“God of this City” is a familiar song to a lot of us. It’s sung in churches, on every Christian radio station, anywhere Christian music is played, you’ll hear this song. But, chances are you probably don’t know where it originated. I didn’t until last week.
We sang the song in one of our daily worship sessions here at DtonNaam. Celeste asked afterwards if any of us knew how the song got its start. None of us did.
She told us this story…
There was a group of people doing bar outreach in one of the red light districts here in Bangkok. This is one of the districts that we live near and walk by almost everyday.
One of them asked the bar manager if they could play their guitars and sing in the bar. The manager was fine with it, as long as they were buying sodas. The group began to sing and worship in this bar, ushering in the Spirit of the Lord in that dark, heavy place.
They began singing:
You're the God of this city
King to these people
Lord of this nation Light in this darkness
Hope to the hopeless
Peace to the restless
They sang it out, proclaiming this over the city, speaking it, because those things are the truth. God is victorious, even in dark places.
Later, Chris Tomlin heard what they had sung and made the song famous.
I love that this song was first proclaimed over this city. This city that has a heavy spiritual darkness over it, considered by some as the sex trafficking capital of the world, red light districts everywhere, prostitutes roaming the streets.
But God is still God of this city.
I believe that there are greater things that God is going to do in this city.
