It started in a kitchen. Not a studio or a cathedral. John Mark McMillan sat in a room in Jacksonville, Florida, grieving the death of his best friend, Stephen Coffey. If you’ve ever felt like your world just collapsed into a singular point of pain, you know that headspace. He wasn't trying to write a radio hit. He was wrestling with a God who felt both big and incredibly cruel. That’s how how he loves us became a song that would eventually define an entire decade of CCM and worship music, though it definitely didn't start out sounding like something you'd hear on a Sunday morning.
The song is raw. It's jagged. It’s got that famous line about a "sloppy wet kiss" that made church elders sweat for years. Honestly, the story of this song is mostly a story about how humans try to quantify the divine using metaphors that occasionally make people uncomfortable.
Why How He Loves Us Broke the Worship Mold
Worship music in the early 2000s was often... polite. It was polished. Then McMillan dropped this track on his 2005 album The Song Inside the Sounds of Goodbye. It didn't fit. The metaphors were visceral. When he wrote "heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss," he wasn't trying to be edgy. He was talking about the sheer, unrefined, and sometimes overwhelming nature of grace. It’s the kind of love that isn't clinical. It’s messy.
When David Crowder Band covered it in 2009, the song exploded. But there was a catch. The "sloppy wet kiss" became an "unforeseen kiss" for many radio edits and church performances. People argued about it. They debated it on forums. They wrote long blog posts about whether it was "reverent." But the controversy only pushed the song further into the zeitgeist.
It resonated because it felt real. Life is rarely a "well-tuned symphony." Sometimes it's a "pain that eclipses" everything else. McMillan’s lyrics acknowledged the hurricane. He described a God who wasn't just watching from a distance but was actively "draw[ing] me to your redemption."
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The Theology of the "Sloppy Wet Kiss"
Let's talk about that specific line for a second. John Mark McMillan has been asked about it roughly a million times. In various interviews, including a notable one with Relevant Magazine, he explained that the phrase was meant to capture the way a child kisses you—total abandonment, no ego, just pure, unadulterated affection. It’s not sexual; it’s relational.
Critics felt it was too "low" for a holy God. But proponents argued that the Incarnation—the central theme of Christianity—is inherently "low." It’s God entering the dirt. By using a metaphor that felt slightly uncomfortable, McMillan forced listeners to stop auto-piloting through their worship and actually think about what they were saying.
The David Crowder Effect
If McMillan wrote the soul of the song, David Crowder gave it its wings. When the David Crowder Band included it on Church Music, they brought a certain indie-pop sensibility to it that made it accessible to the masses. Crowder is a giant in the industry. His endorsement meant the song moved from indie circles into the biggest megachurches in the world.
However, the lyrical change Crowder made (with McMillan's permission) sparked its own secondary conversation. Is art still the same when you sanitize it for the "general public"? McMillan has famously said he doesn't mind the change for congregational settings. He understands that a room of 2,000 people might get hung up on a word and lose the heart of the message. But for him, the original will always be the truth of that moment in his kitchen.
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Impact on the Industry and Beyond
The song didn't just stay in the church. It crossed over. It’s been covered by dozens of artists, from Kim Walker-Smith of Jesus Culture to mainstream performers. It became a staple of the "Passionate Worship" movement.
What’s wild is how it stayed relevant. Most worship songs have a shelf life of about three years before they’re replaced by the next big anthem from Hillsong or Bethel. How he loves us is nearly twenty years old and still appears on CCLI Top 100 lists. It has staying power because it doesn’t ignore suffering. It was birthed from a literal death, and you can hear that weight in every chord progression.
A Quick Reality Check on the Stats
- Original Release: 2005 (John Mark McMillan)
- Breakout Release: 2009 (David Crowder Band)
- Chart Success: The Crowder version hit the Billboard Christian Songs top 10 and stayed there for weeks.
- Legacy: It’s often cited by songwriters like Phil Wickham and Brooke Ligertwood as a turning point in modern worship lyricism.
What Most People Get Wrong
People think it's a "happy" song. It isn't. Not really. It’s a desperate song. It’s a song written by someone who was angry and hurt and trying to find a reason to keep believing. When you sing it as a bubbly pop tune, you sort of miss the point. The "great affection" mentioned in the lyrics isn't a Hallmark card; it's a lifeline thrown to a drowning man.
McMillan's friend Stephen died in a tragic car accident. That’s the "hurricane" in the song. When you realize the context, the line "If grace is an ocean, we're all sinking" takes on a much darker, much more profound meaning. It’s not about a relaxing swim. It’s about being overwhelmed by something so much bigger than yourself that you have no choice but to let go.
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Making the Song Mean Something for You
If you're a musician or just someone who likes to analyze lyrics, there's a lot to pull from here. The song works because it uses a "C - Am - G - F" progression (in the key of C) which is the bedrock of Western pop, but it stretches the phrasing. It doesn't rush to the chorus. It lingers.
Actionable Steps for Engaging with the Music
Listen to the original version first. Before you go to the polished live versions with thousands of people screaming, find the 2005 recording. Listen to the crack in McMillan's voice. It’ll change how you hear the lyrics.
Look at the structure. Notice how the song doesn't have a traditional bridge that leads to a massive, loud climax. It’s more of a slow build that plateaus into a realization. If you’re a songwriter, try writing something where you don't use the word "God" or "Jesus" once—McMillan doesn't in this track—yet the subject is unmistakable.
Accept the tension. You don't have to like the "sloppy wet kiss" line. But you should ask why it bothers you. Often, our discomfort with raw metaphors in art says more about our desire for control than it does about the quality of the art itself.
Use it as a case study in grief. If you’re going through a hard time, read the lyrics as a poem. It’s a document of a man moving through the stages of loss in real-time.
The legacy of how he loves us isn't found in how many copies it sold or how many times it was played on the radio. It’s found in the fact that it gave people permission to be honest. It told a generation of worshippers that they didn't have to clean themselves up before they started singing. You can be messy, you can be grieving, and you can even be a little bit "sloppy" in your expression, and it still counts.