By Jeanni Ritchie
One voice. One heart. One purpose.
For Christians who remember the explosion of contemporary worship music in the late 1990s and early 2000s, House of Worship may feel less like watching a movie and more like opening an old box of CDs.
The 90-minute musical documentary brings together 25 contemporary Christian, Gospel and worship artists for new arrangements of some of the songs that have shaped modern worship over the last three decades. Presented by The Fuel Music and Ori Music in association with K-LOVE and Air1, the film combines live performances with interviews, personal testimonies and stories behind the songs.
The project was recorded in-the-round at World Wide Stages in Spring Hill, Tennessee, where all 25 artists gathered in the same room on Feb. 6, 2024. Michael W. Smith and Darlene Zschech served as executive producers, with Paul Mabury and John Hartley producing the music.
For me, however, House of Worship became personal within its opening minutes.
Open the Eyes of My Heart began the film, followed by Come, Now Is the Time to Worship and suddenly I was back in the early 2000s.
I had all the WOW Worship CDs—the blue one, the orange one, the lime one… Those albums were to me in the early 2000s what Amy Grant had been to me in high school: a way straight to the Master’s arms.
There was such purity in hearing those songs again.
I completely surrendered my life to God in 2000, just as I had at Centrifuge in 1984 and as a child in the 1970s. Each time, eventually, I took a wrong step and found myself wondering how I’d gotten so far from the Lord again.
That time, it took another 23 years to realize I had ventured onto the wrong path. The Lord used the road I’d taken, but it is hard to walk straight on a rocky foundation. Eventually, I had to jackhammer the ground beneath me and pour a new surface.
But watching House of Worship wasn’t about revisiting where I went wrong.
It was about returning to the place where a younger version of me had laid everything down.
The familiar songs are paired across generations, giving songs that have lived inside churches—and individual believers—for decades a new voice without stripping away what made them meaningful in the first place.
The complete House of Worship soundtrack includes:
“Open the Eyes of My Heart” — Paul Baloche & Chris McClarney
“Come, Now Is the Time to Worship” — Brian Doerksen & Leeland
“Everlasting God” — Brenton Brown & Pat Barrett
“I Could Sing of Your Love Forever” — Martin Smith & Josh Baldwin
“The Heart of Worship” — Matt Redman & Hillary Scott
“I Give You My Heart” — Mitch Wong
“Jesus at the Center” — Israel Houghton & Naomi Raine
“Mighty to Save” — Christy Nockels & Mitch Wong
“Here I Am to Worship” — Tim Hughes & Cody Carnes
“Breathe” — Kari Jobe, Jenn Johnson & Brian Johnson
“How Great Is Our God” — Ed Cash & Charity Gayle
“Shout to the Lord” — CeCe Winans & Darlene Zschech
“Agnus Dei” — Michael W. Smith & Chris Brown
I was glad I was in an empty theater because I sang some of the songs louder than the artists on the big screen. Especially Heart of Worship. The lyrics — I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it — have come from my lips more times than I can count.
Running ahead of the Lord. Doing things in my own might. Thinking I knew best instead of taking time to pray first. Trying to do works to make up for sins.
I could mess things up even in the midst of serving Him, but this song always reminded me to bring it back to the heart of worship and remember that it was all about Him.
Shout to the Lord was probably my absolute favorite worship song when these songs were released and I was on my feet in the top row of a darkened theater as it played, singing my heart out.
The music can be streamed through the official House of Worship website or at houseofworshipmusic.com.
