Israel Houghton Performs Live

Israel Houghton back stage after performing at Elim Fellowship in Buffalo

BUFFALO, NY--By Kyle Patterson
Four time Grammy Award winner Israel Houghton and band New Breed performed live last night at Elim Fellowship in Buffalo bringing their unique style of rock, jazz, gospel, and intimate worship before a packed crowd at Elim Fellowship's Chalmers Avenue address. Houghton's unique style included performance on the keyboard ushering the crowd into an intimate worship experience, performance on the electric guitar bringing in the jazz/rock feel and lastly Houghton on the mic encouraging the crowd gospel style to believe God for big things and ushering the crowd into exuberant praise and dance-- gospel style. "The atmosphere of expectation is the breeding ground for miracles," he encouraged attendees as he sang the scriptural reference from Ezekiel, "Live"and encouraged the crowd to expect and encourage one another that a miracle is not far away. Houghton performed a wide array of songs including his famous, "Friend of God" and others.

There was a sense of joy and freedom in the sanctuary as Israel and New Breed performed a Tuesday night of praise and worship in one of Buffalo's largest African American churches. Houghton, who also serves as one of the worship leaders at Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas (pastored by Joel Osteen) has seen great success in crossing denominational and racial lines within the church, though the racial mix of last night's concert did not reflect that, an ongoing issue of prayer for the Church in Buffalo as urban flight has taken many residence outside of the city center.The 40 year old Houghton's casual style--plaid shirt and hooded sweatshirt, jeans, Ray Ban glasses and goatee helps him reach out to a wide demographic of young, old and in between. World Vision was also in house encouraging attendees to sponsor a child in need and giving worshippers action points of engaging the world with their faith. Houghton is scheduled to perform tonight in the Rochester area at My Father's House at  715 Paul Road Rochester NY 14624.

Houghton also granted UNITE an exclusive interview back stage after the event, portions of the interview will be published in future posts. Houghton told me, "The key to longevity is humility" and explained that the Grammy and Dove awards that he has won are awards that he lays at the feet of Jesus.