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Game Time Tuesday

The GMA Dove Award Winners!!

The 56th Annual GMA Dove Awards aired last Friday night! Here were this year’s award recipients:

SONG OF THE YEAR –
Hard Fought Hallelujah by Brandon Lake and Jelly Roll     
Writers: Brandon Lake, Jelly Roll, Steven Furtick, Chris Brown and Benjamin William Hastings

ARTIST OF THE YEAR – Forrest Frank

NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR – Leanna Crawford

SONGWRITER OF THE YEAR (ARTIST) – Brandon Lake

SONGWRITER OF THE YEAR (NON-ARTIST) – Mitch Wong

PRODUCER OF THE YEAR – Jeff Pardo

POP/CONTEMPORARY SONG OF THE YEAR –
Your Way’s Better by Forrest Frank
Writers: Forrest Frank and Pera

GOSPEL WORSHIP RECORDED SONG OF THE YEAR –
Come Jesus Come by CeCe Winans and Shirley Caesar    
Writers: Hank Bentley, Bryan Fowler, Stephen McWhirter and Tara McWhirter

WORSHIP RECORDED SONG OF THE YEAR –
I Know A Name by Elevation Worship, Chris Brown and Brandon Lake
Writers: Brandon Lake, Steven Furtick, Jacob Sooter and Hank Bentley

INSPIRATIONAL RECORDED SONG OF THE YEAR –
The Jesus Way by Phil Wickham     
Writers: Phil Wickham and Jonathan Smith

BLUEGRASS/COUNTRY/ROOTS SONG OF THE YEAR –
Hard Fought Hallelujah by Brandon Lake and Jelly Roll     
Writers: Brandon Lake, Jelly Roll, Steven Furtick, Chris Brown and Benjamin William Hastings

CHRISTMAS RECORDED SONG OF THE YEAR –
Joy To The World by CeCe Winans
Writers: Traditional

POP/CONTEMPORARY ALBUM OF THE YEAR –
CHILD OF GOD by Forrest Frank     
Producers: Forrest Frank, Pera, Noah Conrad, JVKE, Jackson Foote, Johnny Simpson, Zac Lawson and Splash Of Soda

WORSHIP ALBUM OF THE YEAR –
When Wind Meets Fire by Elevation Worship  
Producers: Steven Furtick, Chris Brown, Josh Holiday and Chandler Moore

ROCK/CONTEMPORARY ALBUM OF THE YEAR –
Trustfall by Stephen Stanley
Producers: Stephen Stanley, Tedd T. and Jake Halm

CHRISTMAS/SPECIAL EVENT ALBUM OF THE YEAR –
Hallelujah! It’s Christmas! By Phil Wickham   
Producers: Jonathan Smith, Josh Auer, Jerad Atherton, Tyler Halford, Ben Lounsbury and Aaron Robertson

RECORDED MUSIC PACKAGING OF THE YEAR –
Heaven On My Mind by TobyMac    
Art Directors: Nathan Blaine, Aaron Stearns and Trent Nicholson
Graphic Artists: Nathan Blaine and Aaron Stearns
Photographer – Robby Klein

SHORT FORM MUSIC VIDEO OF THE YEAR (CONCEPT) –
Can’t Stop Me by TobyMac    
Director: Eric Welch
Producer: Scott McDaniel

SHORT FORM MUSIC VIDEO OF THE YEAR (PERFORMANCE) –
Hard Fought Hallelujah by Brandon Lake and Jelly Roll     
Directors: Brandon Lake and Jacob Boyles
Producers: Jacob Boyles, Rachel Mulcahy, Sadie Schwanberg and Caleb Cook

LONG FORM MUSIC VIDEO OF THE YEAR –
A Drummer Boy Christmas (LIVE) by for KING & COUNTRY          
Directors: Joel Smallbone and Kadin Tooley
Producers: Joshua Walsh, Stephen Preston and Luke Smallbone

FEATURE FILM OF THE YEAR –
The King of Kings
Director: Jang Seong-ho
Producers: Jang Seong-ho and Kim Woo-hyung

