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Chapel
As part of the educational mission of Geneva College, a weekly devotional time for the college community is conducted on Wednesdays from 10:15-11 a.m. This devotional time provides opportunity for the campus to gather together to praise God, hear His word, and seek His favor and direction. Attendance is mandatory for students and the entire campus community is encouraged to participate.
Educational - Chapel provides the Geneva community with an opportunity to be instructed on different aspects of the Christian life; to be encouraged as we deal with issues and temptations that confront us; to be challenged to address the needs of the community and the world in which we live.
Devotional - Chapel provides an opportunity for the campus community to focus on Jesus Christ and His work for us and in us; to praise Him, and to pray that we might follow and serve Him.
Universal - Chapel provides an opportunity to recognize and experience the breadth of the worldwide Christian community and will incorporate contributions from various cultures and Christian traditions.
Psalm singing is one of the distinctive features of Chapel. While uncommon in many churches today, psalm singing has been the historic practice for Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican Churches, and the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, as well as most Presbyterian, Reformed, Baptist and Congregational churches for many generations. Chapel psalm selections attempt to show the wide range of emotions and praise to God found in the psalms.
The Psalms reflect the spirit of God's people and they are an appropriate pattern for our corporate expressions in Chapel. We praise God for His glorious works of creation and redemption, for His faithfulness to His word, for His goodness and justice, for the beauty of His handiwork.
We come to confess our sins and to plead for grace in times of human distress. Since all of these are profoundly evident in the Psalms, we take this opportunity to explore the Psalms together.
For 2009-2010 the Chapel Leadership Team has chosen the theme: “The Jesus Way” based on Eugene Peterson’s book by that name.
In speaking about Ends and Means Peterson notes:
“The end, for Christians, is God’s work of salvation. This is salvation understood as comprehensive, intricate, patiently personal, embracingly social, insistently political. Salvation is the work of God that restores the world and us to wholeness. God’s work complete. Glory. Eternal life. And we are in on it, in on the redemption of the world. Whoever I am and wherever I find myself in history, in geography, in “sickness or in health,” in whatever circumstances, I am in the middle of it. God’s work of salvation. “Kingdom of God” is Jesus’ term for it. This is what is going on….If we want to participate (and not just go off in a corner and do our own thing), participate in the end, the salvation, the kingdom of God, we must do it in the way that is appropriate to that end. We follow Jesus.”
A variety of internal and external speakers, along with Chapel Coordinator Dean Smith, will address topics related to this theme.