The Asbury Worship Collective will host its annual live album recording March 26–27 in the Black Box Theater at the Miller Center, inviting students, faculty and community members to participate in the worship gathering. The event will capture the live recording for the group’s upcoming album, “Jesus Be.”
The Asbury Worship Collective is made up of student vocalists, instrumentalists and producers who collaborate throughout the year to write and record original worship music. According to vocalist Christina Smith, the group is open to students from any academic major through an audition process.
“Basically, every year, Asbury has an audition of worship artists at school,” Smith said. “You don’t have to be a music major or anything. It’s just an audition process.”
Work on the album begins months before the recording event. During the summer, members start developing song ideas individually and share early drafts with the team.
“It’s a year-longproject,” Smith said. “We began songwriting, individually, over the summer, and we would send in, like, voice memos and different ideas throughout the summer.”
When students return to campus, the team gathers for an intensive week focused on songwriting and building community before continuing weekly meetings throughout the semester to refine lyrics and narrow down which songs will be recorded. Smith emphasized that this year the group started with roughly 40 song ideas.
After months of collaboration, the team finalized a set list of 11 songs. Three are covers of existing worship music, while the remaining eight are original songs written by members of the collective.
Smith is one of the album’s vocalists and contributes to the songwriting process. Other vocalists include Donovan Chung, Maria Rojas, Anneliese Zonio and Justin Wilson. Luke Kesten plays drums and Nathan Smith plays bass. Josiah McKinney serves as producer and music director, working alongside student producer Lauren Wilding.
“I’ve been working alongside our band, the music director, songwriting leads, admin leads, and media leads to get this project running,” Wilding said. “I’m doing things anywhere from writing songs, organizing events, getting merch and talking through design processes.”
For Wilding, stepping into the producer role this year has been particularly meaningful.
“This year as producer is special to me because I have seen how everything has operated in the past couple of years more behind the scenes, so getting to step into this role myself is very surreal and has really given me the opportunity to see God at work,” said Wilding.
Although the event includes a live recording, the goal is to create a worship-centered environment rather than a traditional concert.
“It’s supposed to be more of a worship night. We’re recording it, but we don’t want it to be like a performance,” Smith said. “You know, trying to actually worship with the songs so people can sing along, or people can just use it as prayer time.”
The recording will take place across both evenings and is expected to start around 7 p.m. There will be prayer stations present during the night so attendees can engage in different forms of worship during the event.
Tickets will be required for entry, with discounted pricing expected for students.
After the recording, the songs will go through several months of mixing and production before the album is released publicly. “Jesus Be” is expected to become available toward the end of the summer or the beginning of the 2026 fall semester on major streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music.
