Hillsong UNITED wins Worship Album of the Year

Joel Houston shares the story behind one of the hit songs

Hillsong UNITED has picked up a Dove Award – equivalent to the Grammy Awards for Christian music – for Worship Album of the Year for its most recent album release.

PEOPLE was produced by Michael Guy Chislett and Joel Houston, who also features heavily in the album’s songwriting credits.

At a recent media conference, Eternity asked Joel Houston about the story behind the song Another in the Fire – a striking track from the award-winning album. He explained that co-writer Chris Davenport had the idea for the song when he and his wife were dealing with their new baby being diagnosed with autism.

“I think sometimes … we get really consumed with what’s happened yesterday and in the past… So it’s easy to believe in the God of the Bible or what God might do one day someday, but there’s this moment that we live in that’s all we have. And I think trust – which is a better word for faith, really – is what do you depend on, what’s your foundational place of trust? What does that look look in your day-to-day walk?

“The song is really just the story of ‘Okay, well, God was faithful then, so we’re going to believe he’s going to be faithful now and we’re going to believe he’s going to be faithful to the end.'”

“You can throw us in the fire and we believe that God’s going to save us, but even if he doesn’t, we’re not going to bow down.” – Joel Houston

Houston said song is inspired by the story in Daniel 3 of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – three Hebrew men who are thrown into a fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, when they refuse to bow down to the king’s image.

“But what I love is that where the story comes from is obviously about these three guys back in the day who were told they had to bow down and worship another idol or they were going to get thrown in the fire. And these three guys said, ‘Well, no, we’re not going to bow down to your idol, we’re not going to bow down to any other God but the one we believe in. So you can throw us in the fire and we believe that God’s going to save us, but even if he doesn’t, we’re not going to bow down.'”

The team from Hillsong church also picked up an award for Worship Song of the Year for Who You Say I Am by songwriting duo Ben Fielding and Reuben Morgan. It was a significant achievement for the pair who took out the same category ten years ago for their worship classic Mighty to Save.