Steve Camp, the Grammy-nominated Christian singer-songwriter and pastor who urged the contemporary Christian music industry to take its ministry seriously, died Wednesday, Nov. 11, following a battle with heart failure, according to a family statement reported by ChurchLeaders. He was 71.
Camp's family announced his death "with heavy hearts, yet great hope in Christ." They remembered him as a husband, father and grandfather who spent more than five decades proclaiming the gospel through music, preaching and personal ministry.
Camp released his debut album, Sayin' It with Love, in 1978. He went on to record Fire and Ice, Shake Me to Wake Me and Justice, building a catalogue that his official biography credits with 15 No. 1 songs and more than 40 Top 10 hits. In 1985, "Love's Not a Feeling" earned him a Grammy nomination for best gospel performance by a duo or group.
Camp also used his platform to raise money for people facing hunger. In 1985, he co-wrote and helped produce "Do Something Now," a benefit single recorded by 65 Christian artists to support famine relief in Africa through Compassion International. He later helped lead AIDS Crisis and Christians Today, an outreach to people living with AIDS.
Camp's most direct challenge to Christian music came in writing. On Reformation Day in 1997, according to his ministry website, he released 107 theses calling for reform in Christian music and publishing. Taking his cue from Martin Luther, Camp urged artists to ground their work in Scripture, remain accountable to their local churches and bring the same moral standards to their business dealings that they professed in their songs. He included himself in the criticism, acknowledging shortcomings in the music and theology of his early songwriting.
In 1998, Camp became an associate pastor at Grace Community Church at John MacArthur's invitation. He was ordained as senior pastor of The Cross in Florida in 2009. He continued to make music during his years in ministry, returning in 2024 with Neighbors in an Age of Rage, a 27-track album and his first full-length studio release in more than two decades.
Camp's legacy reaches from the Christian radio hits that made him a familiar voice to the harder questions he put to the artists and companies behind them. He asked what their songs taught about Christ and whether their conduct bore out what they sang. His family pointed to Acts 20:24 and 2 Corinthians 4:5 as the passages that shaped his life. The first speaks of finishing the work of bearing witness to God's grace. The second puts Jesus Christ at the center of what Christians proclaim. In their grief, the family said they took comfort in knowing that Steve had "finished his race."
