"Not with music because it's a passion. I would still do it but, as an artist, and in this way — full time and on the run, doing these interviews, being away from home and church and family — I was really there (considering leaving). I started telling my church: "Pastor's backing out of the industry," gospel artist Smokie Norful said in an interview with the Associated Press. "And everybody, my parents were like '... Really be prayerful about that because we know that since you were born you have been called for this.' So eventually I came to a place where I said 'OK, everybody's not crazy, maybe I really need to rethink this thing.'"

Norful recently released Smokie Norful Live, which was recorded in Memphis and includes Heather Headley and Tye Tribbett. He is the senior pastor of Victory Cathedral Worship Center in the Chicago area.