Graduate student’s song climbs Billboard chart

Two years ago, Liberty University student Travis Doucette composed a song that is now impacting people across the nation.

“God of the Ages” is the title track on the CD that was released Aug. 25 by Charles Billingsley, worship leader at Thomas Road Baptist Church. The song recently hit No. 14 on Billboard’s Christian Inspirational chart.

During the summer of 2007, Doucette, who is working on his M.A. in Music and Worship studies at Liberty, was at his home in Canada when he was inspired by the words he read in Colossians 1:15-18.

“As Paul describes the supremacy of Christ in this passage, the weight stirred something in my spirit,” he recalled. “The impact of these verses in my heart planted a desire in me to express the truth of God’s Word in a congregational song that was a declarative response to who God is.”

The song debuted in the spring of 2008 when Exodus, the ministry team Doucette served on, presented it in the school’s weekly convocation with LU Praise. It was also presented by Liberty’s Center for Worship at its end-of-the-year program at TRBC. During the program, Thomas Road pastor Jonathan Falwell was moved by the song and requested it be sung again at the closing. He later requested that Billingsley and the TRBC choir and orchestra present the song to the church family.

In February 2009, almost a full year after “God of the Ages” was first heard at Liberty, Billingsley decided to make it the title track of his new album. The night the album was recorded at TRBC, there were almost 400 people on the church platform worshipping the Lord through song.

“It was just an incredibly powerful evening of worship,” Billingsley said. “I guess our biggest concern was making sure that we captured that on this recording … that that beautiful spirit of the evening wasn’t taken away.”

“God of the Ages” continues to be a favorite song on Liberty Mountain.

“It’s just one of those songs [that] when you begin to sing it, there’s an anointing that falls on it,” Billingsley said. “It brings the people of God into the presence of God.”

Learn more about Doucette and hear his music at www.myspace.com/travisdoucette and www.twitter.com/travisdoucette. Contact him at trdoucette@liberty.edu.