TELEVISION SERIES OF THE YEAR –
The Chosen          
Director: Dallas Jenkins
Producers: Dallas Jenkins, Chad Gundersen and Chris Juen

We held a contest to see if you could predict this year’s “Song of the Year” and “Artist of the Year” to win a special Dove Award Prediction Prize Basket! Here were the three winners of this prize basket:

  • Jess Kirby of Mount Vernon 
  • Casey Kennedy of Mount Vernon 
  • Tanya Hicks of Butler 

These three winners each took home Brandon Lake’s King Of Hearts CD, Seph Schlueter’s Counting My Blessings CD, Phil Wickham’s signed Song Of The Saints CD, and CeCe Winans’ More Than This Limited Edition LP.

Anne Wilson is coming to Akron, Ohio with her The Stars Tour! Tickets are 90% sold out for this concert, so tickets are low but you can still get some if you’re interested!

She’ll be at the Akron Civic Theatre in Akron, OH on November 21st, at 7:30PM!

You can find ticket information here!

This week’s Song Poetry was a stumper from last week! Here were the lyrics:

Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine
He’s been my fourth man in the fire, time after time
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood
And what He did for me on Calvary is more than enough

This Song Poetry stumper was Elevation Worship’s song Trust In God.

Congratulations to Haley from Mount Vernon for calling in and correctly guessing the song title and artist, taking home two $5 gift cards to Watts Restaurant in Utica! Tune in on Wednesday for fun facts and a game of Who Am I? for Who Knew Wednesday on The Afternoon Drive!

Thank you so much for listening!
– Xander and Ethan

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The 56th GMA Dove Awards are Happening this Week!!

All your favorite WNZR artists are down in Nashville, TN this week for the 56th Annual GMA Dove Awards! Today during The Afternoon Drive, we talked about the nominees, and a really special prize you can win regarding these awards as well!

You could win special gifts from some artists that are nominated for a Dove Award this year! We’re giving away CeCe Winans’ More Than This Limited Edition LP vinyl, Brandon Lake’s King Of Hearts CD, Seph Schlueter’s Counting My Blessings CD, and a signed Song Of The Saints CD from Phil Wickham!

You could be the winner of all of these prizes in our Dove Awards Prediction Prize Giveaway. All of the gifts mentioned will be all together in one basket, and we’re giving away three of these prize baskets!

It’s super easy to enter this giveaway! Just click here, scroll down to the Prediction Form, and choose an artist who’s nominated that you think is going to win “Artist of the Year” and “Song of the Year”. Every person who guesses both categories correct will be entered into a drawing to win this awesome prize package!

To get your brain flowing, here are your GMA Dove Award nominees:

Artist of the Year:

Brandon Lake
CeCe Winans
Forrest Frank
Josiah Queen
Lauren Daigle
Phil Wickham

Song of the Year:

Counting My Blessings – Seph Schlueter
Good Day – Forrest Frank
Goodbye Yesterday – Elevation Rhythm, Gracie Binion
Hard Fought Hallelujah – Brandon Lake, Jelly Roll
Still Waters (Psalm 23) – Leanna Crawford
That’s My King – CeCe Winans
That’s Who I Praise – Brandon Lake
The Prodigal – Josiah Queen
The Truth – Megan Woods
Up! – Forrest Frank, Connor Price

If you want to see all the categories of nominations for the 56th Annual GMA Dove Awards, click here!

Cory Asbury is thinking of getting some of your favorite WNZR and Christian music artists to do a family friendly version of the Super Bowl Halftime Show!

Nothing official has been announced yet, but a name for this show that’s been thrown around is “Halftime for Heaven”. If this is something you want to see, show your support for this idea from Cory Asbury by going to his post, commenting on it, give it a like, and we’ll see if this goes anywhere!

Here were lyrics for this week’s Song Poetry!

Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine
He’s been my fourth man in the fire, time after time
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood
And what He did for me on Calvary is more than enough

This week’s Song Poetry was a stumper, so tune in next Tuesday for a chance to win two $5 gift cards to Watts Restaurant in Utica if you think you know what song this is!

Tune in on Wednesday for some fun Who Knew? facts with Joe Rinehart and Gabriella Stanley!

Thank you so much for listening!
– Xander and Ethan

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Christmas Tours!! Already?

Today on Artist News Day, yes, we’re already talking a little bit about Christmas! Some of your favorite WNZR artists are bringing their Christmas tours to Ohio, and they could be coming to a city near you!

Chris Tomlin is coming to Grove City, Ohio, on his tour called “Christmas with Chris Tomlin”. He’s bringing a special guest, Jamie MacDonald, along with him!

Chris is excited for this night of worship, prayer, and even laughter as he put it! It’ll be a great time worshipping with him and Jamie MacDonald. They’ll be at The Naz Church in Grove City, Ohio on December 19th!

You can get tickets by clicking HERE!

We Are Messengers are coming to Wooster, Ohio on their “A Celtic Christmas” tour!

Hailing from Northern Ireland, they’ll be bringing a Celtic style of music that is worshipping and glorifying God! The band will be in Wooster, Ohio at Movement Church on Sunday, December 7th!

You can get tickets by clicking HERE!

One of your favorite worship music artists, Pat Barrett is releasing his fourth studio album called Walk Through Fire!

This new release is coming out this Friday, October 3rd, with a total of 11 songs on it! This album is coming after his third album, Shelter, which he released in October 2023!

Pat is going on tour with Brandon Lake and Franni Cash on Brandon Lake’s King Of Hearts Tour this Fall and Spring! You can find tickets on our concert page HERE!

You can find out more about this new record HERE!

We’re seeing a brand new album from Tasha Layton coming out next Friday!

Tasha’s new album is called Life In Me, which features songs we’ve heard on WNZR, like Thank You Isn’t Enough ft. The Choir Room and Worship Through It ft. Chris Brown! This is what Tasha says about this upcoming release: “This album is so special to me! Each track really represents a season from my walk with Jesus. In its entirety, the album is a beautiful picture of His life in me.” She can’t wait for you to hear these songs!

You can find more information about this record HERE!

Today, we took some lyrics from a song we listened to on The Afternoon Drive and turned it into a poem for Song Poetry!

Here were this week’s lyrics:

Take my heart and let it move
In spirit and in truth
For the glory of Your Name
With every breath that’s in me
With every song and melody

Today’s Song Poetry came from Lauren Daigle and her song Let It Be A Hallelujah.

Congratulations to Chris from Gambier for calling in and correctly guessing the song title and artist, taking home a $5 gift card to Watts Restaurant in Utica! Tune in on Wednesday for a special broadcast, celebrating our 39th Anniversary!

Thank you so much for listening!
– Ethan Hershberger

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Worship At The Charlie Kirk Memorial!

Let’s get into this week’s artist news!

This past weekend, we saw some familiar artist faces from WNZR worshipping onstage during the Charlie Kirk Memorial service. We got to see Brandon Lake, Phil Wickham, Chris Tomlin, Cody Carnes, and Kari Jobe Carnes onstage together, worshipping God with over 90,000 people in attendance, and hundreds of thousands online.

While onstage, Brandon Lake paused in the middle of worship to just take a moment to recognize the thick, real presence of God that was filling the stadium. Hundreds were giving their lives to Christ this past Sunday. We got to see truth come in full swing as God takes everything the enemy meant for evil, and turned it for good!

Listen and watch what Brandon Lake declares during worship at the Charlie Kirk Memorial!

We’re so excited to see Big Daddy Weave coming to Duncan Falls, Ohio this fall! They’re bringing their friends Megan Woods and David Leonard along with them.

These artists know how to worship and put on a spectacular performance, so if you want to see some of your favorite Big Daddy Weave songs live, ticket information is available by clicking HERE!

You can find a list of concerts on our concert page, by going to wnzr.fm!

