What "Still Growing Still Trusting" means
Steven Curtis Chapman has written more songs about the long arc of the Christian life than almost any other artist in contemporary Christian music, and "Still Growing Still Trusting" sits in that tradition. The title is a double declaration with a double "still": still growing, still trusting. Both halves matter. Still growing implies that the person singing is not finished, has not arrived, is truly in process. Still trusting implies that the process has been difficult enough that trust has been tested and renewed rather than simply assumed. The tags tell the story: aging, faith, contemporary, life-transitions, growth. At 75 BPM in G, this is the slowest tempo in batch 04, and that pace is appropriate for a song about the long view. This is not a song for a congregation sprinting toward something. It is a song for a congregation that has been running for a long time and knows what the long miles feel like, and it is for them that Chapman writes with the most authority.
What this song does in a room
Songs about aging and long faithfulness are rare in contemporary worship, which skews heavily toward youth-oriented aesthetics and themes of first love and fresh start. "Still Growing Still Trusting" occupies a different register: it honors the person who has been following Jesus for thirty years and is still in it, still learning, still being changed, still choosing trust even when trust is not the easiest option available. For older congregants, this song is a form of recognition that their continued presence in the faith is itself a theological statement worth making. For younger congregants, it provides a picture of what sustained faith looks like, which is something they rarely see named in a worship song. The worship library needs both the beginning and the long middle, and this song occupies the long middle with honesty and warmth.
What this song is saying about God
The God of this song is the God who is patient with the long process of growth. Not a God who expects instantaneous transformation, but a God who is at work in the cumulative, the gradual, the slow. That is a pastoral claim of significant importance in a Christian culture that often implicitly suggests that spiritual growth should be dramatic and visible. Chapman's song is saying that the God who started the work is still doing it, that the decades of following are not a failure to arrive but a participation in a divine process that operates on a longer timeline than the congregation can see. Growth and trust, both at the same time, both still in progress, both honored by the God who initiated them.
Scriptural backbone
Philippians 1:6 is the direct foundation: "Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." The confidence is grounded not in human progress but in divine initiation: God started the work, and God finishes it. That removes the anxiety of slow growth. Proverbs 4:18 carries the growing-light image: "The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day." 2 Corinthians 3:18 holds the process of transformation: "And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
How to use it in a service
This song belongs in services that are honoring longevity in faith: church anniversaries, retirement Sundays, services honoring long-serving volunteers or elders, funerals that celebrate a life of faithful following, or intergenerational services where you want to honor the older members of the congregation for the witness of their continued growth. It also works in a series on spiritual formation, particularly one that takes the long view rather than the quick-transformation narrative. Consider using it alongside testimony from someone in the congregation who has been following Jesus for decades and can speak to what still growing and still trusting looks like from the inside. That voice, paired with this song, will do more pastoral work than either one alone. Testimony and song together form one of the most durable teaching combinations the church has ever had. Both are older than the printing press, and both still work well.
Things to watch for as the worship leader
Leading a song about aging and long faithfulness requires a certain kind of pastoral attentiveness to who is in the room. Younger congregants may not immediately connect with the aging dimension. Be explicit in your framing that this song is not only for the elderly: everyone in the room is on a trajectory that leads toward the later stages of life, and the posture of still growing and still trusting is one worth adopting early. Also watch for the tendency to rush this song. At 75 BPM it is already the slowest song in most sets, and the temptation is to push the tempo. Resist it. The pace of this song is part of what it is saying about the slow work of grace.
A note for the team behind you (techs, vocalists, band)
At 75 BPM in G, this song calls for a gentle, guitar-and-piano arrangement that honors the reflective character of the lyric. The drums should be subtle, brushes rather than sticks if possible, providing texture without driving. The vocal blend should be warm and layered, building gradually to convey the sense of a community that has been walking together for a long time. Background vocalists should enter slowly, one voice adding to another, so that the song arrives at its fullest texture only in the final chorus. Lighting should be warm and low throughout, intimate rather than dramatic. This is a song for the middle of a long journey, not a song for the finish line, and the room should feel exactly like that.