For this weeks Friday Favorites The Morning Thing hosts kept it simple! They shared their favorite thing that happened this past week!
091925 Friday Favorites – Our favorite thing that happened this week!
Rock City Worship comes to Sonfest 2025 at MVNU
Rock City Worship is coming to Sonfest 2025 at Mount Vernon Nazarene University on Saturday, September 20.
Rock City Worship is the expression of worship at Rock City Church in Columbus, Ohio. With a focus on writing songs that paint a vivid picture of who God reveals Himself to be in His Word, this group of pastors, worship leaders, and songwriters believes that the more clearly we can see God, the more completely we can worship Him.
Their sound blends passionate, modern worship with anthemic melodies and Christ-centered lyrics, aiming to lead people into authentic encounters with Jesus. Rock City Worship’s music has been shared in churches and streaming platforms across the country, encouraging believers everywhere to worship with all their hearts.
Nathan Montgomery of Rock City Worship talks with WNZR about the origin of the church and their worship team. He also talks about their approach to songwriting and creating a worship experience for anyone attending a service or a concert. Rapid Fire reveals his favorite worship songs and that he is a Star Wars fan.
Click HERE to hear the full conversation with WNZR’s Ethan Hershberger.
You can see Rock City Worship at Sonfest at 3:45pm on Saturday.
Click HERE for all the details about Sonfest 2025.
John Mark McMillan comes to Sonfest 2025 at MVNU
John Mark McMillan is coming to Sonfest 2025 at Mount Vernon Nazarene University on Saturday, September 20.
John Mark McMillan is something of an anomaly: an artist and Platinum-selling songwriter bending genres and defying categorization by carving out his own unique and independent path. With an ear for melody and a poet’s eye for metaphor, no topic has been off-limits. While each of his albums over the past decade have continued to explore new territory, it’s McMillan’s ability to give lyric and language to the human experience that many consider his greatest gift.
John talks with WNZR about his approach to songwriting, his history in music and how God has always part of his journey in life and music. Rapid Fire reveals the first concert he went to and his favorite movie and snack.
Click HERE to hear the full conversation with WNZR’s Ethan Hershberger.
You can see John Mark McMillan at Sonfest at 6:30pm on Saturday.
Click HERE for all the details about Sonfest 2025.
2025 Festival Latino to be held at MVNU!
WNZR’s Marcy Rinehart spoke with Joseph Joe who is the Assistant Director of Intercultural Life about the Festival Latino, which will celebrate Latino students and Latino culture.
Click HERE to hear the full conversation!
Lola’s is catering for the event, bringing tacos, tortillas, and chips and salsa; it’s a free event and all are welcome to attend.
During the event, there will be a salsa class with alumni coming back to teach attendees which starts at 6:45pm
The annual event will be held Thursday, September 18th starting at 5pm at the Print Student Union.
Click HERE to see the MVNU Community Calendar!
NOAH – LIVE is coming to theaters this week!
The Morning Thing talked with Stephanie Lefever, Communications Manager at Sight & Sound Theatres about the exciting theatrical release of NOAH – LIVE!
Sight & Sound’s flagship production, NOAH, is setting sail for movie theaters nationwide!
Stephanie talked about this special 30th anniversary celebration and the process of taking this extraordinary production from the big stage to the big screen.
Click HERE to hear the full conversation with Stephanie and WNZR’s Marcy Rinehart.
Click HERE to find a list of show times and theaters.
Here is the Trailer:
Brook Abella is Opening at MVNU’s Sonfest 2025
Brook Abella is playing at Sonfest 2025 on September 20th and she talks about how she grew up in Bellefontaine.
She’s a double major in Communication and Media and Visual Art. She also has a minor in Music.
She talks about how she grew up around music, what she is looking forward to at Sonfest, and some of the opportunities she has had in the music industry so far.
Click HERE for more information about Sonfest.
Tyler Maddux Ready to Open for MVNU’s Sonfest 2025!
Tyler Maddux is playing at Sonfest 2025 on September 20th and he talks about how he grew up in New Philadelphia.
Click HERE to hear the full conversation!
He’s a worship arts major and has a minor in youth and family ministry; he’s hoping to become a worship pastor when he graduates. He talks about how he got into music in 7th grade and around high school he decided to go all in on music.
Some of Tyler’s biggest influences in music are bands like ‘Colony house’ and ‘Sons of Steven Curtis Chapman’ and it inspires him for when he writes his music. For a long time, his style was acoustic guitar, it wasn’t until he started making his second album that he started to find his style of Rock music. He draws inspiration from his own personal life experiences to come up with his song lyrics, he also likes to write songs about the bible.
Tyler talks about what he’s excited to see at Sonfest, he’s excited to see people who are impacted by the music outside of his regular friends and family, it helps inspire him. Tyler Maddux is opening at 1:35pm at Sonfest on September 20th.
