Phil Wickham Keeps Looking Up
Two decades in, the songs are still pointed at scale — and the writing keeps getting plainer.
There is a category of worship song whose only job is to describe size. Phil Wickham has been writing in it for most of his career, and “What An Awesome God” is the current example.
The interesting document is the voice memo version released alongside it. Strip the production and most of the song survives, which is the only real test of congregational writing. The melody carries. The words fit the breath. Nothing important was living in the reverb.
Restlessness
“Homesick For Heaven” is the outlier — less settled, more unresolved, closer to complaint than to praise. It suggests a writer who has noticed that constant awe is not a full emotional vocabulary.
Straight to the text
“Psalm 8 (Hallé)” handles scripture as lyric rather than citation, which is harder than it sounds. Most scripture-forward writing ends up quoting; this one paraphrases into singable English and keeps the original's logic — small human, large sky, unreasonable dignity.
The live “So So Good” with Brandon Lake and Elevation Worship confirms the durability. Put these songs in a room with other catalogues and they do not shrink.
