What "It Really Is Amazing Grace" means
"It Really Is Amazing Grace" is a celebration of salvation by grace. It keeps John Newton's familiar hymn verses and adds a new chorus and bridge that answer them with joy, so the church affirms that the old hymn's claims about grace are still true. This page covers the studio single by Phil Wickham and Crowder, released in early 2026 with a choir on the recording. The new material is credited to Phil Wickham, Jonathan Smith and David Crowder, and Crowder also led the song at Passion 2026, so your team may hear a Passion live version as well.
It is a different song from Wickham's earlier "This Is Amazing Grace" and from Chris Tomlin's "Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)," which builds on the same hymn with its own chorus. Wickham has said the song reminds him how deeply he needs God's forgiveness and grace, and Crowder has spoken of the wonder of being rescued and redeemed.
Ephesians 2:1-10 supplies the frame: dead in sin, made alive by God's mercy, saved by grace through faith. The sections below follow that frame into a Sunday service.
What this song does in a room
Watch an older woman in the fourth row when the band starts the first verse. She has sung these words at funerals and at baptisms, and she knows them without looking at the screen. Then the new chorus arrives, louder and brighter, and she has a choice. She can fold her arms because the song changed, or she can join a younger generation celebrating the same grace she has trusted for decades.
That moment is the opportunity in this song. Multigenerational churches rarely get a place where both groups can stand inside one hymn. The familiar verses give older members confidence, and the new sections give younger members a way to answer them with energy.
It can go wrong in either direction. If the band treats the verses as a warm-up before the real song, the people who love Newton feel dismissed. If the band holds back when the new chorus arrives, the celebration never comes. Give each part its due.
What this song is saying about God
The theology is the theology of the hymn it builds on: salvation is God's work from start to finish. Newton, a former slave-ship captain, wrote out of his own experience of undeserved mercy, and the hymn has carried that confession for generations. Grace reaches people who could not reach God and gives what they could never earn.
Ephesians 2 states it plainly. People were dead in trespasses, and God, rich in mercy, made them alive with Christ. Paul then guards the point: salvation is by grace through faith, the gift of God, so that no one can boast. Paul calls himself the chief of sinners in 1 Timothy 1:15 and says his own rescue is a pattern for everyone who will believe.
The new sections add the response that grace produces. Thanksgiving, freedom and testimony follow from being found. A congregation singing them is doing what Ephesians 2:10 describes, living as God's workmanship, and joy is part of that life.
Scriptural backbone
Ephesians 2:4-5 is the heart of it: "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved)." Verses 8-9 complete the thought: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast."
Newton's best-known lines echo two Gospel scenes. In Luke 15:24 the father says of the prodigal son that he "was lost, and is found." In John 9:25 the healed man answers his questioners, "whereas I was blind, now I see." 1 Timothy 1:15 gives Paul's own testimony that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief." If you read one passage before the song, read Ephesians 2:1-10 straight through.
How to use it in a service
It works as an opener on a celebration Sunday, when you want the room on its feet from the first song and grounded in something it already knows. It also serves as a response after a sermon on grace, conversion or the prodigal son, and it fits naturally around baptisms and testimonies. Consider placing a short testimony of grace just before it and beginning the first verse quietly under the last sentence.
Do not sing it in the same set as another arrangement of Amazing Grace. Two versions of the same verses in one service blur together. If your church already sings "My Chains Are Gone," decide which version you will use for a season.
The Wickham and Crowder single and the Passion live recording are separate versions, so choose one for your team and teach it consistently.
Things to watch for as the worship leader
Watch the wording of the verses. Hymnals and recordings vary slightly in Newton's text, and older members may sing the version they learned as children. Put the words you are using on the screen and expect a few voices to differ.
Watch the handoff from hymn to chorus. The change of energy is the point of the song, and it needs to be clear. A count-off, a drum fill or a simple raised hand can tell the room something new is starting.
Check the range. The hymn verses and the new chorus may not sit in the same comfortable zone for your congregation, so test both with a few untrained voices before choosing a key.
Watch for repetition in the new sections. Decide in advance how many times you will sing them.
A note for the team behind you (techs, vocalists, band)
Keys players, consider a hymn-like piano setting for Newton's verses, with clear voicings that an older congregation recognizes. Drummers, try staying light or out through the first verse and arriving fully on the new chorus so the shift is unmistakable. Bass players, hold roots under the verses and add movement once the band opens up.
Vocalists, if you have a choir or a larger vocal team, bring them in on the later choruses; the recording leans on a choir, and a congregation hears that support as permission to sing louder. Techs, build separate scenes or snapshots for the hymn verses and the full-band sections, and make sure the lyric operator knows which version of the verses you are using.