One of your favorite worship music artists, Chris Tomlin is coming out with a brand new album this Friday, which is titled “The King Is Still The King”.

This album is featuring Tomlin’s new one on WNZR, called “How Good It Is”.

Alongside this release, he’s going on a tour of worship evenings, and he’s stopping in Cincinnati this Friday! You can find ticket information for this concert HERE!

Today, we took some lyrics from a song we listened to this afternoon and turned it into a poem for Song Poetry! Here were this week’s lyrics:

I pray into the atmosphere
Spirit of God, You’re here
You have all authority
I pray over my heart and mind
I am healed by Your stripes
Your blood declares that I am free

Today’s Song Poetry lyrics came from Hope Darst’s song Mighty Name Of Jesus!

Congratulations to Kandee from Mount Vernon for calling in and correctly guessing the song title and artist, taking home a $5 gift card to Watts Restaurant in Utica! Tune in on Wednesday for a whole lot of fun facts and more prayer at 5:25 to celebrate Global Prayer Week!

Thank you so much for listening!
– Ethan Hershberger

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We’re Looking Forward To Christmas With Natalie Grant!

We had a packed show with artist news from Natalie Grant, Phil Wickham, and more from the 2025 GMA Dove Awards!

Natalie Grant is now signed to record label Captiol CMG, and with this, she’s already announced a brand new Christmas album, with some old-timey classics like Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, and Jingle Bells! This will be her first Christmas record in nearly 20 years, and she’s so excited for it!

Did you know there’s only 100 days until Christmas? So alongside this album release, Natalie Grant and Danny Gokey are going on their annual “Celebrate Christmas Tour”, which is on its 10th iteration!

To learn more about this new album and tour, click HERE!

Last week, we talked about Phil Wickham’s brand new album, Song Of The Saints that released last Friday, 9/12/2025! Now this week, Phil is celebrating this album release by going on tour with this record, appropriately called the “Song Of The Saints Tour”!

He’ll also be bringing special guest Jamie MacDonald with him!

To learn more about this tour, click HERE!

Zach Williams’ album “Jesus Loves” is coming out this Friday, 9/19/2025! It’s title track, Jesus Loves, has been climbing The NZ Top 10 for quite a while now!

To learn more about this new record, click HERE!

More GMA Dove Awards Performers and Presenters have been revealed!

We’ll get to see some favorite WNZR artists performing on October 7th, including Tauren Wells, for KING & COUNTRY, CeCe Winans, Josiah Queen, Elevation Worship, ELEVATION RHYTHM, and so many more!

We also see some WNZR artists presenting awards, including Bart Millard, bodie, Chris Tomlin, Crowder, Natalie Grant, and many more great presenters!

There will be even more announced in future weeks! To see the full list of artists and guests performing and presenting, click HERE!

We took some lyrics from a song we heard on The Afternoon Drive today and turned it into a poem! Here were today’s lyrics:

Every heartbroken, lonely soul sitting all alone
And every outcast, stuck in their past, scared of letting go
These are the ones
The ones that Jesus chose

Today’s lyrics came from Zach William’s song Jesus Loves!

Congratulations to Satarah from Howard for calling in and guessing the song title and artist, taking home a $5 gift card to Watts Restaurant in Utica! Tune in tomorrow for some fun facts for Sonfest 2025 on Who Knew Wednesday!

Thank you so much for listening!
– Xander and Ethan

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Josiah Queen Is Going On His First Big Headline Tour!!

We got some exciting stuff on Artist News Day this week! Let’s get into all the news:

Josiah Queen is taking his sophomore #1 album, Mt. Zion, on tour this Spring 2026, and you can catch him stopping by in Columbus! He’s bringing his friends Jervis Campbell and Gable Price with, who appear on his Mt. Zion album!

This concert will be taking place in an outdoor venue, KEMBA LIVE!. If you want to be a part of this night of worship, praise, folk, and joyful music, ticket information is available HERE!

