SEU Worship might just be the most unique worship collective releasing music at the moment. Instead of being connected to a church, the group’s DNA lies in Southeastern University (SEU), a Christian college located in Lakeland, Florida, an hour west of Orlando. The outfit is comprised of staff members, current students and alumni. The students who are a part of SEU Worship are chosen through a rigorous audition process that, if selected, allows them the rare opportunity to lead worship at regular on-campus chapel services and worship nights and participate in every facet of the creative process surrounding music. From songwriting and marketing to leading worship, recording and touring, Southeastern University students leave college with a better understanding of how to use their God-given talents to serve the local church and beyond.
Alumni Chelsea Plank has been on staff at Southeastern University since 2012. Instrumental in co-writing and stewarding selections like “What a God,” “Slower I Go” and “Monday Morning Faith,” the Long Island native and her bandmates recently stopped by the Air1 Studios in Franklin, Tennessee. After wrapping a 38-city tour with Winter Jam in Nashville the previous night, Plank sat down with Air1 the following morning for an exclusive interview to chat about what first drew her to Southeastern, unforgettable advice she received from an artist she admires, and the revival that inspired “Move of God.”
Air1: What originally made you want to enroll as a student at Southeastern University?
Chelsea: When I visited Southeastern, it was during their conference season, and SEU Worship was leading that conference in the spring of 2017. I just remember it was thousands of students worshiping the Lord. The presence of God was so thick in that place, and I was just like, “I want to be a part of this environment. I need to be in this room. I need to be with this body of believers.” And so I made my decision, then, to go to SEU. That fall, I auditioned for the worship team and pretty quickly got involved with all their stuff in terms of writing and touring.
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Air1: SEU Worship is such a unique entity. Was the hands-on experience Southeastern offered attractive to you?
Chelsea: I think that definitely drew me to SEU. Being able to actually express myself creatively through worship and through ministry was, I think, an opportunity I didn’t see a lot of other places having. I got to write songs; I got to create... It was a creative outlet, as well as what I feel God has created me to do. We’re all created to worship, and so even to build that muscle of worship and praise and adoration, along with that creative muscle, was like no other experience I saw offered anywhere else. So yeah, it definitely drew me initially, for sure.
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Air1: Did you desire to lead worship every Sunday at a church, or did you aspire to pursue the artist route in Christian music? What were you dreaming about when you were growing up in New York?
Chelsea: I knew I loved worship. I knew I loved songwriting. I knew I loved music. I knew I loved that side. But then in the same breath, I also went back to school for my master’s in human services. So I love outreach. I love missions. I love resourcing the Church for local outreach and for how to service their communities best. I didn’t know what ministry would look like; I just knew my life was going to be full-time vocational ministry. I’m always just like, “God, if You open the door, and You say, ‘yes,’ that’s where I’m going. And if there’s an open door, but there’s no peace, I’m not going.” So I think I’ve just really followed the peace of God. I never thought I’d be able to have a career in songwriting for the Church and leading students into what true worship looks like. It’s literally a dream I could not have even curated on my own. So I feel like the obedience step for me is like, “God, You have my ‘yes’ if Your peace is there.” And then He’s always fulfilled just these deep desires that He’s placed within me.
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Air1: What’s your mission as SEU Worship?
Chelsea: Our main goal is always to be true worshipers of the Lord, teaching true worship and modeling true worship. We just want to be people found by God, found as true worshipers, when He’s canvassing for those people.
Air1: For the past two years, SEU Worship has gotten the opportunity to be a part of Winter Jam, one of the largest Christian music tours in the world. What has that experience been like for you?
Chelsea: I mean, number one, it was the biggest honor for us to be a part of that and for us to be entrusted with being represented under Winter Jam. So it was just a huge deal to us both years. It’s been so awesome getting to meet those artists. These are artists a lot of us have grown up listening to and have looked up to our whole lives. And so to then meet them and see, wow, you’re a pure-hearted person, and you’re authentic and you care about what you do… It’s so encouraging.
The beautiful thing about Winter Jam is it really represents the Church. To me, it really represents the unification of the body of Christ. Like, you have KB rapping, and then you have Anne Wilson on country and you have heavy metal with Skillet; and all of these lanes somehow don’t interfere with one another. We do not have to be the same in what God has made us to do and who God has made us to be. There’s different parts of the body, and I think, my favorite part about being side stage and watching all these people is seeing how this is an embodiment of the Church. When you see that kind of unification amongst so many diverse groups of artists and genres, it’s like, man, the Church is alive and well.
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Air1: Have you had a conversation backstage with another Winter Jam artist who’s given you advice you found extremely helpful?
Chelsea: Oh, for sure. Actually, it was John Cooper from Skillet. He gave such an encouraging word for our team. He encouraged us to stay pure-hearted, especially in a worship movement where it’d be very easy for anyone — because we’re human — to try and take glory or try and take a position or title. The weight of perfection — that’s not even ours to carry. But especially that purity piece. He was just like, “I’ve seen with SEU Worship, specifically, a good, healthy seeking of that purity.” He’s so humble and so kind. It was just very encouraging for us to hear that from such a seasoned believer and a seasoned artist. And I feel like I’ll take that with me always.
Air1: You co-wrote “Move of God.” Tell me what you and your collaborators had in mind the day you wrote that song.
Chelsea: Oh my gosh, I’m so passionate whenever I get to talk about that song because I think, there’s just such a unification that happened with it, and I think that’s so like God. So it was myself, David Ryan Cook, Rob Ellmore, and Ethan Hulse [in the co-write that day]. During that timeframe, we were just experiencing a radical move of God on our campus. We were going late into the night worshiping and praying, and we were just seeing lives transformed. The best revivals are ones that last to the next day. You know what I mean? They last throughout your conversations. And it’s not just those big hype moments, but it’s what happens afterwards, too. And we knew, even just from seeing it one other place — at Asbury — we were like, “God is doing this in America. God is doing this in His Church. God is doing this in young people.” Whenever we see a move of God, we know it’s not exclusive because our God’s not an exclusive God, and He wants that for His Church at large.
There was such a hunger on campus; there still is. We just saw that our hunger and thirst for His presence brought about the Spirit of God because we had faith that He was going to come, that He was going to meet us. And so, we went into that write and just said, “We’re so hungry for a move of God. We’re so desperate to see that across the country and globally.” We felt like we wrote that song for our campus, but we definitely had the Church in mind. It was a cry for us just as hungry believers. And what’s been so awesome is to see it live on for people in their homes, who are saying, “We need a move of God in our family. We need a move of God in our city, in our town, in our hearts.” It’s not just subject to a large environment, but it starts with each and every burning heart.
Air1: What’s next for SEU Worship?
Chelsea: We have a new album coming out in the next few months, and it’s my favorite project we’ve ever done. It’s a fresh sound for us and something we’re really excited about. It is definitely the most creative thing we’ve done. It feels the most like us. Year after year, album after album, it feels like this is the sound of our campus, this is the sound of our students.
