, crafting ever-present hits such as No Longer Bound, UP!, Good Day, YOUR WAY’S BETTER, and many more.

What are the Dove Awards?

Although Forrest made it clear that he was making a general statement on convictions around award shows as a whole (including the Grammy’s by name), his was made in response to people wondering about his lack of involvement in the Doves, so it is a major part of this discussion and worth making sure we all know what it is.

The Dove Awards is an annual award show specifically focused on highlighting “Christian artists” and art made by Christians for Christians. It is run by the Gospel Music Association, an organization that has been a major voice in the “Christian and Gospel” music industry, having been founded in 1964 when the commercialization of Christian music in the Evangelical world was in its early stages. As Contemporary Christian Music has spread in terms of reach and revenue, GMA and the Dove Awards have risen in tandem, remaining a central place that people in the industry look to as a source of authority on what is relevant and worth honoring. 

What did Forrest say?

Roughly a week ago as of the time of writing this, and right before the Dove Awards, Forrest posted an Instagram Reel that got a lot of people talking. It’s not a long video, so feel free to go watch it, but in short, Forrest spoke under a text box that read “convicted to not attend award shows for Christian music,” and explained why that was the case.

He started by making a general statement about living as a believer: “as Christian, it's hard to know where the line in the sand is or where to be in the world and not of the world.” He shared about how he has leaned into it, claiming to lean into being “in the world” through the way he dressed and the way his music sounds. After this, he stated that a personal conviction for how to be in the world and not of it is to refrain from participating in any award shows, choosing to avoid receiving awards for “something that is from Jesus and for Jesus.” After this line in the sand, Forrest closed out the video by stating that he was choosing to be an example to people in his abstinence from award shows, making the point that our true rewards are from God, not from man. Again, feel free to watch the video on his page, but if you don’t, this is pretty much verbatim what is being said.

How did people respond?

After this video was posted, many comments were left, both from general Forrest Frank followers and from many notable figures in Christian pop culture and worship music. Some left comments applauding his take, some said they appreciated it while still disagreeing, and many pushed back on his takes stated in the video. Feel free to scroll through his comment section and get a lay of the land here… there’s a lot of interesting points made!

Though the video went largely unaddressed during the actual award show, a few moments struck me as being related, if not directly resulting from Forrest’s video. In the beginning of the show, host and CCM star Tauren Wells laid out GMA’s intention in honoring Christian artists and art, making a Scripturally backed case for why God isn’t just ok with Christian award shows, He honors it. Though Forrest was not mentioned, and though I’m sure this monologue is said every year, I was sitting in the audience wondering if it was emphasized a little more considering the discourse that Forrest had invigorated. Most of the rest of the speeches and monologues steered clear of directly referencing the video, though a lot of people emphasized that Christ was at the center and received all of the glory from the award.

To my knowledge, there was only one speech that was almost undeniably aimed at Forrest Frank, that of country artist Jelly Roll. In his acceptance speech for Song of the Year for his song “Hard Fought Hallelujah” with Brandon Lake, Jelly spent most of his time giving a clear message encouraging Christians to go out and serve and share the Gospel with “the least of these,” a group of people that he made clear he identified with. It was a powerful message, so powerful that I missed his last statement, and only noticed after a few people pointed it out. At the end of his acceptance, he said the following: “I thank you for the Dove Awards, I think this thing is great… I thank God that I could see the forrest for the trees.” I’ll let you re-read that if you don’t see why I’m mentioning that… Yes, it seems that he intentionally slipped in a reference to Forrest in his words of admiration about the Dove Awards, a theory that has all but been confirmed by the comments he has left on Forrest’s posts, saying “Won't receive trophy for something from Jesus for Jesus but will take the profits from something from Jesus for Jesus. Maybe im missing something here lol.” In this speech and in the comments, Jelly made his stance clear: he was not a fan of Forrest’s thoughts.

Some thoughts

As stated before, a wide variety of opinions have been circulating, and many of them have shown respect for Forrest’s conviction and varying amounts of agreement on the take, but many Christian’s have pushed back on both the content and the nature of the video. Many people have reached out asking me what I think, and so in the rest of this article, I am going to wrestle with and lay out some of my thoughts on the whole ordeal. As always, I am a flawed person that gets things wrong, so I am in no way claiming that everything here is correct or that you have to agree with me. All I want to do here is to wrestle with a few of the ideas laid out in this scenario, and invite you to do your own wrestling.

