We must be careful not to criticize those that are weak in the faith. If not for the grace of God (a subject I plan on writing about soon) we too would be weak. Those that are weak can still offer a unique perspective to those of us who have fought the good fight. We are able to see what it was like to have little to rely on, and it also allows us to give back to someone what we have learned.

Likewise, the students who have weathered the storms should not be ignored. We have grown and God has blessed us with His knowledge. I don’t need to hear about getting my priorities straight. Worked a job that required sixty hours a week out of me, ran a youth group, and balanced all my bills before coming to DBU. I think I know what I’m doing when it comes to priorities. Likewise, I left junior high a long time ago, thus lessons that would be great if applied to junior high students have little to no effect on me. What makes this even more applicable, is that most students who attend chapel probably have more experience and more knowledge than me, thus if I’m seeing this, I can only imagine the pain they’re going through.

Now we reach the ironic part. Most of the students at DBU are obtaining a Biblical Studies or Christian Studies major, thus, a good majority plan on becoming pastors in one form or another. Many, in just two to four years (some as soon as they graduate) will become pastors, youth pastors, music ministers, missionaries, children’s ministers, evangelist, etc. with little to no experience. What is my point? There are three chapels a week, two for the upper classmen and the third one for freshman alone. The majority of these chapels are administration lead and the same regurgitated scene that we’ve put up with for quite some time. With so many here on campus that are “advanced” in their Christianity and planning on being pastors, would it not make sense to make chapel a student lead event? The solution in this is found in that you have leaders, those who have grown in the faith, planning a chapel service and serving those who are weaker in the faith. It provides those stronger an avenue to grow (we always grow out of service) and those who are weaker to learn from those who have fought this battle longer.

In the end, I doubt this will happen. As the Head Snipe wrote about, many in the administration see us as glorified high school students and not adults. However, I will continue to hope and pray for a student lead chapel service. Not one lead by a group, but one which is handed over to the Biblical Studies majors for them to plan on what to do. Sure, it has its holes and its flaws, but it’s sure a heck of a lot better than what we have now.

Dear CMC:

One time I was talking to a professor who shall remain nameless. (S)He said that probably one reason chapel speakers are usually local Baptist pastors was monetary. It's like this: a pastor of a rich church may mention in passing to his congregation that he had fun speaking at DBU last week, and a good number of people in the congregation may be more motivated to donate to the school, and to send themselves and their kids here. A private school needs money. Should this be a correct analysis, then it shows that our spiritual well-being is not the purpose of chapel. To be more accurate, it shows that it is not the sole purpose, or at least that the purposes are tainted by inferior concerns that threaten the primary purpose, that is: that the primary purpose of our spiritual well-being (or of keeping trustees happy) is trumped and over-ridden by the secondary purpose of keeping the system financially beneficial (which means we never have students and almost never have professors).

Who knows how important that motivation is or even if it is for sure a reason that chapel's so . . . infantile, I think, is a word used sometimes in the Snipe Site's chapel updates. In any case, if really good professors speak so rarely (I think I've never seen a religion professor speak in chapel. Last year we had some good speakers, though: Naugle, Williams, and Mitchell), I don't think students have much of a chance.

Sincerely,

Head Snipe

Yo, this is Boone. Hang on for a second while I try to remember what I was going to say . . . oh yeah, I got it, I was going to talk about the mathematics of chapel critques, such as these. My colleague TARC commented regarding last Friday's chapel (which I missed) that he was willing to pray for the one or two people for whom the chapel message that day was something good and challenging. I admire TARC's attitude; it's a better one than mine.

Still, here's the deal: all of our chapel services, with maybe 5 (if that many) exceptions last year, are geared towards serving those one or two (maybe there's a whole couple of dozen). But just think about alternative strategies: you could have someone stand there and tell us about the doctrine of the Trinity (about which DBU students must be pitifully ignorant). Then a minimum of several hundred, instead of a maximum of two dozen, of the students would walk away from chapel having learned something worthwhile. The same would go for a thirty minute exegesis of some Scripture passage by someone who knows Greek or Hebrew. Or how about this: Read Scripture for thirty minutes; maybe very few of us will learn anything new, but all of us will walk away from such a chapel service having heard something true. For that matter, why haven't we ever had a chapel message on pride? I mean, we get these (usually infantile) messages about our relationship for God, and they're challenging for a few, but one about pride would be challenging for us all.