Student Spotlight - Evan Rivera

Evan Rivera is a B.M. Church Music senior from Houston, TX. While at Baylor, he has been an influential student and has poured into the lives of several youths through Worship Lab and a ministry he started, called Step Out.

How did you get started in music?

Evan’s parents always wanted to play piano, so they wanted their kids to play piano. When recalling starting lessons at five years old, Evan said, “I hated it. I was not bad at piano, but I just didn't like going to lessons… thankfully they kept me in [lessons].” In Middle School, he followed in the footsteps of his father and began playing saxophone. Through playing in the school band and playing piano on his church’s worship team, Evan began to form a community. “I just kept growing and developing my knowledge of music, but also my love for music and my love for music bringing people together…”

Why Baylor?

Evan was studying music and business at Houston Christian University while also working in a ministry at home that he and his friends started called Step Out, a worship ministry for youth led by youth. “I really felt a tug on my heart to pursue and to continue pursuing music ministry and so I wanted to do that as my vocation,” Rivera said. Because HCU did not have that many avenues for him to pursue music ministry, he decided to apply to Baylor University. Through prayer and conversations with his parents and friends, Rivera was led to Baylor to pursue Church Music. “I really wanted to learn as much as I could…because my background is contemporary kind of stuff I wanted to do so much more… I wanted to learn as much as I could about the history of the church and the history of music within the church and all of that so that was what kind of pulled me in.”

While at Baylor, Evan has continued working with Step Out ministry. He reflected that the joy of this ministry is watching the young people grow and watching so many youths have a place where they can worship and express themselves while also having a community built on biblical truths of what community should be– a community that worships in spirit and truth. Though it will look different, Step Out will continue when Evan moves to North Carolina. Step Out was birthed out of a need for a space for youth in Evan’s home church. He and his friends took a leap of faith and started what has now grown to include youth from other churches in the community. “At first it was just like five of us on stage and four of us in the congregation but as we continued growing, learning, and just developing our understanding of what worship is, and how to love people …eventually we merged with another church and our team doubled in size.” Evan went on to say, “the testimony of Step Out is God's provision because we didn't think we were going to be able to do it and we wouldn't have if it wasn't God providing for every step of the way because we were just students and that made it difficult to do a lot of things… a lot of people didn't think that would necessarily be able to do it on our own. It was really [a] testament to God’s vision and to what he could do through us.”  

What are your plans for the future and how has Baylor prepared you for them?

As far as plans, getting married is number one on Evan’s agenda. After that, Evan and his soon-to-be wife, Libby, will be moving to North Carolina where she will be studying for her Master’s in Divinity at Duke University. “My hope is to find a job around there. Hopefully working in a church doing some ministerial work there… We're really excited for that. It's going to be a huge change, but it's going to be fun, and I think it's going to be really sweet to do that with her. I want to just keep using everything that I've learned – the gifts that God has placed in my life and steward them well.”

“I would say that all of the church music classes specifically have helped in growing my understanding of what it means to be a minister. Not just a minister of music, but what it means to minister to others. Especially through my time at my internship with Dr. Paul Magyar at West University Baptist Church. That was really informative.” Opportunities like coordinating the Men’s Choir Trip to Kenya in 2023 were also influential for Evan.

We are excited to see how God will continue to move through and in Evan’s life. Sic’em, Evan!