Chris Tomlin's New Album Breaks His Streaming Record, Tops Billboard

Most artists would be happy to still be making records at all after twenty-five years. Chris Tomlin just made the biggest one of his life. The Grammy-winning worship leader's 18th studio album, The King Is Still The King, pulled in the largest global streaming week of his entire career during its release week of September 26 through October 2, 2026 — and it debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Christian/Gospel Albums chart.

Think about that for a moment. This is a man whose songs have been sung in churches on every continent for a quarter of a century. "How Great Is Our God," "Good Good Father," "Holy Forever" — these are not just songs, they are the sound of Sunday mornings for millions of believers. And yet his audience has never been bigger, or more eager, than it is right now.

A Record 25 Years in the Making

When the numbers came in, even Tomlin sounded surprised. He said he never would have dreamed that after so many albums, this one would turn out to be his biggest streaming week yet. For a songwriter, that kind of late-career surge is almost unheard of. Usually the biggest weeks belong to the young and the new. Tomlin has flipped that script entirely.

The team behind him saw it coming, in a way. Brad O'Donnell, president of Capitol Christian Music Group, praised the milestone and pointed to the impact Tomlin's songs have had on people around the world, saying there is no doubt there is much more ahead for him. After a partnership spanning many years and many albums, that kind of confidence says a lot.

What makes the achievement even more striking is the landscape around it. Streaming rewards the new, the loud, and the constantly trending. A worship album built on songs meant to be sung by congregations — not just streamed by individuals — climbing to the top of the charts in 2026 tells you something real about where people's hearts are.

A Hymn 1,800 Years in the Making

Buried in the tracklist of the new album is one of the most remarkable songs Tomlin has ever recorded. It is called "The First Hymn," and he co-wrote it with Ben Fielding. The song is built on what scholars consider the oldest known Christian hymn — the original 35 words and melody, discovered on an ancient papyrus dating to around A.D. 200.

Let that sink in. These are lyrics roughly 1,800 years old, written by a small band of believers who very likely paid for their faith with their lives. Tomlin took their words and gave them new life, so that churches today can sing the same song the earliest Christians sang.

"All I've ever wanted is to help give people a voice to worship God." — Chris Tomlin

There is something deeply moving about that thread running straight through the centuries. The believers who scratched those words onto papyrus could never have imagined Spotify or Billboard. But they knew the same King. And now, because of this album, millions of people are singing their hymn again — proof that true worship does not expire.

"How Good It Is" and the Sound of the Album

The album's lead single, "How Good It Is," has been a force of its own. It became Tomlin's biggest radio debut since 2020, is on pace to finish the year in the Top 5 on Christian radio, and climbed to No. 2 on the Mediabase Audience Chart. Radio programmers do not hand out that kind of response lightly — it means listeners kept calling, kept requesting, and kept turning it up.

The record blends Tomlin's signature congregational sound with fresh energy, the kind of songs that work just as well in a stadium as they do in a small chapel. After eighteen albums, he has learned something most songwriters never do: how to write simply enough for a whole room to sing, and honestly enough for one person alone in a car to weep.

Why This Moment Matters for the Church

It would be easy to treat this as just a music-industry story — chart positions, streaming counts, another trophy for the shelf. But that would miss the point. When a worship album has the biggest week of an artist's career in 2026, it is a signal. People are hungry. They are searching. And they are finding their way, in enormous numbers, toward songs about God.

This is the same hunger showing up everywhere else right now: packed worship nights, young people flooding baptism services, churches they once drove past now filling their parking lots. Tomlin's record is one more data point in a much bigger picture — a generation rediscovering that faith is not a relic, but a lifeline.

Tomlin himself has been leaning into that hunger in creative ways. Last year he launched Worship Under The Stars, a first-of-its-kind concert series that brought worship to iconic outdoor locations — New York City's Central Park, Pier Six in Baltimore, and a sold-out night at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. He has also stepped behind the camera as executive producer of the film The Last Supper, with his song "No Greater Love" closing the film, and contributed "After Your Heart" to the soundtrack of Amazon Prime's hit series House Of David. Worship, it turns out, travels well.

The Road Ahead

So what comes next for a man who just had the biggest week of his career at album number eighteen? If his own words are anything to go by, the answer is simple: more songs, more churches, more people finding their voice. His mission has never changed — helping everyday believers sing to God with honesty and joy.

And maybe that is the real story here. Not the charts, not the streams, but the quiet miracle underneath them: after 25 years, 21 No. 1 radio singles, 30 Top 10 hits, more than 158 cumulative weeks at No. 1, a Grammy Award, multiple Billboard Music Awards, 30 Dove Awards, and over 8 billion career streams — Chris Tomlin is still writing, still singing, and still pointing people to the same everlasting King. The King is still the King, indeed. And the best, as the old song says, may still be yet to come.

But the most surprising part of this story is yet to come — keep reading.