How “God of This City” Was Written in the Unlikeliest Place
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 15 January 2026
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, while on a mission trip to Thailand, a modern worship band found itself playing an impromptu set inside a brothel in Pattaya, one of the world’s most notorious centers for sex tourism. In that unlikely setting, the song “God of This City” was written in real time by members of the Belfast-based band Bluetree. Our own Greg Hengler tells the story of how that moment gave birth to a powerful worship anthem that later caught the attention of Chris Tomlin and went on to be sung in churches around the world. It is a story about faith, courage, and light appearing in the darkest places.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:14.4 | And we continue with our American stories. |
| 0:18.2 | Our next story is about a worship band that was on a mission trip to Thailand and ended up |
| 0:23.4 | playing an impromptu gig at a brothel in an area considered the world's go-to destination for |
| 0:30.5 | sex tourists. Here's Greg Hengler with a story. Chris Tomlin is a prolific American Christian songwriter with two certified platinum albums. |
| 0:40.3 | Because of his song's popularity in many contemporary churches, Time Magazine said he may be the most often sung artist anywhere. |
| 0:49.3 | Although the song God of the City would become the anthem for Louis Giglio's passion conference |
| 0:55.4 | and receive international exposure while peaking at number 72 on the Billboard's album chart, |
| 1:01.5 | this story of a song neither begins with Tomlin nor was it written by him. |
| 1:07.7 | The song God of the City originates in 2006. |
| 1:11.8 | Belfast, Ireland-based modern worship band Blue Tree took part in a short-term mission trip to |
| 1:18.2 | Pataya Thailand. |
| 1:19.8 | It was the first time the band had been out on a trip like this. |
| 1:23.4 | Here's what Blue Tree lead singer Aaron Boyd had to say about the trip. |
| 1:28.3 | Pataya is a small coastal town in Thailand, which has been built up around the sex industry. |
| 1:34.3 | There are 30,000 female prostitutes over the age of 18, |
| 1:39.3 | and that doesn't include those who fall under this age, including both sexes. It's physically dark. It's spiritually dark. |
| 1:48.0 | And when I drove in and saw what was going on, I couldn't see God there at all. |
| 1:53.0 | I was frightened. I mean, not just a little bit, but a whole lot. |
| 1:58.0 | I blame our mission pastor. He had done such a great job on us, warning |
| 2:03.1 | us about the dangers that we were up against in one of the world's most infamous destinations |
... |
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