Student Activities hosted indie singer-songwriter Gracie Binion for a night of worship in the LaHaye Event Space Nov. 14 at 8 p.m. with student opener Leta Carlene.
Binion is best known for her work with Elevation Rhythm on songs like “Goodbye Yesterday,” and she recently expanded her reach with her first solo album “I Miss You,” released in 2024. Coming from a musical family, it was nothing out of the ordinary when she wrote her first song at the age of 16 with songwriter Mitch Wong that was later released by CeCe Winans.
Carlene has performed for many Liberty events including Coffeehouse, Block Party and After Party.
After opening for Gracie Binion, Carlene said this experience was a dream come true.
“I never dreamed that I would be opening for Gracie Binion,” Carlene said. “And truly it was such an incredible opportunity and really I just felt so honored and really felt the weight of it because any time you’re leading people in worship, I mean, that’s a big deal.”
Senior Hadley Harris said that Binion left a lasting effect on the audience.
“I love Gracie Binion, I think she’s epic, and I’m really humbled by the way that she leads worship,” Harris said. “I think it’s really sweet to see the body of believers come out to something like this, not only because they love the artists but because they genuinely want to worship the Lord.”
Senior Solomon Rivers described the night as a spiritual experience.
“I felt the Spirit moving and just looking around the crowd — like you can feel the Holy Spirit being present here in the show,” Rivers said.
Special Events Manager Anna Pender said that planning events like the Night of Worship takes special preparation.
“Planning and organizing kind of starts earliest with who we book — the artist,” Pender said. “From there, we get a student opener, and we do these kinds of shows kind of often so it’s easy to plan the logistics of it.”
Pender said she hopes students walk away from this event with a well-rounded worship experience.
“Events like this, obviously concerts, are a big part of our entertainment side of our mission, so we always like to bring artists that are relevant to students,” Pender said. “We kind of just want to bring people in to have kind of a different worship experience, so it’s going to be a mix of just having a free space to have kind of a non-required worship setting.”
Student Activities has more concerts and similar events on the schedule for next semester that students can look forward to. Some of the events for this year include recently announced returning artist Josiah Queen as well as the biggest event of the fall semester, Christmas Coffeehouse. For details about future events, visit www.liberty.edu/sa.
Yike is an on-campus news reporter for the Liberty Champion.