By Hali Anderson
Staff Writer
What is reflection chapel?
“It’s a chapel where you reflect on things,” said Chris Barry. Humorous, but not exactly accurate.
During October’s reflection chapel, scores of students poured into the Psalms Center. Chris Spivey’s chapel band led a time of worship focused around the theme of surrender. The worship session incorporated music, prayer, and multimedia. A short film from “The Skit Guys” was played. It jovially addressed surrendering to the Lord, and then more sobering, the often-painful process of His chiseling the sin from a believer’s life. After the film, the chapel band, filtered onto the stage one by one. The band shared their own stories of surrender on cardboard signs.
At the same time in PV-101, about 15 students sat down with campus pastor Dan Huber to discuss social justice, and in the Prayer Chapel, about 20 students filtered through and picked up a prepared devotional on the subject of surrender.
According to campus pastor Dan Huber reflection chapel is an attempt to replace the “Organization Chapels” of previous years. In the past, one organization would arrange a chapel time across campus, with different activities students could participate in. Huber explains that Organizational Chapels had low attendance, as students were unsure of where to go and how they could participate.
The new Reflection Chapels are a bit different, focusing on students’ spiritual preferences, as well as providing organizations an opportunity to share.
The four types of spiritual “worshipers” that reflection chapel seeks to reach are activists, who enjoy “doing” something, such as outreach, to worship; scholars, who want to be exhorted and taught; pietists, who enjoy traditional worship and reading of scripture; and lastly, contemplatives, who learn best from introspection. The goal of reflection chapel is to provide an outlet for all these spiritual types, as well as an introduction to several campus ministries.
In September for the activist portion of reflection chapel, SALT, a Corban street ministry, and LIGHT, a craft ministry, joined forces to lead a workshop to make homelessness care kits. In the Emittee Center, TrueNorth Corps, Corban’s student led missions ministry, led a teaching time.
The reflection chapel in October, however, was far less diverse. No organizations volunteered to lead an activist or teaching time.
“My desire is that these become very student led,” said Huber.
Huber is eager for student organizations, or even individuals, to lead other sessions across campus during reflection chapel. However, without students to participate, this will all be in vain. Huber proposes that students are drawn to the Psalms Center by habit, failing to realize other options are available. He brainstorms ways to keep students informed, perhaps by putting a sign in front of the Psalms center, reminding students of the other activities.
“I don’t know where else to go besides the Psalms center,” said student Audrey Sullivan.
On the other hand, some students know their options, but just prefer music worship.
“I always go to the Psalms center because I love singing,” said freshman Natawsha Compton.
Ultimately, the success of Reflection Chapel is in the hands its participants. Reflection Chapel is more than just a conduit for spiritual modes of worship; it is a mirror of the heart of the students at Corban. If Corban students are interested in different venues of worship, they will continue to provide and thrive under their own direction.