Award-winning musical artist Phil Wickham spends day at Liberty, debuts music written during pandemic

Award-winning songwriter and recording artist Phil Wickham returned to Liberty University’s campus for a full day with students on Wednesday, performing and speaking in the morning’s virtual Convocation and at Campus Community in Williams Stadium in the evening.

Liberty’s Senior Vice President for Spiritual Development David Nasser noted in Convocation that the well-known Christian artist has become a familiar guest to campus over recent years after having appeared in Convocation multiple times and working with members of the Liberty Worship Collective to write original songs. Wickham later met with the Collective to mentor them in creating new music.

“I think a testament of the reason that we have you back so often is that when you come in you’re not just interested in being on our stage, you’re interested in building and developing relationships with our students,” Nasser said.

Wickham won the Dove Award for “Worship Recorded Song of the Year” last year for his song “Living Hope.”

Wickham’s previous visit to Convocation came in October of 2019, in which he and his brother, Evan, pastor of Park Hill Church in San Diego, spoke about the concept of brotherhood and cultivating healthy relationships within families. Reflecting on that conversation last fall, Wickham said the open and honest time turned out to be a form of therapy for them in their sibling relationship and they experienced a deepening of their bond.

As a songwriter and performer who likes to keep a full itinerary, Wickham said that like many other musical artists, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic caused him to reevaluate his approach to life and work.

“Ever since I was 18 or even earlier, my whole life has revolved around filling up the calendar (with tours and work),” Wickham said. “To completely swipe the calendar clean, there was a little bit of anxiety there of (asking) ‘What do I do? What’s my place in the world now?’”

With no traveling and increased time spent at home with his wife and children, Wickham explained that this new routine has allowed him to better connect with his family.

“It’s been very healthy for my marriage … and now looking back I’m so thankful for the closeness this year has brought for me and my family,” he said. “I had to relearn how to be more thoughtful, more selfless in situations, and I came out the other side respecting (my wife) even more and vice versa.”

Wickham has spent his free time songwriting and finding ways to use his musical ability and Christian faith to create songs that can share Jesus’ peace and wisdom in response to the anxieties and fears that the world is facing.

“For any artist, songwriter, painter, you’re responding to culture and responding to your own circumstances, and this year has given a lot of new cultural circumstances that we’ve never gone through before to respond to,” Wickham said.

During Convocation, Wickham debuted his new song, “Hymn of Heaven,” which he explained is meant to help Christians focus on God rather than the flawed societies around them.

“2020 has made me say, ‘I cannot wait for the day when we are looking not at a man, an ideology, or whatever is a (perceived) king of this world; we’re looking at Jesus as the King of this world,’” Wickham said.

The Liberty Worship Collective joined Wickham in leading worship at Campus Community, playing “Hymn of Heaven” among other several of his hit songs such as “Living Hope,” “This Is Amazing Grace,” and “Battle Belongs” in front of roughly 3,700 students, all socially distanced in the stands and on the field, and to thousands more watching online. In between songs, Wickham expressed his gratitude and renewed appreciation for being able to lead worship once again in person, after so many months of not being able to due to COVID-19.

“I haven’t been out much this year, and now I’m realizing how much I took these moments for granted,” Wickham said.

View videos of Wednesday’s Convocation and Campus Community on Liberty’s Office of Spiritual Development Facebook page.