By Kari Lutes, Features Editor
Although chapel music is led by students we see around campus, we often don’t know their hearts behind worship. I interviewed leaders of four of the five chapel bands, each band a part of the eight-band Asbury Worship Collective. They gave insight on what it’s like leading Asbury in worship.
Band Leaders: Carolyne Clements and Dalton Moore
Band Members: Seth Kornegay, Devin Bowdan, Brooke Way, Zac Hamilton, Zach Jeffcoat, Lilli Soza, Olivia Vinson and Lyndsey Talbott
Question: What draws you personally to worship?
Moore: There’s this weird thing that happens when you lead worship where you spend hours and hours preparing, then you get up there, and you go on this auto-pilot mode where it’s just you and Jesus. You get to worship in that moment because you’ve done all the preparation and you get to give it all over to Jesus.
Clements: There’s nothing like getting to be in His presence. If my experience with Jesus can somehow be translated so that someone else gets closer to Him because of a song that I sing, I’m going to do that with all the hours of my day.
Band Leaders: Ariane Arquisola and Connor Steele
Band Members: Abby Hamilton, Diego Molina, Josh Thompson, Levi Simonton, Niamh Bolton and Emily Nelson
Question: Do you think there is a certain element in songs you gravitate toward?
Arquisola: We have really tried to make the shift from personal worship to praise songs…it’s great that we in our own life lean on the Lord, but there’s something bigger about God just being the king of all things.
Question: What is your favorite thing about playing in Hughes?
Steele: I’m able to be really joyful when I’m worshiping in Hughes. I love when someone gets it. I can look at someone, and we’re both having the same smile—it’s like we’re of one mind. That’s one of my favorite things—just the joy.
Band Leaders: Stacey Ballinger and Sophomore David Keener
Band Members: Brett Ballinger, Landers Pannell, Libby Woods, Madeline Vermilion, Benjamin Black, Blake Helton and Mindi Robinson
Question: What do you like most about leading worship in chapel?
Ballinger: Hearing people sing the songs throughout the days and weeks following chapel. We, as band leaders, have a hand in choosing the theology people are singing and meditating on as they walk from class to class.
Question: Is there anything else you’d like to share about leading worship in chapel?
Keener: I want the goal of my band to be facilitating an authentic worship atmosphere. We never want to make worship a performance.
Band Leaders: Jessica Mendez-Lira and Michael Rogers
Band Members: Zoe Zamora, Mary Holland, Michaela Bales, Zeke Friedman, Nick Morgan, Chase Carter, Elise Shin and Hunter England
Question: What is your favorite thing about leading worship in Hughes?
Mendez-Lira: Seeing God move in the hearts of students and then seeing students respond to Him, especially from the perspective of the platform looking out at almost the entire campus. It’s a wonderful thing to witness.