Getting Your Head Around And If Our God Is For Us
I've been teaching church bands this song for over a decade now. It sounds deceptively simple when you first hear it, but there are enough moving parts underneath that even experienced players struggle with it. The chord progression lives in G major, which is about the most comfortable key for a guitar to play in. Everyone brings their best tone there. But don't mistake comfort for simplicity. The song follows a verse-chorus structure where the verse stays grounded and the chorus opens up. I used to tell my rhythm section to just play what they wanted during the verse and let it build, but that approach created more problems than it solved. The drums get too busy and steal focus from the vocal. You want the verse to feel sparse. The kick and snare should almost sit back. Let the electric guitar do the heavy lifting with arpeggios rather than strumming. That's where the tension lives.
And If Our God Is For Us Chris Tomlin
Here are the chords you'll actually need. Verse: G, D/F#, Em, C, G, D. Chorus: G, D/F#, Em, C, G, D, G. That Fbass move in the bottom of the progression is what makes this song. Without it, you're just playing a standard four-chord pop sequence. With it, you get that lift into the chorus. I've seen guitarists skip the slash chords entirely and turn what should be an emotionally rising song into background music that nobody remembers. The bridge kicks the key up to A major. One whole step. That's a big jump for vocalists, and I've watched several singers crack on the first chorus after coming down from the bridge because they never reset their diaphragm properly. The fix is to have the vocalist breathe on the last measure of the verse before the bridge hits. Don't rush it.
Where to Find Reliable Resources
Official chord charts from the copyright holder are available through CCLI SongSelect if your church has a license. That's the cleanest option. You'll get the exact transposition the band uses on the record, along with strumming patterns and any special techniques. If you're just a home player or small group without a CCLI license, Songsterr and Ultimate Guitar both have the chords up, though the community versions vary in accuracy. I checked three different UG submissions against the original track last year and two of them had the bridge in the wrong key entirely. Always verify by listening. For sheet music, the Hal Leonard Big Songbook series has it compiled with piano/vocal/guitar arrangements. Not the most accurate transcriptions for purists, but serviceable if you need something printed out at two in the afternoon before a service.
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What Nobody Tells You About Playing This Live
The tempo sits around 72 beats per minute. That's slow enough that timing errors become very visible. If your drummer drags on the chorus, you'll feel it immediately because there's nowhere to hide. I've played this song at funeral services where the congregation was singing along and a sloppy tempo completely undermined the moment. It's not a high-energy song where mistakes get lost in the crowd noise. Precision matters here more than it does in most worship songs. The vocal melody has a wide range, spanning from B below middle C up to E above high C. That's nearly two octaves. For a male vocalist, that means switching between chest voice and head voice or falsetto in the chorus. I recommend keeping the chart in G for male voices and A for female voices. Some bands try to stay in G for everyone and the result is either strained high notes for the women or boring low notes for the men. It's not worth the compromise. One edge case I deal with constantly: keyboard players tend to overharmonize the chorus. They add ninths, elevens, and whatever color tones sound good in their head. The song doesn't need that. It needs space. The original production is deliberately minimal on the chorus. Every extra note the keyboardist adds creates a frequency clash with the vocal. I've started marking in the chart that keyboard parts should stick to root position chords with maybe an occasional sixth add. Nothing flashier than that during the chorus. Save the texture for the bridge.
A Quick Strumming Guide
The guitar part is mostly alternating bass notes on the lower strings with light strums on the higher ones. Think of it as a hybrid fingerstyle approach rather than aggressive strumming. The pattern goes bass note, downstroke on the middle strings, bass note, upstroke on the higher strings. It creates momentum without volume. If you strum hard through this song, it loses its character and sounds like every other worship song in the key of G. Don't rush the arrangement either. The song benefits from dynamic contrast between sections. Start the first verse quiet, bring it up slightly for the second verse, hold steady through the pre-chorus, then open fully for the chorus. Most bands play everything at the same volume and the emotional arc disappears. The congregation can feel when a song has no direction. They'll stop engaging with it.
