📖Hymn of the Week

“Great Is Thy Faithfulness”
Carrie Underwood & CeCe Winans

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There is something especially moving about hearing Carrie Underwood and CeCe Winans sing “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” together—and even more so when you understand the setting in which they performed it. In the spring of 2021, Carrie brought her gospel album My Savior to the Ryman Auditorium for My Savior: Live From the Ryman, a special Easter concert filmed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Ryman’s pews were empty, with no live audience present because of pandemic restrictions. Yet Carrie set out to make the evening feel anything but small. She wanted to take the hymns she had grown up singing and give them the kind of musical treatment they deserved, while bringing the hope and encouragement of those songs directly into people’s homes around the world.

The result was far more than a stripped-down pandemic-era livestream. Carrie and producer David Garcia assembled an extraordinary collection of Nashville musicians to bring My Savior to life, drawing from the city’s remarkable community of elite session players—the musicians who can move effortlessly between country, gospel, bluegrass, pop and virtually anything else a Nashville recording requires. Among them were guitarist Mac McAnally, who has been named CMA Musician of the Year an astonishing ten times, and Buddy Greene, the legendary Southern gospel musician and harmonica virtuoso whose work has included countless gospel recordings and performances with Bill Gaither and the Gaither Vocal Band. Gordon Mote, Brett James and other Nashville heavyweights were also part of the musical world surrounding the project.

And then there was the Ryman itself. Known as the “Mother Church of Country Music,” the historic auditorium provided a remarkable backdrop: an empty sanctuary, a world-class band, strings, a gospel choir, and one of the greatest voices in contemporary country music performing the hymns of her childhood. Carrie wasn’t simply trying to recreate the My Savior album onstage. She was creating something that would feel worthy of the Ryman—and worthy of the songs themselves. The concert streamed globally on Easter Sunday, April 4, 2021, as a free event, with donations benefiting Save the Children. Nearly 2.5 million people ultimately watched the full concert during its initial 48-hour availability, raising more than $112,000 for the organization.

“Great Is Thy Faithfulness” may be the perfect centerpiece for that vision. Carrie invited gospel icon CeCe Winans to join her for the hymn, creating a meeting of two very different musical worlds that nevertheless feels completely natural. Winans brings the depth and authority of gospel music, while Underwood brings the power and clarity that have made her one of country music’s biggest stars. With that remarkable Nashville ensemble behind them, the performance becomes something much bigger than a duet. It feels like a celebration of the hymn itself—and of the faithfulness it proclaims. The performance would later receive an even greater distinction, winning the 2021 GMA Dove Award for Inspirational Recorded Song of the Year.

For a concert born in a season when churches were empty, audiences were absent, and so much of the world felt uncertain, that message carried particular weight. Carrie Underwood had the opportunity to fill the Ryman with some of the finest musicians Nashville had to offer, invite one of gospel music’s greatest voices to stand beside her, and send these timeless hymns into millions of homes on Easter morning. That is what makes this performance of “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” such a fitting choice for our Hymn of the Week.

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