Another Music Rant

I'm not extremely opinionated about alot of things. Music is not one of those things. I'm kind of over the whole "I like what you like so you'll like me" thing. So, if I don't really like a song, I'll tell you. I also am not afraid to admit that I might now like a song that I once didn't like. Here's what I'm talking about.

Without getting too honest about things that aren't really pertinent, I'll just say I'm not automatically a fan of each new worship song that people jump onto. Just because certain people wrote or recorded a song, doesn't mean I should embrace it. It doesn't mean the song is bad, it just means I would rather wait until the hype settles to see if the song has any true weight.

That said, I never liked the song "God of this City." I've had to play it several times at different churches, and it has always just felt contrived, like a marketing scheme by a big worship machine. "Here, Houston, here's a song to sing. Here's a song for you, Boston. Sing it at church and feel good."

No one ever seems to grasp on to the powerful message, because we don't think our cities need God. We safely drive down our roads to our clean churches with nice, smiling people who have normal lives. We sing our joyful songs about how good our lives are now that we're saved, and go home to our mostly great lives where we can do pretty well on our own. We're safe and protected in our little bubbles. We don't know what God is doing in our cities, so how can we say, "Greater things are yet to come in this city"?

You might not have heard of the band called Bluetree, but they wrote that song. After hearing this story (Passion doesn't mention it, that I can find; And Amazon.com told it incorrectly), I can honestly say that I am starting to love this song now. I'm not ready to sing it at my church in my city; I don't think it's necessarily for us here. So, take a look. Here's the story behind the song, from Bluetree's Myspace blog. Read it, then read the lyrics and allow your perspective to change.

God of this City

Nov 2007, Bluetree are heading out to Pattaya Thailand to participate in an event arranged by Belfast missionaries living in Pattaya, Thailand called Pattaya Praise. We’ve no expectation of the event; we were just looking for an opportunity to serve somehow.

We didn’t know much about it before we left, but Pattaya is a dark place. It’s a small seaside town notorious for it’s sex trade. Throughout our time there we heard countless stories of girls who are bought from their parents for a price, sold to the sex industry at ages as young as 5 years old. Arriving in Pattaya the spiritual climate seems to change, it’s hard to define, but there is a very tangible change. On the bus journey in we’d been our usual cheery selves, but entering Pattaya at 10am and turning on to a street lined by girls ready for business, the bus became very quiet. We’re in total shock. It’s a sunny day but it’s incredible how dark it feels.

’Walking street’ we learn is the epicentre of the sex trade in Pattaya, it’s about a mile long and at night springs to life with neon signs. Thai people are generally conservative in their dress sense – it’s generally considered provocative to bare your shoulders. But on their street the girls are wearing very little, and offering anything you can imagine for a price. It’s easy to look around with human eyes, see the depravity and get angry. You see older men walking hand-in-hand with young girls – as a daddy, that’s hard to take in. It’s easy to get angry, it’s easy to judge – but that’s not our job, so we grit our teeth.

We were in Pattaya to be part of a praise event not far from this street, the soul purpose of which was to worship and show God’s light in a dark place. We wanted to play more than the scheduled slots while we were there, so we found out that one of the bar owners would let us play a worship set in her bar on the proviso that we brought as many from the missions team who would buy coke-a-cola all night. We walk in to the bar which is about the middle of walking street, girls are lined up on the stairs waiting for business. We get set up, we’re really nervous and quite uncomfortable but we kick in to a familiar beat of worship and soon it’s ok. God starts to speak and we started to move in to this spontaneous song. The truth is when you worship in a place, you start to see God’s heart for that place. What would God say to a place like this?

Amidst the depravity God say’s, I’m the God of this City, I’m the King of these people and Greater Thing are Yet to Come, Greater Things are Still to be Done HERE. The song wasn’t written before that night, but we came out of the bar having worshipped with the song that is now the title track of our album – God of this City (Greater things). The song isn’t just for Pattaya – it’s for your city, and it’s true. By faith we must expect that greater things are still to be done.

God of this City (Greater Things)

You’re the God of this city
You’re the King of these people
You’re the Lord of this nation
You are

You’re the light in this darkness
You’re the hope to the hopeless
You’re the peace to the restless
You are

For there is no-one like our God
There is no-one like our God

Greater things have yet to come
Greater things are still to be done
In this city

You’re the Lord of Creation
The Creator of all things
You’re the King above all Kings
You are

You’re the strength in our weakness
You’re the love to the broken
You’re the joy in the sadness
You are

For there is no-one like our God
There is no-one like our God

Greater things have yet to come
Greater things are still to be done
In this city

Greater things have yet to come
And greater things have still to be done here