Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Morning journey with Mark and Brittany. And we've got Phil Wickham with us this morning. Hello, Phil.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: Hey, guys. Good to be on. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:07] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks for joining us. You've got the concert coming up in Norfolk on March 27, and we're looking forward to that. You've been in the music industry a long time, and I was reading where you started actually leading worship at your church when you were 13.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: I started leading worship when I was 13 in my youth group at my church. My dad was the worship leader, and so maybe about a year later, I started leading worship with him. We called it big church, like in the sanctuary. But, yeah, from a very early age, I started playing guitar, and I always knew God, but I really found my relationship with God through music and through singing just in my room, you know, learning how to play worship songs. And I had no idea that, you know, strumming those chords and singing to Jesus was the foundation for what God was going to do, you know, for the next several decades of my life. Just bring in worship to places all around the country and the world. But, man, it has been the honor of a lifetime.
[00:01:07] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And music was something that you knew from an early age, but in 2014, you actually almost lost the chance to sing at all. What was that time like in your life when you had your vocal cord surgery and what did you learn about God's character and your faith through that?
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Well, that time was a little bit confusing and really depressing because I'm like.
I was like. I remember talking to God because at that moment, I had my first number one single that was being sung in churches all over the place. That week. It went number one. It's called this is Amazing Grace. And so that very same week, I got diagnosed with a polyp on my vocal cords and had to go through a pretty long, you know, several months, six month process of seeing. Seeing if it was going to go away, if I was silent for a month or trying to get certain. Then we got surgery, and the. The surgeon was saying, hey, get ready for a long uphill battle back to singing again. And in the whole midst of it, yeah, I was, like, a little bit nervous because that was my job and I need to provide for my family and all that. But I think more than anything, I felt just so discouraged because I realized later on that I was really leaning on the approval of man to let me know that I was doing a good job, that I was worth something, that I was valuable, not that I wanted for my ego. The applause of man, but just for my own sake, of like, okay, I have a reason to exist in this world. I'm valuable to people if I, you know, if I can lead them in worship, and if I can't do that, then what use do I have, you know?
And then in that silence, in that time after that surgery where I was feeling down in the dumps, God spoke to me in a really, really significant way.
And I'll make the story shorter, but in this moment, I had to write this letter to this conference I was supposed to play at, but I couldn't. They said, hey, our conference is identity.
And.
And so, just so you know, as you write a letter to let us know how to pray for you, we're going to be talking about identity. And when I read that text from my friend, I just felt like the Holy Spirit flood that room. And God, God in my heart asked me, you know, who are you? And I was like, I don't know, you know? And he said, who am I?
And I said, you're my father.
And this is all this internal dialogue I'm having, you know. And he said, well, what does that make you? It's like, oh, that makes me your child.
And in that moment, just a flood of so much a sense of being loved, of welcomed into the father's arms, of realizing that was my. My truest identity, of realizing that, like, I'm a set free, forgiven, resurrected, saved child of God. I sit at his family table and I don't need anything else to approve of me if the God of all creation approves of me, you know. And that really reshaped the rest of my life. That was over 10 years ago. And if you just even look at the songs I was writing and the kind of records I was putting out, I really shifted towards just wanting to simply lead the church in worship. And I started writing songs that were more in line with that, just serving the church because I wanted people to meet the same father that I had met in such a fresh way in that moment.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: What's it like for you to get feedback when somebody says or gets in touch with you and says, hey, this is what that song meant to me, and this is how God used it in my life?
[00:04:18] Speaker B: Well, it never gets old, that's for sure. I just put out my 10th album, and still to this day, I was leading at the Charlie Kirk Memorial with some friends and. And I was just. I had this song chorus that I had written in my heart. Just wish I remember thinking like, man, I wish I had finished this Song and I can play. I wish I could play this in this moment, in moments like this where it just recenters your heart on the power of God and how worship is a weapon against the darkness. And, you know, not just Charlie, but there's been so many things that we're face to face with as far as the darkness in this world. And that doesn't mean the darkness is getting bigger, but I think it does mean that our. That our news feed is right in the palm of our hand. And it's been stuff that's kind of been in our neighborhoods or our country, so to speak.
So I just want to inject the truth that the greater the storm, the louder our song will be. Battles may roar, but we sing from victory. Darkness will tremble, Prison walls are going to shake because fear has no power when we worship your name. It's beautiful stuff going on as far as the Lord moving, but also, like, just feels like things are spiraling and just to remember, like, oh, yes, like there's one above, above it all that holds it all in his hand. And it's just my job to trust him and worship him and let the battle belong to him. And when you kind of simplify it, it's just there's so much peace in that. The peace that passes understanding we find when we bring our cares to God.
And so it's been so sweet, story after story, comment after comment. Even this morning when I opened up Instagram and read a bunch of DMs, it's all about this new song.
Just people singing, singing it out, and videos of kids singing it out in their living rooms. And I'm just. And I'm just almost in tears just thinking, wow, what an honor it is to be the catalyst for this. These kind of moments in people's lives. Yeah.
[00:06:07] Speaker C: Yeah. I love that so much. And we're so grateful for you and other artists like you who spread that hope of Christ to others, especially in the midst of the chaos. And now I know that you personally read your DMs, so that's. That's a fun fact.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: Look at that.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: I don't. I don't read all of them, but I can't admit that. But I do open it up once in a while, usually after tour nights, because I want to see if anybody sent, like, some cool videos.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:06:28] Speaker C: Nice. Well, thank you so much, Phil, for joining us. Remember, tickets are on sale now for the Song of the Saints tour featuring Phil and Torrin Wells, Jamie McDonald. That's Friday, March 27, in Norfolk. And you can get tickets atmyjourney fm.com.
