The Worship Song Birthed in a Brothel

On this episode of Our American Stories, our own Greg Hengler tells the story of a worship band on a mission trip to Thailand—where an impromptu gig at a brothel led to one of the most recognizable songs in Contemporary Christian Music.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Our next story
is about a worship band It was on a mission
trip to Thailand and ended up playing an impromptu gig
at a brothel in an area considered the world's go
to destination for sex tourists. Here's Greg Hengler with the story.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
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 This
City would become the anthem for Louis Giglio's Passion Conference

(00:51):
and receive international exposure while peaking at number seventy two
on the Billboards Album chart, this story of a song
neither begins with Hamlin, nor was it written by him.
The song God of This City originates. In two thousand
and six, Belfast, Ireland based modern worship band Blue Tree
took part in a short term mission trip to Pataya, Thailand.

(01:15):
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. Pataiya
is a small coastal town in Thailand which has been
built up around the sex industry. There are thirty thousand
female prostitutes over the age of eighteen, and that doesn't

(01:35):
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

(01:57):
on us, warning us about the danger 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

(02:18):
bar on Walking Street in the Red Light District, which
is a quarter of a mile long street in the
middle of Pataya, 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

(02:40):
brought thirty 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 Cernigan, and I.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
Can remember looking at it from my left shoulder and
I'm saying 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 then there's just a part of them just standing
outside the door, and they were just looking and I
would love to know what's going on their head, you know,
just wondering what the heck are these guys singing Jesus

(03:23):
songs for in the middle of this street. And I
just began to sing what I believed God was saying
over that city. I just began to say that, you know,
since 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

(03:45):
of this just this loop that started to play, a
real minor down beat loop, and it just majored up
into this like anthem of the night that just said,
greater things if you had to come, and greater things
have still to be done in this city. Really, probably

(04:12):
the biggest moment in my life that changed my life
was the moment that that God of the city was
actually winning 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

(04:34):
in your own city, anything, what's going on? What does
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 part of
the rays Christ when 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

(04:56):
Great Commission.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Here's Chris Tomlin with the rest of the story.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
We were in Belfast, Ireland, Northern Ireland and doing a
just doing a worship worship night there, and there were
several bands that were opening up for us during the
During the night we were we were the last band
of play and 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

(05:24):
the dressing room and he said, Chris, Man, did you
just hear that are we were out there? Did you
hear that song they used to played? And I was
like no. He said, gosh, you've got to hear the
song some way. You've got to hear the song. I
really think you'd love it. There's really fresh. And he
said something about God and the city and and I
was like okay, okay man. And so after the concert
every played I got, I got with the guys from

(05:46):
Blue Tree and said I'd love to hear this song
and they and so they show me a demo of
the song and I was blown away 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 in 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, let me here's probably why there's something

(06:08):
about that song. These guys Blue Tree, the way it
was written, they were in Patty of 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 are being a worship band. They're like, yeah,

(06:29):
we're a band and sure we'll come play. I mean,
I love that. I mean that is that's worship leading
at its best, when you're gonna stand in the darkest
place and be the light. You know, they didn't think,
oh what does what does? Some of them just 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 send me
video of it, and I'm talking there's the polls from

(06:50):
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 in the Arian, the lead singer,
in the middle of the set, he said, that song
just came. God just gave him the song. It's just

(07:10):
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 just coming out of them, never
have heard the song before, God just bringing out of them.
For greater things have you had to come? And greater
things are still to be done in the city. And
singing it in that brothel on that bar that night,

(07:33):
what a powerful thing and to be And 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 seas of
America and the seas of the world. Greater things have
you had to come, Greater things are still to be done.
And it's been incredible to see the people's response to

(07:56):
the song, God of the City.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
He is known like a good.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
The creator things have yet to come, and Creator things.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
Are still to be done in this city.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
And a terrific job by the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler. 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

(08:40):
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,

(09:01):
as Tomlins 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

Speaker 2 (09:23):
Are sti