Some songs are written. Others feel given. For Chris Tomlin, “How Great Is Our God” was the kind of song that arrived like a gift—unexpected, unshaped, and ultimately unstoppable. Now, twenty years after it first hit worship sets around the world, Tomlin is still in awe of how far the song has traveled.
“People ask me what’s my favorite song I’ve ever been a part of,” Tomlin says. “I always say that one, because the way it’s crossed cultures, crossed generations… I feel like it’s not attached to me anymore. It’s the one song that completely feels unattached.”
Let that sink in: the man who co-wrote and first recorded one of the most iconic worship anthems of all time says it no longer feels like it’s his. And that’s exactly the point. “They’re not singing a Chris Tomlin song’—people don’t think that,” he explains. “It’s a song we sing in church.’ And that’s been so special.”
Originally written in 2004, “How Great Is Our God” has gone on to become one of the most widely sung worship songs in the world. But it started in a quiet living room in Austin, Texas.
“I’ll never forget over 20 years ago, when I wrote it. Sitting on my sofa in Austin, Texas,” Tomlin recalls. “I was open to Psalm 104. It says, ‘You, O Lord, are very great. You’re clothed in splendor and majesty.’”
From that Scripture came the song’s first lines—and Tomlin wasn’t entirely sure where the rest was going. “I just started singing, ‘How great is our God?’ I don’t know where the melody came from. I was just singing it in my room over and over and over. I could not ever find the verses for this song.”
But he kept leaning into it. “I’m just like: the splendor of the King, clothed in majesty, wraps Himself in light. I’m just reading the Psalm in this room and just singing it.”
The song simmered there for a while until it reached the hands of producer Ed Cash—and that’s when it caught fire.
“We just got connected,” Tomlin says of meeting Cash. “This is one of my favorite stories. This is the first song I bring in… and he’s like, ‘I don’t know about this worship stuff.’ You gotta think, this is 20 years ago.”
Tomlin played the unfinished song for Cash, and the initial response was muted. “‘It’s pretty good,’” Cash told him. “‘I think it’s pretty good.’” Then something clicked.
“I’ll never forget. He’s got his back turned, and behind him he grabs the guitar off the wall and says, ‘Man, when you sing that, this is what I think about.’ And he starts going: ‘Name above all names, worthy of all praise…’ and it was like, what is happening?”
That spontaneous moment in the studio became the now-famous bridge of the song—“Name above all names / Worthy of all praise / My heart will sing / How great is our God”—and solidified a partnership that would shape the sound of modern worship music for years to come.
“So the very first time we get together, we do this song,” Tomlin says. “And then we have to finish this song together and produce this music together.”
Since that first collaboration, Ed Cash has gone on to produce much of Tomlin’s catalog—and much of what we now think of as the worship sound. But “How Great Is Our God” was the spark that lit the fuse.
For Tomlin, the most stunning legacy of the song isn’t the accolades—it’s the global response.
“I did a world tour years ago where we did 18 countries,” he recalls. “And I tried to do it in those languages. Every time. I did 18 different languages. I butchered 18 different languages,” he laughs. “But it was so powerful to see it… I just remember different moments through those nights.”
He remembers Japan specifically—where the language barrier faded as the Spirit moved. “You get to the very end and start singing ‘How Great Is Our God’ in Japanese… and it’s just like the place changes. The whole place starts singing. And I was like, ‘Lord, I’m just so grateful for that.’”
Two decades in, Tomlin still plays the song almost nightly. “I’ve played it every night for 20 years. I don’t think there’s ever been [a night] I haven’t played it.”