Written by Lacey Mayes, Staff Reporter
DAYTON, TN – Ellex Heibert is the Coordinator of Campus Worship and Christian Formation at Bryan College. Hiebert is a California native who was introduced to worship leadership at a young age while growing up in church. She was specifically impacted by her father. Heibert describes him as being “a police officer by trade, but by passion, a worship leader.”
Throughout highschool and college, Hiebert moved away from her skills as a violinist and leaned into her gift of singing. She was granted the first vocal scholarship to Gordon College in Massachusetts. From there, Hiebert decided to transfer to a contemporary music school in Nashville. Though advised against it by her college academic advisor, she felt that God had “placed it on [her] heart” and she finished the program ready to enter the contemporary music world.
“So after college, I was convinced that what I wanted to do was going to be in the contemporary world and I was still pursuing that heavily,” Heibert says. For Hiebert, success came fast with the meeting of a grammy producer. But before long, Hiebert and thousands of other beginning artists were knocked off their feet by COVID-19.
“I felt like every time I would try for something in a contemporary realm, God would shut it in my face’” Hiebert says. Heibert eventually turned to worship leadership, moving to Nashville to work in a church program creating worship music, but that too didn’t seem to be the plan that God had for her.
“So I gave up music for probably about two years.” With contemporary and worship music tried and failed, Heibert decided that music just wasn’t what God wanted for her life. She was soon led to seminary school where she was met with the opportunity to lead middle school worship at a school in Nashville.
With the encouragement from her part-time job and new educational adventure, Heibert found a new view of life.“Suddenly all these doors started opening,” Hiebert says. She also describes the lesson God was teaching her during this time saying: “It was like I was in the wilderness. I didn’t even know I was in the wilderness and I was looking around to see the promised land, not realizing that the place that I needed to be in was the wilderness. It wasn’t my time to be in the promised land yet.”
The promised land turned out to be Bryan College. Hiebert decided to take a step of faith and moved to Dayton, TN in 2023 where she has since worked as the Coordinator of Campus worship and Christian Formation for Bryan College.
Now, Hiebert uses her classes to share the lessons God taught through her journey. From “being faithful to where God has called you currently,” to worshiping God with variety and purity, Hiebert pours her heart into serving the Bryan community with her gifts and experience.
Hiebert especially presses the importance of creating a worship space that mirrors heaven. “We’re getting people ready to spend an eternity in praise,” Heibert says. “My vision has been that we can capture in some way the worship that will happen in heaven.” For Hiebert, this looks like a mixture of all the beauty that God created on this earth. The worship will be as mixed and different as all the unique people God has created.
“The biggest thing that I’ve learned through my journey has been that I would have to ultimately say that God’s ways are higher,” Heibert says. “I’m incredibly thankful for such an attentive God who really does know the desires of our hearts, but then goes above and beyond that desire.”
Lacey Mayes is a Bryan freshman double majoring in Criminal Psychology and Communications. Her hobbies include fishing, hiking, reading, and writing as well as visiting her hometown in Chattanooga TN.
