With its lyrics, music and style, Petra influenced numerous other artists at a time when Christian rock experienced strong opposition from many conservative pastors and churches.

Among Volz's songs was a cover of the Argent anthem "God Gave Rock and Roll to You", which Myrrh had hoped to release as a radio single to the secular market.

[19] Instead Hartman met Mark Kelly, a former lead vocalist and bassist for the band One Accord, and keyboardist John Slick at a Bible study and, after setting up a jam session, hired them to join him and Volz.

[16] Sporting a heavier, more polished sound in the vein of Foreigner, Styx or Kansas, Never Say Die became the breakthrough album for which the band and its label had hoped, receiving rave reviews.

Under Hollingsworth's tutelage, the band refined its live performances, its members dressing in camouflage to emphasize the spiritual warfare theme recalled by Never Say Die's artwork, which featured an ocean war setting with an electric guitar doubling as an aircraft carrier.

[27] Shortly after recording Never Say Die, Petra hired Louie Weaver, previously a drummer for early Christian rock acts Randy Matthews and Fireworks.

The band's touring lineup was set, and Petra went on the road for 300 days in 1982, playing 162 shows, stopping only for the five weeks it took to record the follow-up album, More Power To Ya, that summer.

[38] Headlining for the first time, Petra poured resources into creating a concert experience as dynamic as any secular rock band, using numerous lights, stage effects and costumes.

[40] Beat the System was released in 1985, and it featured a dramatic departure from Petra's previous style, emphasizing keyboards, electronic drums and computerized sound effects.

The message seemed in part a response to the attacks lobbed against the band by preachers and televangelists, especially Jimmy Swaggart, who denounced rock music in general – and Petra in particular – as tools of the devil.

[61] As Petra's popularity built still further, the band expanded their reach by sponsoring children through Compassion International and advocating for a Constitutional amendment allowing prayer in public schools.

The film garnered the band its first Dove award, for Long Form Music Video of the Year in 1990,[65] and its fifth consecutive Grammy nomination for its studio offerings.

Touring with the popular McDowell bought Petra credibility with youth leaders and church pastors, who were impressed by the speaker's forceful defense of Christian rock music.

[68] Seeking to build on that growing influence, Hartman and Schlitt turned to youth ministers directly at a conference in California, asking them how Petra could better aid their ministries.

"[73] The band also, for the first time, drew from a handful of local non-accredited artists such as John Wayfield (percussion), Adam Lawson (keyboards) and Mark Strumford (guitar) during the album's recording.

[77] More historically, the Gospel Music Association for the first time honored a rock band as Group of the Year, as Petra beat contemporary artists 4HIM, First Call, Take 6 and BeBe & CeCe Winans.

Seeking a way to change directions musically, the band and its producers for their next album hired an outside engineer for the first time, bringing in Neil Kernon, who had previously worked with Kansas, Elton John and Peter Gabriel.

The reason for the change was purely practical: the band, now consisting largely of middle-aged fathers living in Nashville, did not want to travel to California, where the Elefantes were based, to record an album.

[88] Wake Up Call as a result was the band's first significant shift from the style of the 1980s, featuring fewer driving rock tracks and favoring instead midtempo songs and ballads.

The new lineup set to recording No Doubt, a concerted effort to reach a younger audience no longer interested in the driving hard rock that had made the band the biggest in Christian music.

Schlitt said Cates cited fatigue with the touring lifestyle, but that he fired Lichens and Cooper over differences about the band's musical direction and unhappiness with the possibility of recording a second praise album.

[105] Though it garnered some positive reviews – HM Magazine for one said "these stripped-down rockers sound pretty good" – the album was largely rejected by critics and fans alike, and it sold fewer than 40,000 copies.

After a lengthy label search, Petra was signed by Inpop Records, then just two years old and founded by Newsboys lead singer Peter Furler, an admirer of the band.

[109] Inpop assigned former Sonicflood members Dwayne Larring and Jason Halbert to produce a third praise-and-worship album, to be called Revival – a none-too-subtle reference to the label's hopes for Petra's career.

Additionally, the label focused its packaging solely on the band's three most famous members, convincing Hartman, who still was not touring but had never stopped writing and playing guitar in the studio, to join Schlitt and Weaver as the label-marketed version of Petra.

[110] CCM Magazine described the album as a "cage match pitting Aerosmith against Third Day," and several reviewers praised the band's modern-rock rendition of the classic hymn "Amazing Grace".

[122] As a final sendoff, Petra recorded its show in Franklin, Tennessee, on October 4, which included special appearances by Volz and Lawry, each performing on a handful of songs from his tenure with the band.

[123] Petra's last performance began December 31, 2005, in Murphy, North Carolina, and ended shortly after midnight, January 1, 2006, nearly 34 years after Hartman founded the band.

[124] Schlitt and Hartman, after arranging worship music together for a youth retreat, reunited for an independently released praise-and-worship CD in 2007, calling themselves II Guys from Petra and titling their album Vertical Expressions.

The award was presented during a ceremony held at Hillwood Country Club in Nashville, Tennessee, attended by band founder Bob Hartman, and members Schlitt, Bailey, Borneo, and keyboardist John Lawry.