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Watch Matt Redman Worship God Over the City of Los Angeles

In September 2017, Matt Redman released Glory Songs, a collection of 13 new songs that are will likely make it to many churches’ worship sets in the coming years.

The video above shows Redman with accompanying musicians performing the song on top of the Capitol Records Tower in Los Angeles, California.

This isn’t the first time Redman has taken to a public space to worship God. In 2016, Redman partnered with a Luis Palau event and transformed Times Square in New York City into a worship room.

And while worshipping God with a big crowd in a public place is something Redman is familiar with, he says it’s not as easy as leading worship as a pastor, week in and week out. In an interview with ChurchLeaders, Redman shared about his experience leading worship in a local church context for several years. In many ways, Redman feels that job was a lot harder than being a recording artist and performing at evangelism events (or on the top of Capitol Record in Los Angeles). “When you’re leading week in, week out…you’ve got to bring something new and shepherd people over a long period of time. That’s the hardest thing,” Redman said.

Although he hasn’t been a worship pastor for a long time now, Redman is still contributing to the church through his songwriting. Glory Songs is Redman’s 10th album, and it contains a handful of songs your church will surely want to integrate into its worship rotation. As sing-able as the album is, the intention behind it is equally as inviting and necessary right now, given America’s current tensions.

Redman’s heart for the album was to provide some bridges between different streams of the church (specifically the American church) by way of music. Toward this end, Redman collaborated with a number of artists, including Tasha Cobbs Leonard, a contemporary gospel singer and songwriter. Leonard worked with Redman on the song “Gracefully Broken.” She also recorded her own version of the song on her latest album, Heart. Passion. Pursuit., which was released in August 2017.

In an interview with New Song Cafe, Redman shares the origins of the song, which started in a hotel business room when he, Jonas Myrin, Bryan and Katie Torwalt, formed the verses. After this meeting, Leonard contacted Redman asking if he wanted to collaborate. “She’s got a real heart for bridging together some of the streams of the church,” Redman says.

Redman also discusses some of the themes present in the song. The song highlights God’s grace. Redman explains that even as God allows us to break, “it’s done kindly and gracefully and there’s no cruelty in it. And there’s no harshness in it.”

Starting at 6:30 of the video, Redman explains how to play the song on the guitar. If you’d like to perform this song at your church, head over to Worship Together for a free chord chart download with transposing options.

To hear more of Redman’s insights on leading worship in a local church, check out our conversation with him on the ChurchLeaders Podcast.