As part of Enter His Gates 10th Anniversary Celebration, Sunday morning, March 15, Israel Houghton is stopping by to co-host the program from 6 until noon. Israel is a Grammy, Stellar and Dove Award winner and has written a lot of the songs we play on Enter His Gates. In fact, we just added “another” song he wrote this week “Moving Forward” sung by Free Chapel. If you have a question for Israel, post it below, and I will ask him your question.
March marks ten years on the air for Enter His Gates. The first Enter His Gates program was on Sunday, March 14, 1999. Anyone remember that? We first started off with just two hours a week and grew to the current six hours because you wanted more contemporary praise and worship! Years later we had our first Enter His Gates concert featuring Paul Baloche , Chris Tomlin and Darrell Evans. That was quite a night at Houston’s First Baptist Church. I have been looking through pictures of artists that have been a part of Enter His Gates. I have a few now and as I find more, I will post them on this blog.
Darlene Zschech co-hosted EHG a couple of years back.
JD (left) me and Jad Gillies (right) from Hillsong United in our EHG studios
As you can tell from my Twitter on the upper left side of this page - I ended up missing most of the concert. Yes, I was disappointed, but it was far more important to be with my daughter, Sara, in the Emergency Room (She went to the doctor today and is doing better). So my question is - how was the concert? What song did you like the best? Were there any favorite moments that we should know about? Let me know your thoughts. I will share some of the posts below on the air this Sunday morning during Enter His Gates.
Israel has become a regular co-host on Enter His Gates. I hope some day that he will ask me to join New Breed :)
I am so excited about tomorrow night’s concert with Chris Tomlin and Israel Houghton. Years ago when Chris lived in the Houston area, he came by KSBJ quite a bit - and even co-hosted Enter His Gates with us. Chris wasn’t very well known to most of our KSBJ audience, but through his work with Passion, he became one of our favorite worship leaders on our Sunday morning show - Enter His Gates. Then God started doing something amazing with worship music and its popularity increased on KSBJ’s regular weekday format. Chris lead that effort and became a popular worship leader and contemporary Christian artist all across America - and the world.
A few years later, we started playing Lakewood’s music which featured among others - Israel Houghton. When I first heard Israel’s testimony, I immediately connected to what he was all about. I have a strong passion for unity in the body of Christ and Israel represents that so well. I invited Israel to co-host Enter His Gates and he said yes. From our first time together, it was an immediate friendship. He is so real and he has such a passion for God. He asked me if I knew Chris Tomlin and I said I did. He asked me if I minded if I gave Chris his cell phone number to touch base with him. I told Israel that I would love to see a big concert in Houston - with him whom God has used in Gospel circles and with Chris whom God has used in Adult Contemporary Christian circles. So I e-mailed Chris and told him about Israel.
By this time, Chris had really become very popular and he was very busy. I ran into Chris backstage at one of our KSBJ concerts and asked him if he had gotten my e-mail and had followed up with Israel. He said that he hadn’t but that he would.
I decided to let it go and see what God would do.
Then the favor of God started raining down on Israel. Before long, God was using Israel in new ways. In the midst of God blessing both men - it happened. Jim Beeler, was hosting the midday show and called me on my office phone and told me to listen to the next on-air break he was about to do. I turned up my office radio to listen. Jim had Chris Tomlin on the air who shared about the next song Jim was about to play. Chris said that the next song would either be good or bad and that he could “blame it on Tim McDermott.” He said that “Tim kept wanting me to get together with Israel” and that they finally did and as a result wrote the song “I Know Who I Am.”
The friendship that came from writing that song lead to them getting together more often and later deciding to do a concert tour together - The Hello Love Tour. The dream had become reality. Tomorrow night’s concert in Houston is a sell out. I really can’t tell you how grateful I am. I will probably have to fight to hold back tears when they sing “I know who I am.” Wow God you are good! I think sometimes we all need reminders that God uses us. Not that He has to, but because He loves us so much - He uses little things that remind of His love and that we are important to Him. He does know who I am.