Chris Tomlin Hits D.C. Area at Sold-Out Concert

By Lillian Kwon, Christian Post Reporter Saturday, February 17, 2007

FAIRFAX, Va. – Sold out at nearly every venue since its kickoff in January, Passion's How Great is Our God Tour hit the frigid Washington, D.C., area ahead of Amazing Grace Sunday.

Thousands packed the Patriot Center Friday night to sing what they sing every Sunday at church – worship songs by Grammy nominee Chris Tomlin. Except this time, the singer/songwriter was there to sing it with them.

Christian Copyright Licensing International lists Tomlin as the most often sung contemporary artist in U.S. congregations every week, according to Time magazine. And most of Friday night, he let the crowd be the choir, jokingly asking them to rent buses to follow his team throughout the popular winter tour.

"These songs become the people's songs," Tomlin told the crowd of young and old.

On his acoustic guitar, Tomlin led the crowd in an adaptation of the John Newton's classic hymn "Amazing Grace," a song that thousands of churches worldwide are expected to sing on Sunday in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. There are currently 4,900 churches and organizations in all 50 states and 10 provinces registered for Amazing Grace Sunday on Feb. 18, according to the event's website.

While preserving much of the original hymn, Tomlin made additional lyrics with the heart of what he felt like Newton was writing, he said in a statement. The new adaptation entitled "Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)" is featured in his best-selling album, See The Morning.

Louie Giglio, founder of Passion Conferences and Sixsteps Records – the record label for Tomlin and other notables like Matt Redman and the David Crowder Band – comfortingly told the worshippers that the night was for the imperfect people and for those "falling apart."

And he offered a grand scientific yet spiritual solution to the people, a revelation that a molecular biologist he met on tour had pointed out – laminin.

With half the crowd uninterested in knowing its scientific definition, Giglio simply stated that it is the component that holds us all together. And the molecular structure that holds everyone together, he revealed on the stage screen, is in the shape of a cross.

"Millions of microscopic crosses and one giant cross of Jesus Christ are holding you together," Giglio excitedly told the thousands.

The How Great is Our God Tour with Tomlin, Redman and Giglio makes its next stop in East Rutherford, N.J., on Sunday. The tour continues through March.