Awesome God by Rich Mullins

Album: Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth (1988)

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Songfacts®:

Rich Mullins was a Christian singer-songwriter who is best known for his worship songs. He tragically died aged 41 in an automobile accident in 1997.
This simple hymn, which acknowledges God's awesome power, is Mullins' best known song and was placed #1 in the 2006 book CCM Magazine presents 100 Greatest Songs In Christian Music.
Rich Mullins was driving late at night by himself in a pick-up truck somewhere between Tennessee and Missouri. He was on his to a youth concert in Colorado and was having trouble staying awake. Rich found himself thinking about envisaged an imaginary "hellfire and brimstone" preacher, the kind that bellow short, sharp proclamations about God to their congregation. He rolled his window down and started shouting these statements into the night, trying to stay awake. Line by line Rich yelled the phrases of what was to become this song. He committed those lines to memory until he got to the venue and found a piano and taught the kids "Awesome God."
The song was used in the 2021 Netflix movie A Week Away. The film features a modern medley version of "Awesome God" and For King & Country's "God Only Knows." The medley is performed during a campfire scene in the movie.
Phil Wickham released an updated version of the song titled "What An Awesome God" in 2025. For Wickham's rendition, he and Jonathan Smith wrote new verses that they combined with Mullins' original chorus.

Comments: 1

Rick W from UsaI was one of those kids at the Christ in Youth conference at what was then Loretto Heights College in Denver, Colorado. Rich led a group that provided the music for the entire multi-day conference. I remember how he told us he had written this song on the way to the conference, and I remember seeing him and the other singers grouped around a microphone, holding between them a small piece of paper on which he had written the lyrics and chords, and I remember the profound emotion of hearing that chorus as the ensemble sang it, and then as 500+ high schoolers joined in. It was a special, amazing, awesome moment!

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