Wednesday, June 18, 2008

God Of This City

Here's a song that is sweeping the world and became the anthem for our week here in Hungary. We sang it several times throughout the week encouraging the missionaries to embrace a huge vision for the city in which God has placed them. We sang it with conviction. We sang it with passion. We sang it believing that, in fact, God is not done with the cities of this world--the cities represented by these missionaries scattered all throughout Eastern Europe.

Here's some quick background on this song. While leading worship in Belfast, Ireland, Chris Tomlin and his band discovered this little obscure band called "BlueTree." They heard this song and were immediately captured by it. The band explained to Tomlin that the song was birthed out of a time of ministry in the city of Pattaya, Thailand. Pattaya has over 30,000 prostitutes over the age of 18, and hundreds more under that age. While ministering in the city, BlueTree was invited by the owner of a bar to play some music. They immediately took him up on the offer, seeing it as an opportunity to sing the love and power of Christ over the city. And it was during this time of singing in the bar that this song was birthed. In a few short moments, "God of This City" was spontaneously created for the glory of God as a message of hope over a destitute city. And God is using it all over the world to stir the hearts of people to embrace, love and draw to Christ the city in which God has placed them. Let it be that for you, as well.

2 comments:

Tim said...

Fro... just missed you on your posting time. yeah, we've been using this song at Journey Church as we move towards opening our Northwest campus. We didn't want you to leave the Mountain when you did but the road calls... See you when you get back!

Josh Via said...

Yea, bro. What a great tune! And sorry we had to leave early from Glassy! We had a great time. Tell Anna and her parents we are grateful!