We’ve gotten the pleasure to see Zach Williams on the charts with his title track to his new album, Jesus Loves! We’re gonna get to see this full album release next Friday, September 19th!

With a full 12 songs on this record, Zach Williams strongly believes in these songs, saying, “I’ve always believed in writing songs for real people who are going through real things.” More information about what Zach Williams is saying about his new album is found HERE!

Forrest Frank has come out with the deluxe version of his album Child Of God II! This album features artists we love on WNZR- Crowder, Cory Asbury, even The Figs, who we here on the song Lemonade!

More information about this album can be found HERE!

We’re happy to see that bodie released his debut album called No Skips! This album includes his hit Whisper & The Wind, which, at one point, made it on The NZ Top 10!

More information about this album can be found HERE!

We took some lyrics from a song we listened to during The Afternoon Drive to play Song Poetry! Here were this week’s lyrics:

Every time I call You, Jesus
I call You, I call You Savior
Worthy of glory forever
Something comes out of the grave
Every time I call Your Name

Today’s Song Poetry song was I Know A Name from Elevation Worship and Brandon Lake!

Congratulations to Kari from Newark for calling in and correctly guessing the song title and artist, taking home a $5 gift card to Watts Restaurant in Utica! Tune in tomorrow for some fun facts on Who Knew Wednesday!

Thank you so much for listening!
– Xander and Ethan

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CeCe Winans Wins Contemporary Female Artist Of The Year!

This Artist News Day is packed with award winners, a new album, and artist interactions! Let’s get into the news!

This past weekend, the queen of gospel music, CeCe Winans, had the honor of receiving two Stellar Awards, the Contemporary Female Artist Of The Year award and the Albertina Walker Female Artist Of The Year award!

CeCe is known for her big gospel hits like “That’s My King” (Which is up for a GMA Dove Award), “Come Jesus Come”, and of course, her rendition of “Goodness Of God”!

After the results of the Stellar Gospel Music Awards, we’re excited to see what happens with the GMA Dove Awards coming up in October! You can stay up to date with the Dove Awards by clicking HERE!

We have loved the music Phil Wickham has been bringing us, including his hits “The King Is In The Room” and his current #1 song “What An Awesome God”! These songs have been a great preview as to what we’re going to see on his upcoming album, which is called Song Of The Saints!

This new album from Phil is coming out next Friday, September 12, featuring the two hits previously mentioned, alongside songs he has loved performing live during the Summer Worship Nights tours this past summer!

You can learn more about this album on Phil’s website by clicking HERE!

Don’t miss out on our posts on Facebook, Instagram, and X! Not even Tauren Wells is missing out on our posts there!

Every week, we post Tunesday Tuesday on our social media, (You can follow us @WNZR_90.9FM) and this week’s Tune was Tauren Wells’ song “Let The Church Sing”. We were so excited to see Tauren comment on the post saying “It’s the parenthesis for me 😂”.

Join Tauren Wells and follow us on social media! Just click on the post and you can follow our page!

We had a throwback song for our Song Poetry this week! Here were this week’s lyrics:

Staring at a stop sign
Watching people drive by
T. Mac on the radio

Got so much on your mind
Nothing’s really going right
Looking for a ray of hope

This week’s song poetry lyrics are from the song Overcomer by the late Mandisa!

Congratulations to Erica from Howard for being the first to call in and guess the song title and artist, taking home a $5 gift cards to Watts Restaurant in Utica!

Thank you so much for listening!
– Xander and Ethan

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Brandon Lake and Phil Wickham’s Summer Worship Nights Recap!

Today we checked out what your WNZR artists have been up to this summer on Artist News Day!

Brandon Lake and Phil Wickham took some time this summer to go coast-to-coast with Josiah Queen on The Summer Worship Nights Tour! With sold-out shows and audiences of over 30,000, the trio brought the worship with them every night. From familiar worship songs like “Trust In God” to their hits like Lake’s Hard Fought Hallelujah, Wickham’s What An Awesome God, and Queen’s Can’t Steal My Joy, every song was sang to lift up and glorify the Name of Jesus!

