Louder Than The Music

Israel Houghton has been a full time worship leader since 1989 and is an internationally recognized recording artist and producer. Israel is the National Director of Music and Worship for Champions for Christ, he also leads regularly at Lakewood Church Houston with Pastor Joel Osteen. 

Israel and his wife Meleasa founded New Breed Ministries in 1995, comprised of world class musicians and singers. This become Israel's first band, known as Israel & New Breed, and he went on to release many great albums under this banner.

Our artist of the month has many awards under his belt for his previous albums over the years, including 2 Gold Selling albums, 6 Dove awards, 2 Stellar Awards, a Soul Train award and 3 Grammy Awards - one of them being Best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album, for his amazing last album 'The Power of One'.

Now with the release of his new album 'Love God, Love People', recorded at London's famed Abbey Road studios, Israel Houghton is still pushing the boundaries of Gospel Music. He has produced one of the best albums of this year, saying "I was living out a dream come true recording at Abbey Road. The 'stomps' on the famous staircase for 'Name Of Love' were just absolutely special and unforgettable. And I wept several times while The London Session Orchestra played 'Others' and 'Hosanna'. I later spoke to some of the string players who were crying while they played. Absolute presence of God was captured!"

The album also features special guest appearances by Kirk Franklin, Fred Hammond and Take 6's Claude V. McKnight, III, Mark Kibble and Joey Kibble, as well as song co-writes with Israel's wife Meleasa Houghton, Aaron Lindsey, Tommy Sims and Michael Gungor.

Israel is already making plans for his next album, "It's going to be a double live CD but the caveat is that it's going to be recorded all over the world", he explains. "We're hoping to get into some remote different kind of places. We're going to do something in Jerusalem, in Dubai, in mainland China. We'll be in Rio during carnival doing a huge evangelistic night of worship out in the middle of Sodom and Gomorrah basically. It's easily going to be the biggest challenge I've ever put on myself. We want to show the church worldwide is bigger than you think."

This talented man keeps writing and recording incredible songs and that's why he is our artist of the month.