[ WM ] With over a million plays on You Tube , the title track from your new album Living Hope is clearly resonating with people . Noting that Brian Johnson has been leading this song at Bethel since he co-wrote it with you , “ Living Hope ” is also speaking to congregations . Before you became known as Phil Wickham the recording artist , you effectively grew up leading worship at your home church and other congregations in Southern California . The context for this record is different in that you are once again leading worship at a church and many of the songs reflect your response to being an active part of a worship team . Can you trace the steps of how this happened ?
[ Phil Wickham ] There ’ s a church called Harvest Christian Fellowship , and the pastors name is Greg Laurie . He ’ s an amazing evangelist , and he does this thing called the Harvest Crusade every year at Anaheim stadium . Millions of people have responded to the Gospel through Greg ’ s ministry . Growing up in Southern California , I ’ ve been a part of those events for a long time . I remember being at the first one when I was five years old and my parents actually sang at it . So , full circle , I am now the worship leader at these events . About two years ago , the church asked if I wanted to be a part of the normal worship community gathering at their services . After some prayer , I agreed .
So , about two times a month I lead worship at Harvest Christian Fellowship . I thought it would be cool to be home a little more , to team up with Greg a little , but then this really special thing happened in my heart where I started loving the people and this community and I started to want to write songs for the community . For the first time since I was in high school I was one of the regular worship leaders for a local church . My whole life since I graduated from high school has been traveling and on the road and touring and being a worship leader for the greater church . But having a community in mind when I wrote “ Living Hope ” or some of the other songs on the record , I wondered if it would work at Harvest . The writing process of
this record went from , “ What is my expression church ; songs like “ Living Hope ” and “ Christ and what is God showing me ?” to , “ What is is Risen ” and “ Great Things ” among several God doing in our local church , what songs are others . I can ’ t wait to see how God chooses to we looking to sing , what kind of scriptures are use these songs outside of my local church . If we going over ?” and it was so refreshing and there was anything different about writing and life-giving . recording this album , it was that it was more of a community effort than a personal , artistic We ’ ve probably been doing nine of the songs effort . on the new record at Harvest for the last year , and they ’ ve been tried and true . To have a [ WM ] The YouTube video for “ This Is Amazing group of people where I could bring in these Grace ” came out on November 13 , 2013 ! That new songs and see what worked and what song is still # 3 on the CCLI Top 100 , and with didn ’ t , was so good . This record , more than the exception of “ The Lion and the Lamb ”, any other , is a corporate worship record . It ’ s it is the only up-tempo song in their top ten . been so cool to have these new songs for our Looking from ‘ the inside out ’ as the songwriter ,
“ Living Hope ” // Phil Wickham “ This Is Amazing Grace ” // Phil Wickham
August 2018 WorshipMusician . com
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