TAKE #1: Forrest’s personal conviction about skipping awards is Biblically valid.

In Forrest’s video, he made it pretty clear that, at least in theory, his take was largely a personal conviction resulting from his own wrestling. Based on my understanding of a Biblical theology around “personal conviction,” I think this is very justified and worth applauding. As the above passages lay out (as well as the rest of Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 8/10, James 4:17, Colossians 2:16-17, and many others), the idea of sin is not always as black and white as people like to think, and often depends on an individual's circumstances and understandings (though to be clear, many things ARE black and white in Scripture). If Forrest believes that receiving a Christian award is sin, he is allowed to think that, as long as he is not despising or bringing down anyone that does. In the same way, in similar gray issues, anyone who disagrees can proceed, as long as they don’t tear someone down on the other side of the issue. A lot more can be said about this theological idea, and I invite you to go down the rabbit trail of these Scriptures, but in summary, Forrest’s personal conviction is respectable, and should be honored, even by those who might disagree. I saw some people do that well, and some not so much.

TAKE #2: There’s a real biblical case for honoring Christian art with awards.

These are two Scriptures that I saw frequently quoted in response to Forrest’s video when people were laying out why they think the Dove Awards DO honor God, and they hold a lot of weight in the discussion. As seen above, there is a Biblical mandate to show honor towards other believers, especially those who work hard for the kingdom. In that way, giving awards to Christians who have worked hard and created quality works for the Kingdom SHOULD be acknowledged and celebrated. Based on this, I believe that Christian award shows IN THEORY can be great ways to honor those Scriptures.

TAKE #3: There’s also a biblical case against awards when they feed idolatry.

Notice in the last paragraph that I emphasized the idea of award shows IN THEORY… I also think that there is a Scriptural basis for arguing that award shows IN PRACTICE can be directly anti-biblical depending on how they are handled. In Christianity, humility vs. pride is a very central distinction (ie. Jesus humbling himself to die a humiliating death he didn’t deserve). While we should be honoring people, the whole thing becomes sinful when people are doing the work for the sake of the awards, or put themselves on a pedestal to be worshipped instead of having a posture of worship and acknowledgement towards God. As with many other things, the line between sin and faithfulness seems to be way more about the heart than many would like to think. For ANY believer, it is NECESSARY that God is the one being highlighted and worshipped, not the person creating it.

TAKE #4: Forrest’s explanation blurred a personal conviction into a universal rule.

I respect and honor Forrest’s take, but in my opinion, his video did not communicate that conviction in an effective and honoring way. Though he did not directly call anyone sinful for attending an award show or receiving awards, it seemed implied to me. He started the video stating that Christians need to be in the world and not of it, and wrestle with where that line is. He then proceeded to state his personal conviction (as stated above, this in theory is great), and then goes on to talk about his reasoning for that conviction. It is in this reasoning that he seems to claim that award shows are “of the world” because he would be receiving an award for something that was from and for Jesus. In this explanation and the subsequent monologue about setting an example for people about the true reward, it seems to me that he is taking what was originally a personal conviction and elevating it to something that should be true of everyone.

This is a somewhat nuanced topic, so let me explain further by way of example. Personal conviction from Romans 14: “I have a personal conviction to only eat vegetables because that is a way I can honor God” Put that in contrast to generalized reasoning: “I have a personal conviction to only eat vegetables because anyone who eats vegetables is wrong.” Though the second example claims personal conviction, their reasoning contradicts the individuality of it.

Here’s an example of how I think Forrest could have handled his reasoning: “I am refraining from award shows because when I am on stage receiving awards, I have a tendency to make it about myself… by not participating, I am less tempted to feed my pride.”

We’re getting a little technical here, so feel free to read the Scriptures related to convictions and figure out how you feel about the whole thing, but in summary, I wish Forrest’s reasoning had felt less like a shot at award shows and people who attended, even if that shot was more implied than it was directly said.

