He walked into his audition and turned it into a church service. Now he is five steps from the American Idol title.
On the April 27 episode of American Idol, the Top 7 performed songs from Taylor Swift's catalog in a live vote that revealed the season's Top 5. When the results were announced, Jordan McCullough was still standing.
McCullough, 27, is a worship director at Zeal Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee - less than an hour from Nashville - and has been singing in church since he was four years old. He is not a musician who happens to be a Christian. He is a church worship leader who decided the platform was worth chasing - and brought everything he believed onto a national stage to prove it.
His audition set the tone for his entire run. He walked in and told the judges, "We're going to bring the choir stand here," then performed "Goodness of God" - the Bethel Music anthem famously covered by CeCe Winans - to a standing ovation from all three judges. Lionel Richie told him his stage presence was "mesmerizing," while Carrie Underwood told him plainly: "You have been given an incredible gift."
On Taylor Swift Night, McCullough opened the show performing Swift's very first single, "Tim McGraw," and later performed Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me" - drawing Richie near tears and prompting Underwood to call his voice one of the best she had ever heard on the Idol stage.
He has never hidden what drives him. "My faith and my belief in Christianity are always going to be the foundation," McCullough told Parade. "But I'm open to singing multiple genres of music and releasing music that just inspires." That is exactly the posture that has carried him - not performing faith, but singing from it so naturally that even a room full of skeptics cannot look away.
Earlier in the season, McCullough described a faith-themed episode as "a full-on worship service," saying of his presence on the show: "If I am the church, I can go and bring it to them."
The American Idol finale airs May 11 on ABC. Next week, the Top 5 will be mentored by Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul - two of the original Idol judges - in what promises to be one of the most nostalgic episodes of the season.
Jordan McCullough is not just a contestant worth watching. He is a worship leader carrying the sound of the Church into one of the biggest entertainment platforms in America - and right now, he is three performances from winning it all.
