EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was originally published in the April issue of GCU Magazine, available in the purple bins across campus or digitally.
As freshmen at Grand Canyon University, Desiree Aguilar and Katie Brown had no inkling about the potential of the worship arts program more than a decade ago.
“I had never been a part of anything except songwriting in my room,” Aguilar said.
Brown added, “We were told to submit songs, and I didn’t think anything would come of it.”
They were two of about 200 students in the then-new program (it launched in 2014) who heard about a three-song EP that would be produced in spring 2015, even before a state-of-the-art recording studio debuted that fall or before the university hired a recording studio manager.
Program leaders wanted to reinforce their commitment to sync students with vocational and music ministry.
“It blew my mind,” Brown said of all the pieces coming together – the program, a studio, a studio manager and an EP. “I didn’t know what was happening. But it was exciting.”
“It” was the development of the first Canyon Worship album, released shortly before the end of the spring 2016 semester with seven songs written and recorded by GCU students, plus the three songs on the 2015 EP.
That sparked a buzz in the worship arts program and among prospective GCU students, alumni and local churches.
Canyon Worship 2017 featured 11 original songs by GCU students, co-produced by established songwriters and musicians Geoff Hunker and Billy Smiley.
“This was the year that the program really started to find its footing and find its identity, not just for GCU, but for the larger community,” said Eric Johnson, who learned of GCU’s recording studio manager opening during a layover at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport after teaching an audio workshop at Ozark Christian College.
The project will hit a milestone April 10 with the release of Canyon Worship X, an album honoring a decade of the Canyon Worship series, recorded live at Antelope Gymnasium in November. The compilation features songs written by alumni and current students.
“When we started, no one knew what the project was,” said Aguilar, a 2018 worship arts alumna and voice/piano instructor at Desert Ridge Music Academy in Phoenix. “And 10 years later, there’s a whole bunch of people who have followed the journey with us and now say, ‘I want to be a part of it. I want to sit there. I know exactly what I’m going to get when I go to Canyon Worship. I’m going to have genuine worship and have student-led projects that feel relevant to what’s going on right now.’”
Canyon Worship is one way the College of Theology and the Center for Worship Arts supports worship arts students as they pursue independent contemporary Christian music careers.
“It was the students who drove that,” Johnson said of the focus on music ministry. “They raised their voices, and they were heard. All of a sudden, we made sure that the program was very much in support of the local church. And it was very quickly following those students’ graduations that we saw them (working in churches).
“Some of them went back home to their hometowns and got jobs as music leaders in their local church. In some cases, the local church was waiting for them to return.”
Hearing Canyon Worship 2016 helped Aaron Bolton overcome his fears when he performed the song he wrote, “Witness,” two years later.
“For any writer, you have to get over that initial hump of turning your judgment voice down and letting yourself write something and say it without fear or judgment of yourself as the critic or without other people as critics,” said Bolton, area director at Likewise Worship in Phoenix.
“It was a huge step for me writing some of my first songs, but even after 10 years, I still have to get over that hump of my inner voice tearing everything down and also the fear of what other people are going to think.”
Bolton’s favorite song on the first album? “With You,” by Brown.
“I thought it was special,” Bolton said.
Canyon Worship 2016 was therapeutic for Aguilar, who contributed three songs as a writer and singer, including “Follow You” with Jessica Sams.
“I went through a season of intense sickness, and I wrote that song because it was about following the Lord when I don’t see exactly what’s supposed to be happening or where I’m supposed to be going and everything feels unsure,” Aguilar said. “And I think that resonates with kind of how the program was.
“It was our first year, and we didn’t know what was going to happen, where it was going to go, what would be successful. They felt those songs together. Whether you’re unsure, having Christ in you and around you, and just pursuing His presence, set the tone for everything going forward.”
Sept. 18, 2015, marked a signature moment in the program – the grand opening of GCU Recording Studio on the fourth floor of the Technology Building.
“It was a game changer,” Johnson said emphatically.
Aguilar added, “All the equipment was astounding for a freshman to see, everything new and so exciting.”
Before the studio’s opening, the worship arts program produced a three-song EP recorded at four venues in Nashville under the direction of executive producer Bart Millard, known for his time with MercyMe, and Grammy Award-nominated producer Jeff Pardo.
Shortly after, those three songs – “Follow You,” “Christ in Me” and “Christ Be all Around Me” – were copied and combined with seven new songs to create GCU’s first in-house album under the helm of then-Worship Arts Director John Frederick, recording studio coordinator John McJunkin and Johnson.
“We really pushed to get that done before the spring semester ended,” Johnson said. “But having a studio connected to the worship arts program was a serious magnet.”
Canyon Worship 2017 was the first full-length album with 11 original songs, “and this is where it really kind of started taking on the personality of the students that were in the program,” Johnson said. “The program started to find its footing and its identity, not just for GCU, but for the larger community that started noticing us.”
Brown, who married GCU alumnus Stephen Condon and is now a volunteer worship leader at Compass Church in Goodyear, Arizona, was amazed by the media attention and working with Nashville-based producers and bands she had heard.
“There were moments where I thought, ‘Am I really in the same room with this person?’” Brown said.
An array of contributors – and faith – sustained Canyon Worship through a decade without compromising their high standard
“Artists tend to play off one another,” Dr. Jason Hiles, dean of the College of Theology, said. “If one student has the chorus, they have the words, or they have the chord. They want to play something on the guitar. Then the next student brings in keyboards, or some sort of percussion, and it sort of comes together, and they’re learning from one another.
“And so it’s hard,” added Hiles, who credits Johnson and recording studio coordinators Joseph Vaught and Ryan Buckland for mentoring students and refining projects. “At all points, you want to find the individual who gets the credit for this, who gets the praise. But there’s something beautiful about the complexity of an artistic community sort of fueling, feeding, encouraging one another, and that is happening in the studio regularly.”
Students have carried God’s message through song.
“And that’s where it ties back to Canyon Worship,” Johnson said. “Because that’s an outpouring of what that is. It’s communicating God’s Word through song.”
From his days as an adjunct professor in 2016 to being hired as worship arts director in 2024, Moises Felipe witnessed past and present students carry the program’s mission.
“I believe that was the best way to tell the story,” Felipe said of the 10th anniversary album melding the artistry and faith of different generations of students. “And I believe in the future. In the next five years, even the next two years, you will see students who are coming to GCU saying, ‘That 10-year album you recorded at Antelope Gym made such an impact that I walk with Christ, and I’m so grateful I was exposed to it.’”
Guitarist/singer Aaron Menezes, an alumnus who performs nightly at Valley venues under the name of Aaron Charles, reminisced with Felipe about the growth of Canyon Worship at the live recording in November.
“Look at God’s faithfulness and the lives of those who built lifelong friendships and relationships,” Charles said. “Some got married, and it’s for the glory of God.
“So being there that night, I couldn’t help but think this is just not an album recording and a celebration of looking at this music we made. It’s a celebration of, ‘Look at the community we built for 10 years.’”
GCU News senior writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at [email protected]
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