Tyler talks about his new album he released in late January, he’s really proud of it because of how it defined the sound that he like to use. You can stay connected to Tyler Maddux on Instagram, Facebook, and on TikTok. Tyler talks about the purpose behind writing his music, he likes to write about how he feels at the time of his writing; he’s getting married soon and so a lot of his music he’s writing is about how he feels about that. He’s got a few songs he’s been writing recently and a few songs at Sonfest and hopes to record and release them soon.
Tyler goes over some rapid-fire questions, his favorite worship song is ‘tear my house down’ by Chris Renzema. The first concert he ever went to was a ‘Colony house’ concert in college in his freshman year. He’s a night owl, he likes cats, he likes coffee and he normally gets a caramel ice late, his favorite snack is cheez-its and his favorite movie is called ‘about time’.
Click HERE to find out about Sonfest 2025!
Mariya Tatarin talks to WNZR about Operation Christmas Child
Mariya Tatarin is from Ukraine and received a shoebox at the age of 10 and she talks about how she felt from this, the box had hygiene items, school supplies and toys.
Click HERE to hear the full conversation!
Mariya talks about her favorite toy when she got her shoebox growing up as well as some of her story when she grew up and the massive impact receiving the shoebox made on her life. She also talks about the book she received “the greatest story ever told” and she ended up gifting that book to her neighbors and it helped share the gospel to them.
Mariya shares more of her story and because of the shoebox, the kids around her saw that God knew who needed that shoebox and how people all over the world who do his work.
She talks about how she moved to America due to religious persecution and the how the process took a long time. Now she travels to Churches, schools and communities to share her story and get to be a real person to see the impact of Operation Christmas Child. Mariya shares how you can pray for the people of Ukraine struggling with the war, she says to pray for God to intervene and bring and end to the war.
Mariya shares a message for people packing shoeboxes, she’s very grateful and thankful for people taking their time to help pack shoeboxes; so many people who receive the shoeboxes have never even heard of the gospel and it makes a huge impact on the lives of kids. She says 11.5 million shoeboxes are packed each year and she talks about how important it is to see the people who sent the shoebox. She still keeps the picture of the family who packed the shoebox for her in her bible in hopes of meeting them.
She talks about why you should take the step to help support Operation Christmas Child and shares a message to people who haven’t ever packed one before. Its intimidating at first, but Mariya says to just start with the basics and you’ll start coming up with new things to put into your box. It makes an impact and it makes a difference.
Mariya Tatarin is sharing her story this Friday at 7pm at Gilead Friends Church, and she talks about how you can pray for her and how she wants God to speak through her to the people listening. Pray for Operation Christmas Child to have all their volunteer needs filled with people trying to share God’s love and good news.
Click HERE to learn about Operation Christmas Child.
091225 Friday Favorites – The Most Important Meal of the Day!
For this weeks Friday Favorite, our hosts celebrated Better Breakfast Day! Marcy, Eric, Xander and Josiah all share their favorite breakfast meals!
WNZR presents the September 2025 MVNU Presidential Update
MVNU President Dr. Carson Castleman stops by to give his September update to WNZR’s Marcy Rinehart.
Click HERE to hear the full conversation!
He is excited to start the 2025-26 school year and is happy to see the students back on campus and out in the community.
He says enrollment is growing in both traditional and non-traditional students and they have added 13 new faculty members.
Dr. Castleman talks about the restructure of the university into two schools. CAPS stands for College of Arts and Professional Studies for non-traditional students. CAST which is the College of Arts and Sciences is the traditional 18–22-year-old students. They also restructured the deans and administrative roles of the staff.
Dr. Castleman talks about the 4 C’s which was a focus on the recent Faculty and Staff Awards earlier this month: conviction, conversation, care, and connection.
He explains how the 4 C’s are a centerpiece for the MVNU community.
Dr. Castleman shares a special bible verse as a focus for the university this year from Isaiah 43:19 (NIV), “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
He says that the cabinet helped determined the verse because MVNU is stepping outside the normal doom and gloom at other campuses and that God is doing something new here at MVNU and we are changing the world.
Dr. Castleman gives an update on the construction at the Chapel. He said there was an issue with carpeting over the summer and that put the project behind. He said God provided both in time and financially to help get the campaign finalized.
Dr. Castleman gives an explanation on the opening of the entrance at front of campus that had a security hut. He said that he received some feedback and believed that the entrance needed to be re-opened for several reasons.
He also gives an update with the Hunter Wright hub in downtown Mount Vernon.
Dr. Castleman gives an update on his plans are for the fall and he is planning on staying on campus this fall as some transitions take place and is getting back in the classroom.
Dr. Castleman gives some words of encouragement to the students, faculty and staff.
Dr. Castleman also explains how we can pray for the students, faculty, staff and university this fall.
Click HERE to find out more about Mount Vernon Nazarene University.
Rise and Shine 