Katy Perry’s father, an evangelist, is asking people to pray for his daughter

Pop singer Katy Perry might not resemble the girl her parents — both evangelists — raised, but they’re urging people to pray for her rather than judge her.

“I want you to pray for my daughter,” Perry’s father, Keith Hudson, recently said. He and his wife, Mary, were speaking at the Church of Grace in Yorba Linda, California, CBN News reported. “Don’t judge her, pray for her.”

Perry, whose birth name is Katheryn Hudson, recently released an extremely explicit new single — “Bon Appétit” — and told Nova's Smallzy's Surgery radio show that she and her parents just have to “agree to disagree” about her musical decisions.

“The thing about it is, which is such a weird thing, to really understand we agree to disagree, but still with loving space,” she said. “We all come from different places. ... You can have your belief system, nobody is telling you to not believe your beliefs, but you can also come from a space of love. That’s what my family and I exercise all the time.”

In 2013, Perry, who started her music career as a gospel singer before turning to the secular industry at the age of 17, told Marie Claire that she has rejected the Christian faith she was raised to embrace.

“I’m not Christian, but I still feel like I have a deep connection with God,” Perry explained. “I pray all the time — for self-control, for humility.”

“I don’t believe in a heaven or a hell or an old man sitting on a throne,” she said. “I believe in a higher power bigger than me because that keeps me accountable.”

And in an interview earlier this year with Vogue, Perry described herself as her parents’ “black sheep,” saying she grew up sheltered from popular culture in “a bubble beyond the bubble.”

Mary Hudson recently told Charisma News that it’s difficult to see her daughter continue to move away from her Christian upbringing. In fact, when she was pregnant with Perry, Mary Hudson said she would often pray over her daughter, declaring: “This child will do something great for God.”

And when Perry started singing in church as a child, her mother said her “anointing for worship was incredible,” adding that “people would just weep” when she performed.

But things have changed a lot since Perry’s childhood years.

“I get a lot of negative vibes,” Mary Hudson said of her 32-year-old daughter today. “People ask us, ‘How could you have a daughter like that?’ ... The devil definitely tries to steal my joy. I sometimes have to fight depression.”

Regardless, Mary Hudson said it’s important to continue to reach out to her prodigal daughter because “it’s only the love of God that will bring them back.”

“Don’t cut them off. You have to rise above your feelings. You must stay in communication,” she said, speaking to parents who might be in a similar situation.