It was do-or-die time for the future of Sanctus Real in December.

The Toledo-based Christian rock group had been beloved for more than 20 years, pumping out one hit after another, including “Lead Me,” “Forgiven,” “I’m Not Alright,” and “The Fight Song.” The 2005 album, Fight the Tide, won a Christian music Dove Award for Modern Rock Album of the Year. Sanctus Real was nominated multiple times for Grammy Awards.

But late last year, after wrapping up a self-funded album with new singer, Dustin Lolli, the group, which also includes Toledo Christian graduates Chris Rohman and Mark Graalman, was at a career-threatening crossroads. Longtime label, Sparrow, dropped the band when lead singer Matt Hammitt left the group in 2015 to focus on his family. There was no distribution deal. The money was running out.

“We knew we had done everything we could. We had poured our hearts into this album, but we didn’t know what was next,” Rohman said. “We had a conversation: ‘We made this record, and we feel good about it, but this might be it. We might not be able to continue.’ ”

Then, within 48 hours of that conversation, a representative from Provident, a division of Sony Music that focuses mainly on Christian music, called and said the label wanted to distribute the group’s music.

“Now, the album is distributed all over the world. That partnership solidified for us that we are supposed to keep plugging away at this,” Rohman said.

Thursday night, the group will headline a benefit at Grace United Methodist Church in Perrysburg for Bowling Green’s the Nest, which provides support and child care for parents looking to further their education. For many people in the community who have seen Rohman and Graalman grow up, it will be the first time they will see them performing beside Lolli.

Lolli was recommended to Rohman and Graalman by former bass player Jake Rye, who was a friend of Lolli’s. At the time, Lolli was a worship pastor in Walled Lake, Mich., in the Wixom area near Detroit. He and his wife, Sarah, were also the founders of James and June, a folk band that released an album, Chasing the Moon, in 2014.

There was no tryout, just a dinner and a chance to get to know one another. Rohman and Graalman still were not sure they wanted to continue the group without Hammitt, who had been a friend of theirs since childhood.

“Chris got to the point of continuing sooner than me. He is fearless,” Graalman said. “As we prayed about it, we felt a peace about it. But you need more than a peace. You need a freaking amazing lead singer. We didn’t go looking for anybody. It needed to be God dropping someone in our lap, and that’s kind of what happened.”

After the initial meeting, the guys invited Lolli into the writing process, which proved to him that he would have a voice in the direction of the group.

“I knew it was going to be something unique and not just a Sanctus Real cover. There was liberation in that,” Lolli said.

For the new group to gel, there was one more person who had to be on board.

“I wouldn’t be in this seat unless it was an absolute mutual agreement between my wife and I,” Lolli said. “She has borne the stress every bit as much as I have. And every day I wake up, she says to me, ‘This is what you are supposed to be doing.’ “

But, even with the vocal power and range of Lolli on board, many industry insiders will always identify Sanctus Real as being fronted by Hammitt. The process of recreating themselves involved forging new alliances in the writing community after many former partners decided to pass on the new direction of the group. Rohman and Lolli took multiple trips over the last two years, building relationships with writers and producers.

“We knew there would be people who would say no, even some of those people who we had worked with in the past, but that opened new doors for us,” Rohman said.

During one writing session, he and Lolli sat down with writer Matt Armstrong.

“We were talking about our lives and realized that we were all experiencing the same feelings,” Lolli said.

Those feelings were anxiety, doubt, and sagging self-confidence as the group faced the prospect of putting together an album with no financial support and a cadre of naysayers in the Christian music community.

“When you feel these heavy emotions, it’s easy to write a sad-sounding song, but as we were talking about where everyone was, there was this recurring theme of being a Christian and knowing we always have this hope and should have joy, even in the darkest situations,” Lolli said.

Armstrong started naming off Old Testament figures whose faith was put to the test by God. One of those figures was Daniel, who was cast into the lions’ den. The conversation became the introduction to the group’s new single, “Confidence.”

“It has become this anthemic, feel-good song, even though it was written by guys in the middle of real struggle,” Lolli said. “People are surprised to know that it was written when we were at maybe the lowest moment as a band.”

The reaction by Christian radio and fans of the band has been stunning. This week it passed more than 1 million streams on Spotify. It is at No. 17 on Billboard’s Christian Airplay chart, and has tested as a possible top-five hit.

“We needed that miracle song that was an undeniable hit. God gave us a gift with ‘Confidence,’ “ Graalman said. “That song is exactly what we needed. It is blowing doors open for us.”

The unexpected hit is the latest in a series of fortuitous events that the group has experienced in more than two decades of making music, from winning a WIOT-FM, 104.7 Battle of the Bands contest in Toledo in the late 1990s to landing a record deal when Chris and Mark handed out their CDs on a Nashville street corner. Each of the three agrees, however, that there is much more than good luck at work in their success.

“I remember the first time I got invited over to Chris’ house to meet his friends and to jam in his basement. He was 16. I was 18. He just had this Fender amp and a beat-up drum set. We started in his basement learning to play ‘Buddy Holly’ by Weezer,” Graalman said. “We came out of a church background, so it was always natural to talk about Jesus in our songs. There was more to the plan than we ever realized. God has taken this further than we ever thought possible. It’s 22 years later, and it’s still happening. It’s kind of nuts.”

Sanctus Real will be in concert at Grace United Methodist Church of Perrysburg on Thursday at 7 p.m. A VIP dinner and meet-and-greet with band members begins at 5 p.m. Those tickets and general admission tickets are available at eventbrite.com and will benefit The Nest in Bowling Green, which provides free child care for parents attempting to further their education.

Contact Brian Dugger at bdugger@theblade.com or on Twitter @DuggerBlade.

First Published July 27, 2018, 6:30 p.m.