Living Hope – Virtual Orchestra

Like most church orchestras in this season of quarantine, the Orchestra at Houston’s First has been unable to gather together with all players present since March. In the interim we’ve been able to gather virtually to meet, pray, and encourage each other, and those times are important in maintaining the family atmosphere that we’ve previously enjoyed in person on Wednesdays and Sundays. But making music together in worship is our ministry and boy do we miss it. There are so many lessons the Lord has shown us in this season, but I think we’d all agree that we have a new perspective on what a privilege it is for believers to gather in worship.

We recorded a great arrangement of the Phil Wickham song, Living Hope that my dear friend Camp Kirkland wrote recently and prepared it in a virtual zoom-call style grid for distribution on social media, but we also created a shorter version for use in our live services as soon as we were able to have those. This version used Camp’s arrangement as an intro to the congregation joining in and singing the third verse centered on the resurrection of Christ. The orchestra players were shown on the large video wall that we’re using for a backdrop during this season of the webcast being our primary gathering point. Additionally, we were using some members of our string section live on the platform that morning, so the orchestra was able to lead the congregation virtually and in person! It was such a powerful moment in the services and a great encouragement to our congregation. Check out the videos of the orchestra-only version and the footage from the live version and be encouraged by the power of the resurrection !