Fifth, community means planting roots, learning people’s names, and volunteering, and it will “make your song richer and fuller,” Church said. Finally, the string of self speaks to each person’s originality. “You were made uniquely, wonderfully, distinctly,” the singer told graduates. “There’s a sound only you can make.”
Each string can get out of tune, Church warned, but “the difference between a life that sounds like music and a life that sounds like noise is whether you stop and listen.”
Church, who received North Carolina’s highest civilian award in 2022, runs a foundation that has delivered Bibles to Haiti and assisted orphans in Nepal.
‘The Best Commencement Speech I’ve Ever Heard’
Eric Church’s moving commencement speech went viral, with some people calling it “the best commencement speech I’ve ever heard.” One of those is conservative podcaster Isabel Brown, a longtime fan of Church’s music.
Brown emphasized the cultural significance of Church’s message. “Make no mistake about how important this speech really is,” she posted. Two years ago, she said, Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker “delivered a VERY similar commencement address at Benedictine College and was horribly ridiculed everywhere for it.”
According to Brown, “Culture has changed SO substantially in just 2 years that [Church’s] speech about faith, family, and freedom can be delivered at a PUBLIC university by a top charting musician. No doubt in my mind this is the Charlie Kirk effect.”
Kirk, a conservative influencer who was assassinated last fall, was Brown’s mentor.
