The Worship Song Birthed in a Brothel

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Here's Greg Hengler with the story. Chris Tomlin is a prolific American Christian songwriter with two certified platinum albums. Because of his song's popularity in many contemporary churches, Time Magazine said he may be the most often sung artist anywhere. Although the song God of the City would become the anthem for Louie Giglio's Passion Conference and receive international exposure while peaking at number 72 on the Billboard's album chart, this story of a song neither begins with Tomlin, nor was it written by him. The song God of the City originates in 2006. Belfast, Ireland-based modern worship band Blue Tree took part in a short-term mission trip to Pattaya, Thailand. It was the first time the band had been out on a trip like this. Here's what Blue Tree lead singer Aaron Boyd had to say about the trip. Pattaya is a small coastal town in Thailand, which has been built up around the sex industry.

There are 30,000 female prostitutes over the age of 18, and that doesn't include those who fall under this age, including both sexes. It's physically dark. It's spiritually dark. And when I drove in and saw what was going on, I couldn't see God there at all. I was frightened.

I mean, not just a little bit, but a whole lot. I blame our mission pastor. He had done such a great job on us, warning us about the dangers that we were up against in one of the world's most infamous destinations for sex tourists. So we were doing the usual mission stuff, sweeping streets, playing in prisons and a school.

We asked if there was any chance we could get another gig somewhere, anything, it didn't matter. So we ended up playing in a bar on Walking Street in the Red Lake District, which is a quarter of a mile long street in the middle of Pattaya where it's the hub of all prostitution and the craziness. The bar called The Climax Bar was a brothel. It was just a horrendous place.

The deal was, we could play there for two hours if we brought 30 friends with us who would all buy Coca-Cola, because Coke is more expensive than alcohol there, and the bar would make a little more cash. After two hours, we'd played every worship song that we knew, but it wasn't time to finish. Something was up.

Here's band member Pete Kernighan. And I can remember looking out over my left shoulder and seeing just, I don't know whether or not it was British tourists or whatever, but I can remember just looking out and here they are in the middle of the street and they're just hearing these Jesus songs blasting out and there's just a pile of them just standing outside the door and they were just looking and I would love to know what's going on in their heads, you know, just wondering what the heck are these guys singing Jesus songs for in the middle of this street. And I just began to sing out what I believed God was saying over that city. I just began to say that, you know, God is God of this city. He's the King of these people. He's the Lord of this nation. And they don't know that.

They don't know that. And the song was born. The song moved from, it came out of this just this loop that started to play a real minor downbeat loop and it just majored up into this like anthem of the night that just said greater things have yet to come and greater things have still to be done in this city. Greater things have yet to come and greater things have still to be done in this city.

Really, probably the biggest moment in my life that changed my life was the moment that God of the City was actually written, that point when that song was formulated. What is the church on a global scale doing to actually combat things which exist in our planet that are completely wrong, whether it's child soldiers, prostitution in your own city, homeless in your own city, anything what's going on. What is the church doing? We should be the pioneers. We need to understand that we have an authority, that we have an authority that comes from Christ, the same power that raised Christ from the dead lives in every single one of us.

And that we actually need to have an attitude of going out and serving the world with just with love, you know, and actually living out the Great Commission. Here's Chris Tomlin with the rest of the story. We were in Belfast, Ireland, Northern Ireland, just doing a worship night there. There were several bands that were opening up for us during the night. We were the last band to play. I was in the dressing room, probably just looking over the set list. There was this band playing on stage called Blue Tree, and they were a local band from Belfast. And I remember Daniel running in the dressing room, and he said, Chris, man, did you just hear that?

Were you out there? Did you hear that song they just played? And I was like, no. He said, gosh, you've got to hear this song. Some way you've got to hear this song. I really think you'd love it.

It's really fresh. And he said something about God and the city. And I was like, OK, OK, man. And so after the concert, after we played, I got with the guys from Blue Tree and said, I'd love to hear this song. And so they showed me a demo of the song, and I was blown away the first time I heard these words. For greater things have yet to come and greater things are still to be done in the city, just how fresh it was and the melody. And once you hear the song, there is every time I've played the song for someone, they're like, man, there's something about that song. Well, here's probably why there's something about that song. These guys, Blue Tree, the way it was written, they were in Pattaya, Thailand, which in Thailand, it's one of the darkest cities on Earth. And this owner of a bar, it was a brothel bar. You know what I'm talking about?

I don't need to say much more. And he asked the guys if they would come play in his bar, in his brothel. And these guys would be in a worship band. They're like, yeah, we're a band.

And sure, we'll come play. I love that. I mean, that is that's worship leading at its best. When you're going to stand in the darkest place and be the light, you know, they didn't think, oh, what does somebody else want to think? Now, they're like, this is an opportunity. And they get up there and in the middle on this stage. And I've seen video of it.

They sent me video of it. And I'm talking. There's the polls from the dancers, everything you can imagine in this place. And here's this worship band, Blue Tree, up on stage. And they start singing in worship for two hours, just singing about the Lord, singing about Jesus over the people.

And it was. And he said, Aaron, the lead singer in the middle, in the middle of the set, he said, that song just came. God just gave him the song.

It's just kind of a prophetic song that came out of them. You're the God of the city. You're the king of these people. You're the Lord of this nation.

You are. And can you imagine that just coming out of them, never had heard the song before. God's just breathing out them for greater things have yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this city and singing it in that brothel, on that bar that night.

What a powerful thing. And to be in now to see how that song is not just for it wasn't just for that moment, but that song is a light in all these places, in all these cities to say over every city, greater thing, even in the cities of America and the cities of the world, greater things have yet to come. Greater things are still to be done. And it's been incredible to see the people's response to the song God of the City.

There is no one like our God. For greater things have yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this city. And a terrific job by the production, editing and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler.

And what a story he told about a song and about the song's source. And in the end, it was about a group of guys just, well, trying to bring the light of God to one of the darkest places on Earth. And that would be a brothel in, of all places, Thailand. And they were doing mission stuff in the end, playing in the streets, playing anywhere they could. And then came their gig at the climax bar. From it came this song.

Chris Tomlin heard it in Ireland and knew he had to sing it. For greater things have yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this city. A clarion call, as Tomlin said, for Christians to take authority and to do good and to help those around them. The story of a song, one of the most sung songs of the last quarter century in America and the world. The story of God of this city, here on Our American Stories.

Greater things have yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this city. Time for a sofa upgrade? Introducing Anibay Sofas, where designer style meets budget-friendly prices.

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He was out of his mind and he wanted to bring the Catholic left to its knees. Listen to Divine Intervention on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast?

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