Indiana Wesleyan University’s Rev. Dr. Constance Cherry, professor of worship and pastoral ministry, recently spent seven days experiencing the people and programs of Hillsong College in Sydney, Australia.
The unique opportunity initially arose after Cherry’s friend Adam Dodson, faculty member of Hillsong College and keyboardist for Hillsong Church, learned that she would be in Australia speaking at a worship conference sponsored by the Chinese Methodist Church of Australia. Being so close to Hillsong, he invited her to come experience the college firsthand.
Cherry’s involvement at Hillsong included:
- Experiencing the many aspects of the college program, including worshiping in chapel, attending a New Testament class and touring the campus.
- Networking with faculty and administration where she was able to discuss Christian higher education and curriculum.
- Interacting with upper-level Hillsong students and acting as a resource to them.
“Much of what I teach about worship was explicitly demonstrated in Hillsong Worship and College,” said Cherry. “In my opinion, Hillsong Church is a classic example of how contemporary worship music is used for something bigger than itself—to serve the whole order of service, rather than dominate as the sole entity of worship.”
Additionally, Cherry was asked to be featured on the Hillsong Creative Podcast, a weekly podcast used to train Hillsong worship leaders across the world. Since its launch, the public podcast has received one million hits, with each episode reaching 12,000-15,000 worship leaders worldwide. Cherry’s episode, which will go live in early 2020, centers on developing a biblical philosophy of corporate worship and issues related to worship leadership today. To listen to the podcast, visit https://hillsong.com/wcc/podcast/.
Cherry believes that global experiences like this play an important role in her own life as well as the lives of her fellow professors.
“International experience expands one’s view of the world in general, and the worldwide church in particular,” said Cherry. “We need to interface with multiple cultures so that we can receive the knowledge from others to fill gaps in our own perspectives, something we desperately need not only for our own growth but for that of our students.”
Cherry developed IWU’s Christian Worship department from the ground up in 2004. She has decades of experience in full-time local church ministry as both pastor and director of music and worship. She is an international speaker, a published composer and the author of five books. Her first book, “The Worship Architect: A Blueprint for Designing Culturally Relevant and Biblically Faithful Services,” has been used as a required text at more than 150 institutions of higher education worldwide and is available in five languages.
For more information on Cherry and IWU’s Christian Worship programs, visit https://www.indwes.edu/undergraduate/school-of-theology-and-ministry/christian-worship-programs.