TAKE #5: Forrest could’ve avoided the whole situation by not submitting for awards.

This take is less theological and more related to how music industry things work, but bear with me, because this is a really fascinating side of this conversation that has really stood out to me. Here’s how these award shows (Doves, Grammys, etc.) work… artists themselves (or their manager, label, team, whatever) have to submit their songs to be considered for awards. If they don’t, no harm done, they just won’t receive any awards, because they didn’t put themselves in the running.

What does that mean for this situation? Forrest’s easiest and cleanest way out of participating in the Doves would have been… to just not submit. If that had happened, he wouldn’t have been in the conversation, and this video wouldn’t have been needed in the first place. Problem solved, without creating a bunch of discourse and disagreement. So why did he submit in the first place, and why was this video posted? This leads to my next take:

TAKE #6: The post likely served conviction and marketing at the same time.

Before explaining this, I want to try to give Forrest the benefit of the doubt and address some other potential scenarios. Potentially, Forrest’s music was submitted before he had this personal revelation, in which case, it might have been too late to back out. Some might point out that someone else could have submitted Forrest’s awards without him knowing, but this feels unlikely considering that a large part of Forrest’s public persona is that he is independent and doesn’t have a massive team around him (ie. no label to submit for him). Assuming either of those situations are true, the reasoning of posting the video totally could’ve been solely for the sake of explaining the situation to those wondering why he wasn’t performing as he had last year.

Assuming ALL of those things are true though, I still believe that some percentage of posting this video was to latch himself to the discourse around the Doves and get people talking about him. By making a potentially controversial video about the Doves, plenty of people would view, comment, send, and respond to his take, leading to higher engagement on the post. It’s kind of genius from a marketing perspective: even while not being at the Doves, Forrest has managed to be the most talked about artist in relation to it. This is just a theory, so feel free to disagree, but when taken in consideration with his marketing prowess and a few other ethically debatable decisions in marketing in the past, it seems like something that he would potentially do.

TAKE #7: Influence raises the bar: Christians with platforms must choose words carefully.

In running this page, I’ve had to do a lot of wrestling with what I do and don’t post. The easy way for me to grow this page would be to post about everything even slightly controversial or scroll-stopping that happens in the space as soon as it happens. To add to the chaos by using click-baity headlines and controversy. There were multiple times during this Forrest Frank-centered situation, and a few other previous ones, where the easy thing would have been to mindlessly repost whatever I think would get people to click on what I post. I almost did a few times, until a friend invited me to prayerfully consider if what I am posting is providing clarity and peace vs. adding to the noise. And so I refrained until now, when a lot of the hype has died down, and only because I feel like God has given me something of value to add to the conversation.

Why am I sharing this? What does this have to do with Forrest Frank and what I’ve been saying? Well, I am sharing this to make the point that as believers, with whatever influence we have been given, we need to be very prayerful in WHAT we are communicating. Beyond that, I believe that God wants us to be just as intentional with the HOW we are communicating. As we close out, I want to set this up as an invitation to Forrest, to myself, and to any other believer with influence.

I think Forrest is doing a lot of good for the Kingdom, and it seems like his heart is in the right place, but I think there have been a few times where he has chosen to say/do things more to promote his music than to promote unity and goodness in the body of Christ, and this is, in my opinion, a good example of that. I love the conviction around award shows, and would probably land in the same place, but the holiness of that conviction goes out the window when it is used as a tool to stir up controversy for the sake of clicks. It might not seem like a big thing, but those in authority are called to extra scrutiny and caution, and Forrest is undeniably in a position of authority in the Church. I don’t think this post was a large moral failure, and I could be wrong with my interpretation, but either way, I think this whole situation is a fantastic place for Forrest to evaluate how careful he is with what he says and how he says it.

As we reach an end, I want to extend the same invitation to you. As Christians, we are representing Christ to anyone watching. When we argue with people in the comments, the world is watching. When we call people out, the world is watching. And when we choose humility and love instead of pride and anger, the world sees that too. The next time you disagree with someone’s conviction, be prayerful and careful to respond in love, because even if you don’t have a platform like Forrest’s, there are still people paying attention.