Todd Tilghman may have left his role as a pastor in Meridian, Mississippi to move to Tennessee and pursue music full-time, but he is still very much involved in ministry. The father of eight says sharing the gospel is still just as important to him as ever, even if the way he delivers the message is different.

“It’s almost like I’m trying to smuggle the message in,” Tilghman tells Everything Nash. “Like ‘In a Heartache‘ —  you love people, but it’s hard. Loving people is hard, but it’s worth it in the end. So if I had to do it all over again, I would. It’s also one of the main conversations that I’ve had with a lot of people. Especially if you look at country music — if a country artist comes out and says they’re Christian, the church goes nuts. But if a Christian person says they’re going to be a country artist, it’s like, ‘Hmm.'”

Tilghman might be a country artist, but he has a firm line drawn in the sand of what he will, and won’t, sing about.

“I’ve had a lot of opportunities to build my own faith and be ministered to by others, and also  minister to other people, and share love with other people that’s just behind the scenes,” the Season 18 winner of The Voice shares. “So I don’t have any intentions at all of ever singing, especially certainly not writing, but I’ll never even sing anything that I would find to go against the core beliefs of who I am.”

Not only is Tilghman carefully choosing what he will sing about, but he is also adamant that his Christian beliefs will still be evident in who he is, as an artist and a person.

“I feel like every person has their own ideas, and everybody has their own way of looking at the world, but we just have to be careful not to get this one lens that we look — even with our faith –and we refuse to look at it any other way,” Tilghman urges. “You can read some of the quotes that people in the church used to say with the hymns, and they were like, ‘That sounds like the honky tonks. So I don’t know if I’m balancing it in my faith and my music. I think my faith is in my music, just in a different way.”

Tilghman just released his new single, “Jesus and You.” The video, shot in Meridian, will be out on Friday, March 26. Download the single here.