{"id":24887,"date":"2026-05-17T10:45:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T10:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/?p=24887"},"modified":"2026-05-17T10:45:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T10:45:31","slug":"eric-church-brings-unc-chapel-hill-graduates-to-tears-with-deeply-emotional-commencement-speech-about-faith-family-and-the-american-spirit-as-parents-hold-back-tears-hearing-his-powerful-message-abo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/?p=24887","title":{"rendered":"Eric Church Brings UNC Chapel Hill Graduates To Tears With Deeply Emotional Commencement Speech About Faith, Family, And The American Spirit As Parents Hold Back Tears Hearing His Powerful Message About Strength, Sacrifice, And Never Losing Hope In The Middle Of Life\u2019s Hardest Battles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Country singer-songwriter Eric Church is receiving kudos, not for new music, but for his faith-filled commencement\u00a0speech\u00a0at the\u00a0<strong>University of North Carolina Chapel Hill<\/strong>. At the May 9 ceremony, Church used his guitar\u2019s six strings to represent six pillars of life.<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-3\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-24888\" src=\"https:\/\/grow24.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1-11-240x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/grow24.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1-11-240x300.jpg 240w, https:\/\/grow24.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1-11-819x1024.jpg 819w, https:\/\/grow24.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1-11-768x960.jpg 768w, https:\/\/grow24.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1-11.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Faith is the foundation, he told graduates, urging them to nurture it \u201cnot just when you\u2019re broken but when you\u2019re whole.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 14-minute speech took Church months to write, he admitted. On \u201cFox and Friends\u201d Friday (May 15), the musician recalled experiencing extreme frustration and writer\u2019s block. After picking up his guitar one night, Church was inspired by its six strings, which he compared to the pillars of faith, family, spouse, ambition, community, and self.<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-4\"><\/div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pSYEDc7-Ah0?si=75q1b7jGLHawYdRM\" width=\"350\" height=\"235\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Eric Church: Faith Is the \u2018Foundation\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Country music star Eric Church, 49, began his UNC commencement speech by emphasizing that all six strings of a guitar and life must be in tune. \u201cIf even one is off, the whole chord unravels,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-5\"><\/div>\n<p>The first string, low E, is \u201cyour foundation,\u201d Church told graduates, because it\u2019s the thickest and heaviest, and every other chord relies on that string being in tune. \u201cYour faith is the low E of your life. The thing that sits at the very bottom of you,\u201d he said. \u201cYour belief about what this life is for, what you owe, what holds the universe together, when science reaches the edge of its own explanation and shrugs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Church continued, \u201cThe people who tend to their faith in ordinary seasons do not come undone in extraordinary ones. They still hurt. They still sit in hospital waiting rooms asking unanswerable questions at 3 in the morning. But they have a foundation to return to.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-6\"><\/div>\n<p>After warning that \u201cthe world will try to untune this string through busyness,\u201d Church told listeners, \u201cTend to your faith. Not just when you\u2019re broken but when you\u2019re whole.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The second string of family is vital every day, not just for holidays, Church said. Next, he called choosing a spouse \u201cthe most important decision you will ever make outside of your faith.\u201d The fourth string, ambition, requires perseverance after failure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Country singer-songwriter Eric Church is receiving kudos, not for new music, but for his faith-filled commencement\u00a0speech\u00a0at the\u00a0University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. At the May 9 ceremony,&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24889,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24887"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24890,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24887\/revisions\/24890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}