Higher Vision

Week after week, Higher Vision Church is packed with nearly 3,000 adrenalized God followers. The 12-year-old multigenerational congregation just outside of Los Angeles is quite diverse, and that diversity takes center stage on Higher Vision Worship's debut album, For Your Kingdom. "When we design worship experiences at Higher Vision, with every light that moves and every video, our focus is on Chr...

Week after week, Higher Vision Church is packed with nearly 3,000 adrenalized God followers. The 12-year-old multigenerational congregation just outside of Los Angeles is quite diverse, and that diversity takes center stage on Higher Vision Worship's debut album, For Your Kingdom.

"When we design worship experiences at Higher Vision, with every light that moves and every video, our focus is on Christ," explains Higher Vision's Sean Loche (formerly of the groundbreaking group Worth Dying For) who produced the album. "And we're always asking, 'How are people engaging? How do we help people feel safe and loved in the power and presence of God?' We try be a place for people to 'jump in the pool.' Sometimes they want to jump full-on in -- and sometimes they just want to get their toes wet."

That same vision for Higher Vision the church was applied to the songs on Higher Vision Worship's For Your Kingdom. "The album feels like a miracle," says worship pastor April Ashburn. "It feels like there's something for almost everyone. Different styles and yet a well-rounded whole."

There are songs on For Your Kingdom that tug at the heart, and then there are others like "Broken the Chains" that squeeze and don't let go. "I just thought how crazy is it that God created everything," explains lead pastor Jared Ming, who wrote the song while thinking and praying about a struggling friend. "Yet there's still a song in heaven that angels cannot sing. The angels worship, but we worship differently.... We've been redeemed and forgiven. Angels can't sing, 'I've been redeemed.'"

The 13-track album rebounds from those lighter moments with energetic worship such as the high-energy title track, the electronica-flavored "Trust in You," dance-tinged tunes like "Freedom of Your Love" and "Hands Held High," and then dives back in with heartfelt ballads such as "He Is Here" - which paints a sound picture of God's presence and our response to it.

"We can get stuck in a cycle of grasping for God's presence only to realize that God is here all around us," says Ashburn, who penned the song. "Sometimes we just need to become aware of his presence -- and then our response isworship."

Higher Vision not only wants For Your Kingdom to be an experience the congregation can carry with them wherever they go, but also they want it to speak to those who may not yet have Christ in their lives.

"There's just so much darkness going on in the world," says Loche. "Every day you read the worst, most horrific news you can imagine. We want to just be a blip of good, a blip of light in a dark world, to atheists and to Christians."