This is taken from the original Chris Tomlin recording. Because we miss out a strum on beat 3 of the bar it feels like the groove is being pushed along.
We have Holy is the Lord as one of our Worship Backing Band DVD tracks. You can remove the guitar from the mix and play along with the pro band (the words and chords are all on screen). Its also one of the songs on our Guitar Song Learner lessons which demonstrates an alternative strum pattern for the song (as well as plenty more). This one is only available as a download (i.e. not on any of the DVDs).
I’ve listed this in a box format that shows the song over a single bar in a 16th note format. So the key is to count 1 E & A, 2 E & A, 3 E & A, 4 E & A over the song and crucially KEEP YOUR HAND MOVING at all times. Naturally your hand should strum down on the numbers or beats (1234), the &’s and then the up beats should always link to the E’s and A’s. If you find this difficult to work through on paper then I’d recommend either our Song Learner series DVDs or Intermediate Acoustic DVDs as its much easier to see it on video than in an article.
Caveats: