The Church is tired. Not of God, necessarily — but of noise. The news cycle is loud. The platforms are louder. Opinions masquerade as theology, and somewhere along the way, the message of Jesus gets buried beneath headlines, algorithms and hot takes.
For Red Rocks Worship, that tension has become impossible to ignore.
“We’re not here to pick sides,” says worship leader Tyler Roberts. “We’re here to call people back to what matters. Jesus is coming back, and the Church needs to wake up.”
That message became the heartbeat of their new album, The King Is Coming. But to call it just an album feels reductive. It’s more like a declaration — one meant to shake the church out of its distractions and remind it what it was built for.
The band began writing in early 2024, with one question guiding the process: What does the Church need to hear right now?
They weren’t looking to make a trendy project. Their sights were set on November — election season — and all the division that would come with it. They knew what they didn’t want: another worship album that dodged hard truths or tried to go viral. What they wanted was unity. What they wanted was Jesus.
“We just kept saying, ‘Let’s write songs that help people look up,’” Roberts says. “Not songs that try to sound cool. Songs that center the only thing that actually matters.”
And then came Easter.
Red Rocks lead pastor Shawn Johnson gave a sermon that didn’t end with the empty tomb. It ended with Revelation. “Jesus is coming back,” he said — plainly, boldly, without metaphor.
Roberts remembers sitting in the service stunned.
“It was the first time I remember us saying it like that,” he says. “Not in passing or as a theological footnote, but as a call to action.”
The team went straight into the writing room. That night sparked what would become the album’s title track. When they performed it live for the first time — during the album recording in July — the audience had never heard it before. But by the third verse, something had shifted. The room was singing it back like they already knew it.
“It was like a memory more than a melody,” Roberts says. “Like it had already been written on people’s hearts.”
That moment clarified what Red Rocks Worship has been chasing all along — not just with this project, but with their identity as a worship collective. They’re not trying to generate hype. They’re trying to generate faithfulness.
For Roberts, worship isn’t about the performance. It’s about attention.
“You worship whatever you give your focus to,” he says. “It’s not just about singing songs. It’s how you live — at work, at school, in line at Chick-fil-A. Worship is a life posture.”
That conviction shaped every lyric on The King Is Coming. The team didn’t write for a hypothetical listener — they wrote for the people sitting in their own congregation. Real names. Real stories. Real struggles. And more than anything, a real need to be reminded of God’s presence in the everyday.
“If a song never leaves our church but gives someone in our community language for their pain or praise, then we’ve done our job,” Roberts says. “That’s the win.”
That perspective wasn’t always second nature. In the early days, Roberts admits, it was easy to slip into ambition.
“I wanted to be noticed,” he says. “But then 2020 hit. Leading worship through empty rooms stripped all that away. We found our voice again — not as artists, but as pastors.”
Now, every project starts with the same filter: What is God doing in our church? What is our pastor preaching? What does our community need to sing?
This year, that question brought them to Ephesians 3:20. The theme for Red Rocks Church was “More” — more of God’s presence, more faith, more boldness. So the band wrote “So Much More,” a track pulled directly from that verse. Like every song on the record, it was built for the body, not the brand.
That posture shapes how Red Rocks Worship views their role in the broader church, especially in a time when many Christians feel disillusioned or divided.
“We believe revival starts when the Church remembers who it is,” Roberts says. “That doesn’t happen through a tweet. It happens through worship. Through unity. Through people laying down their agendas and lifting up something bigger.”
This year, the band is taking that message on the road. Their “King Is Coming” Tour launches in June and will expand in October. But at the center of it all is one unshakable belief: the local church still matters. And if you’re not in it, you’re missing the point.
“You’re not meant to do this alone,” Roberts says. “Church isn’t just about cool music or sermons that make you feel better. It’s about hearing real stories. Real testimonies. Seeing God move in people who are just like you.”
That’s why the message of The King Is Coming matters so much to them. Because it’s not just about a future moment — it’s about present readiness. It’s about living like Jesus is worth following, here and now.
“The Church is still God’s plan,” Roberts says. “And the King is coming. We want to be ready.”
