by Bria Isaacson, News Editor
The Asbury Worship Collective, which consists of Asbury worship band members, is recording a live album of original songs today at 9 p.m. in the Black Box Theater. Tickets for the event are $3 for students and $5 for non-students.
The theme for the album is Heaven on Earth, according to junior J.D. Smith, one of the drummers for the album.
“We want to see a complete emptying of ourselves, so that we can be completely filled with the Spirit,” he said. “[We want] a wholly devoted people, who just want to make space for Jesus to be in fellowship with us.”
The album theme aligns with the band’s goals. Worship Arts Program Coordinator Jon Roller said there are several purposes behind the making of this live album: to worship Jesus through music and other art forms, to create a physical album of original songs to share more about Jesus, to invite future students into the Collective and to develop the band members’ skills, especially in leadership.
“Ultimately, our goal with everything we do is to bring those who don’t know Jesus to him and those that do know him closer to him,” Roller said.
Although playing music is the most obvious art form involved, Roller also used graphic arts in posters and the album design, film art in videos, photography, lighting and set design, hospitality, live sound engineering and song writing. All of these areas are worshipping God through their art, according to Roller.
“Worship is responding to who God is and what he has done, is doing and will do,” Roller said. “To respond out of the deep and intimate places in our hearts where lyrics and music come from is especially beautiful and meaningful for us.”
To worship through songwriting, band members wrote their parts for the album’s ten songs—nine original songs and one rearranged hymn. Smith worked with senior Levi Simonton, another drummer for the album, to write the drum parts for the songs.
Smith said that writing songs is “relatively simple, to be honest…. It is about the creativity but also the logical way to enhance the notes and chords being played by the other band members.”
In addition to writing their own songs, students are leading and arranging all parts of the project. Senior Ariane Arquisola, the event producer, has been heading up every aspect of the project, according to Roller.
[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“Ultimately, our goal with everything we do is to bring those who don’t know Jesus to him and those that do know him closer to him,” Roller said.[/perfectpullquote]
The preparation for this event started in August with preproduction. “[This] really allowed creative freedom and excitement to build,” Arquisola said.
This is the second year of the project, and Arquisola hopes that the event will become a class or annual special event.
“I hope the ways that [the] Holy Spirit reveals himself leaves a mark that inspires us to continue to create more, moves us forward into action and stirs in us a longing to find moments of intimacy with the Father,” she said.
For this year’s album, the dream is that people will buy the album and that the worship night will be special.
“I hope that the night itself is more than just a mere moment in time,” Smith said. “I want it, for me, to be a time I want to relive over and over and over again. This album will be that, and I hope and pray that people feel the same and want to invest in our program and invest in [the] experiences even after they initially happen.”