Cedarville Magazine, Spring 2019

Chapel. The word sparks vastly different emotions. For some, the first word that comes to mind is “skip.” For most Cedarville alumni, Christ Is All I Need , “Have an awesome day in Christ,” or another oft-repeated phrase may come to mind. At Cedarville, chapel is synonymous with “the heartbeat of campus” and in this article, I hope to show you why. If you sat through four years of chapel at Cedarville, you probably already understand. If you haven’t, you probably think we’re crazy. Chapel five days a week? Why? Who wants to listen to that much preaching? COMMUNITY Chapel forms a common bond amongst our Cedarville family. We all hear the same inspiring testimony, experience the Spirit moving mightily through a song, feel encouraged by thousands of voices singing in unison with hands raised high, and undergo genuine life transformation through the power of the Word passionately preached. This shared experience bonds our campus together like nothing else. It creates community. It sparks conversation. It unites us. It reminds us why we’re here. Chapel provides one place — dare I say, the central place — where God works and moves in the hearts and minds of our campus, changing wrong thoughts, convicting us of sin, encouraging the broken-hearted, and calling many to be saved or to their life’s work. KEEPING THE MAIN THING THE MAIN THING Many universities lost their way so long ago, they can no longer see the path and wander aimlessly in the wilderness. Harvard University, for example, once had chapel twice a day. The list of wayward schools founded by Christian organizations or with the intentions of training ministers is too numerous to list. Even amongst those who call themselves “Christian universities,” the signs of compromise appear as obvious as the handwriting on the wall in Daniel. Chapel certainly doesn’t ensure that a school won’t lose its way, but it does provide a safeguard against it. Think about it. You take the best hour of the day for classes: 10 a.m. — not too early but early enough. Instead of maximizing classroom usage, hold chapel during that hour five days of the week. Consider the expense. The Dixon Ministry Center cost $15 million to build in 1996. For some schools, space matters as much as the money. A landlocked campus with a growing number of students simply can’t meet all together. The challenges are real. So when an institution commits millions of dollars to build a large structure in a central location to function maximally for one hour a day, it reminds everyone to keep the main thing, the main thing. Educational institutions can very easily begin to think they exist to communicate a set of facts to recipients who pay money for the conveyance of information. If that’s all a school does, then it will soon be replaced by Google. A genuine Christian university exists to transform lives for godly service and vocational distinction. For chapel to work properly, the President must own it in importance and messaging. Chapel provides a central opportunity to cast vision and unite a campus around a common goal. If the President of the institution doesn’t place the proper emphasis on chapel, then neither will the faculty or staff. If campus leaders don’t, neither will the students. Chapel will become just another requirement. I recently eavesdropped on a tour guide at another Christian university. He told potential students that they offered chapel five days a week, about 100 services a year. My heart was encouraged … momentarily. Next the guide said, “But don’t worry, you only have to go to 12 a semester, and you can count some outside events, too.” He continued, “It’s not hard to meet the