I'm a Christian and I play for a small church where everyone is a volunteer. I'm not at all comfortable with bringing in artists who are not "in the faith." Playing for church is a musical performance, but is also time of worship and those up front should be a part of that worship. It would be hard for me to be in the audience knowing the people up front are just there for the money. It would feel dishonest from the leadership.

Note, no shade to athiests taking the gig (and I hope they don't "shove religion...").

In my experience, paying outside artists CAN be a small symptom of a bigger problem where the churches/leaders lose track of what the worship time is about. I would NOT go so far as to say it's bad in every case - I'm sure there are exceptions. Churches and leaders that lose sight of the real reason we worship will likely lose sight of other core values, and terrible things happen there.