Members include James Bryson, keyboards- Nathan Cochran, bass- Barry Graul (joined group, 2003), guitar- Bart Millard, vocals, songwriter- Michael Scheuchzer, guitar- Robin (Robby) Shaffer, drums.

The song that propelled MercyMe to the top of the Christian music world and to wide crossover popularity consisted mostly of a series of questions. Lead see more vocalist Bart Millard reflected on what it would be like to meet Jesus face to face in heaven. Surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel?" he asked. "Will I dance for you, Jesus, or in awe of you be still? Will I stand in your presence, or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing hallelujah? Will I be able to speak at all?" Millard's own answer to those questions, "I can only imagine," became the hook to MercyMe's most successful song. "I have faith that Christ is real," Millard told Christian Reader. "Therefore, I ask him questions."

It was Millard's personal odyssey that lay at the center of MercyMe's music. Growing up in Greenville, Texas, he wasn't particularly musical. And though the family attended church regularly, his home life was anything but stable. He feared his father, Arthur, an often angry man. "It was a pretty dysfunctional family," he told Eyder Peralta of the Florida Times Union. "It's weird, because no matter how bad the home life was, you always went to church. It was almost like putting on a mask or something." His parents divorced when he was young, and he pursued sports as an outlet for his energy.

Millard liked the music of 1970s rock bands Kiss and the Electric Light Orchestra, and when he was about 13 he began to share with many other Christian teens an enthusiasm for the popular Christian rock stars Steven Curtis Chapman and Michael W. Smith. Performing music himself, however, never crossed his mind until he broke both his ankles on the football field and was forced to join his school choir because it was the only elective activity he could schedule. He complained about the situation, but music leaders in school and in his church noticed that he could sing well.

After his father was diagnosed with cancer, Millard's life was profoundly altered. His father embraced his Christian faith more fully and made peace with his family. "His heart completely changed and that completely changed our home life," Millard told Richard Vara of the Houston Chronicle. He was hit hard by his father's death, which occurred when he 18 years old and a freshman at East Texas State University.

A youth pastor at Millard's church felt that music might help the young man deal with his loss, and he invited Millard to move to Lakeland, Florida, to work with young people at a church that featured a band playing music in the then-quite-new praise and worship style---upbeat, participatory music played by a band and lightly infused with the beats of rock. Millard enjoyed the work and the interaction with other young Christian musicians. In 1994 he went on a missionary trip to Europe, leading worship groups composed of the children of United States military personnel. Another member of the mission was future MercyMe keyboardist Jim Bryson.

The reactions of the young audiences for whom Millard and Bryson performed made him begin to think seriously about a musical career. He and Bryson joined forces with guitarist Mike Scheuchzer from Millard's church in Florida, and by 1995 they had added bassist Nathan Cochran and drummer Robby Shaffer, to form MercyMe. The name, Millard told Vara, came from his grandmother's evaluation of his new career: "Mercy me, why don't you get a real job?" she asked.

Undone became the most successful album of MercyMe's career, dispelling any notion that the success of "I Can Only Imagine" was a one-time fluke. Although some Christian reviewers faulted the album for a lack of depth, it topped Christian music charts and rose to number 12 on Billboard's pop top 200---rare territory for a Christian album. With a Christmas album due in the fall of 2005 and a solo disc of hymns from Millard in the works, MercyMe was riding high. They continued, however, to put their Christian faith at the center of their efforts. "We're definitely trying to be the best musicians we can and put out the best 'product' that we can, if you want to say it that way," Cochran told the Grand Rapids Press. "But if people's lives aren't being affected and aren't being pointed to Christ, then we really haven't done our job.""