Not only that, but Lake and Wickham went beyond the coast of the U.S. to wrap up the tour in the UK, worshipping with an audience of 35,000! With the response of this year’s Summer Worship Nights, we’re looking forward to see if Lake and Wickham will continue the tour next summer!

Tasha Layton is bringing listeners a brand new album, featuring songs we love like Worship Through It and Thank You Isn’t Enough! This one is called Life In Me, and she’s released the title track for this album, which features Rachael Lampa!

If you want to read more about this album and Tasha’s thoughts about it, read the JesusFreakHideout article HERE!

We’ve been talking about Josiah Queen’s new album, Mt. Zion, this month, and it just came out last Friday!

If you’re a fan of his songs Can’t Steal My Joy and Dusty Bibles, those songs are featured on this record, among many others! You can read more about this album by checking out the review on JesusFreakHideout by clicking HERE!

We had a stumper for this week’s Song Poetry! Here were this week’s lyrics:

Three brothers in a fire
Willing to die for their faith
But You were with them in the fire
And they walked out the next day

And Daniel met a lion
Because he chose to pray
But You shut the mouth of that lion
And he walked out the next day

This week’s stumper lyrics are from the song Unashamed by Matthew West!

Congratulations to Brady from Mount Vernon for being the first to call in and guess the song title and artist, taking home two $5 gift cards to Watts Restaurant in Utica!

Thank you so much for listening!
– Xander and Ethan

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Terrian’s First Big Headline Tour!

On Artist News Day today, we talked about all that’s happening when it comes to your artists here on WNZR! We went over a life update from Natalie Grant, Anne Wilson appearing on Morgan Wallen’s tour, and Terrian’s first tour where she will be headlining it!

Terrian is coming to Lakewood, Ohio with special guest Aaron Cole along with her!

Terrian has worked so hard with her music career! She got the incredible opportunity to be a part of TobyMac’s Diverse City Band for almost eight years! She went on tour with him as a backup vocalist, and appeared on three of Toby’s past records as a backup vocalist on The Elements, and then featuring as an artist on Life After Death and Heaven On My Mind. After being a part of TobyMac’s Diverse City Band for nearly eight years, she was able to start her career as a solo artist, getting signed to Gotee Records, getting to release beloved songs like Honestly, We Just Need Jesus, He Sees You, and Big God.

She’s worked so hard to the point where she gets to headline her own tour, called The Big God Tour! And if you want to see her headline her concert live with Aaron Cole, you can grab tickets through our website by clicking HERE!

Natalie Grant has been resting from releasing music and touring to be with her children before they graduate from college! As college starts up again this year, Natalie will be bidding farewell to one of her twin daughters as she sends her off to college. She says she appreciates every prayer that has come her family’s way, so be praying for Natalie and her family as they enter this new season of life!

God has done it again, as He uses Christian artists as a vessel for His glory and His Kingdom! Anne Wilson recently got to open up for Grammy-winning artist Morgan Wallen, who, to put it in perspective, is the “Taylor Swift” of country music!

Anne was so excited to share her faith and her Jesus to an audience that filled a football stadium in Seattle Washington on July 26th and 27th. We’re seeing God use artists like Anne to reach people who may have never heard about Jesus before, and you never know all the seeds that may have been planted as Anne worshipped God on those nights at Morgan Wallen’s concerts! She given God the glory for all she has gotten to do to share His message and share His love!

We took some lyrics from a song we listened to on The Afternoon Drive today! Here were the lyrics:

Three brothers in a fire
Willing to die for their faith
But You were with them in the fire
And they walked out the next day

And Daniel met a lion
Because he chose to pray
But You shut the mouth of that lion
And he walked out the next day

Today’s lyrics were a stumper! Tune in next week and be the first caller to guess what song this is from and who sings this song! If you do, you’ll win two $5 gift cards to Watts Restaurant in Utica!

Thank you so much for listening!
– Xander and Ethan

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