Home Worship & Creative Leaders Watch Hillsong UNITED Perform New Hope-Filled Single ‘Wonder’ Live in Israel

Watch Hillsong UNITED Perform New Hope-Filled Single ‘Wonder’ Live in Israel

Hillsong Wonder

The first time Hillsong UNITED performed their new single “Wonder”, they were in Caesarea, Israel. The significance of performing this song—the central theme of which is the unimaginable hope that informs a believer’s perspective—in one of the most unstable areas of the world was not lost on them.

 

In an interview with Worship Together, songwriters Joel Houston and Matt Crocker sat down to discuss the new song and its meaning. The interviewer called the lyrics “hopeful” and “timely” in light of all the things we see going on in the world currently. Between its lyric lines, the song seems to say, even in the midst of incredible tragedy, God is doing wonderful things if we would only look from the perspective of wonder.

Houston feels so often we are serious all the time. The paradox, he acknowledges, is that Christians have the most serious message in the world, but at the same time we also have the freedom and provision to be joyful. When he reads the Bible, Houston says, “it fills me with joy.” Taking the example of his three-and-a-half-year-old son, Houston says we’re supposed to live in child-like expectation and faith. His son wants to play and imagine and have fun, and he listens to and believes what his father tells him. Houston postulates that if Christians were to live this way, we’d set an irresistible example for the world.

Moving on to explain two of the central themes of the song—salvation and baptism—Houston says these two experiences will alter our perspective. Through salvation, our eyes are opened to the kingdom, which causes us to see the world differently. In baptism, we leave death behind and step into the second life.

Demonstrating the simplicity of the song’s structure, Crocker walks through the chords at the end of the interview, inviting worship leaders to learn this new song. A brief glance at the lyrics will reveal the congregational nature of the song. Its beautiful simplicity will likely make it a go-to for worship leaders this summer.

True to their mission of “resourcing local church worship teams across the many denominational faces of The Church”, the band has made lyrics and chords available to the public. A printable version of the lyrics can be found on Hillsong’s website, and you can find the chords on Worship Together’s page.