GCU TODAY • 17
senior vice president for
faith-based marketing.
Bart Millard, lead singer for
the band MercyMe, has been
a consultant on the project.
The Center for Worship Arts
will be part of the College of
Theology, although certain
aspects will involve the College
of Fine Arts and Production
and the Ken Blanchard College
of Business.
Other institutions with a
similar program in place —
such as Liberty University,
Azusa Pacific University
and Southwestern Baptist
Theological Seminary — normally assign it to their music
school. GCU will require 48 credit hours of theology
across four years of study.
“All students in the program will be trained for
ministry,” says Dr. Jason Hiles, GCU’s theology dean, a
former sculptor with a keen understanding of how the
arts, culture and faith intersect. “This sort of training
will develop the skills necessary for church-based
ministry or service in Christian organizations.
“The public nature of the role of worship leader
requires a depth of theological knowledge, for clarity in
communicating the Gospel message.”
Worship leadership will be one of four degree
emphases. The others are production, digital media
and business management. According to Millard, 41,
students will learn things that it took him years of trial
and error to get a handle on.
“Bart gets who we are in a profound way,” Hiles
says. “He understands we’re very much engaged in the
culture, and he senses there’s an authenticity about us.
He wants to ground students in the Word and teach
them to communicate that through music.”
The program also will include a series of worship
“summits” in areas such as songwriting, performance
and marketing. These are expected to bring top
industry talent to GCU and to utilize the nightclub-like
Thunderground venue that opened on campus in 2012.
Guests might include Tai Anderson, bass player for
Third Day, who completed his college degree online with
GCU along with Mark Lee, the band’s lead guitarist.
Anderson, 37, told a group of high school students before
the recent Roadshow stop in Phoenix that he had to
choose between a music career and his schooling in 1993
when he joined Third Day.
“How cool would it be, while already doing music
ministry, to get the educational support behind it?” he
said to the group.
Jeanette Plasencio, 22, who will graduate from GCU
this spring with a major in Christian studies and a
minor in music, says she heard about the possibility of
a worship arts program before she even enrolled at the
University. She is disappointed to have missed out.
“I’m graduating right before it happens,” says
Plasencio, a worship leader at Catalyst Church in
Phoenix who also has been a mainstay of GCU’s Chapel
band. “This program will teach the tools you don’t
know right away.”
Even so, Rahman says, there is no substitute for
learning by doing. He says he hopes the program will
provide an abundance of those practical opportunities.
“As much hands-on experience as you can give
students at putting things together,” he says, “that’s
extraordinarily important to their being hired.”
In other words, David, bring your head, heart and
harp to class — and let’s see what you’ve got.
5 Trends
to Watch
inWorship
Music
Music styles will change
(think folk-rockers
Mumford & Sons).
More churches will
write their own music.
Websites and apps will
become more important
in planning services.
Traditional worship
(hymns, liturgy) will see
renewed interest.
The use of strings will
increase, as it has with
secular and Christian acts.
SOURCE: DR. ROGER O’NEEL, ASSOCIATE
PROFESSOR OF MUSIC ANDWORSHIP,
CEDARVILLE (OH) UNIVERSITY,
Worship or concert? It’s the Phoenix stop of the Roadshow concert
tour, sponsored by GCU, which played to large crowds in nearly two
dozen cities this winter.
photo by alexis bolze
Worship or concert?
In this case, it’s a
service at Christ’s
Church of the Valley,
a megachurch with
four campuses in
metro Phoenix.
photo courtesy of
todd
clark
/
christ
’
s church
of
the valley
