As the students come into chapel, somebody plays some ‘gathering music’ for us. For those of you who are familiar with church language (or just really like Latin), you would know this as a Prelude. We are walking into a worship space that has been prepared for us, and the music helps gather us (and our attention) as we come in and sit down. We have chapel on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s for 20 minutes and these times are divided by age groupings.
On Tuesday, we made grape juice together. We make grape juice on the last Tuesday of the month because we celebrate Communion on the last Thursday of the month, and it’s much more interesting for us to make juice together than for to buy juice.
We also get to hear from students who share their “Prayers of the Students” for October. Each month a different class comes forward and shares what they would like to pray for: One Country, one school, one health concern and one social concern. It is awesome when students share, and it’s enjoyable to learn what’s on their hearts and minds as we gather together.
And on Thursday we celebrated communion together. Since we don’t celebrate communion in the Kinder-2nd grade chapel, they were asked some theological questions to get their perspective. They were asked, “What is God’s voice?” Their consensus was something a lot like James Earl Jones, which could be considered pretty far off the mark, but would make sense given our cultural influences. Any attempt made to ask how they hear from God was lost, as they had more fun making funny voices with their mouths. Hey, not every chapel is a success.
The Middle School was full of questions about communion. What does it mean, why do we do it, who should do it and who shouldn’t and what about me? Fascinating discussion. The hope is to down the road to audio record these chapel discussions so you can hear them, but in the mean time, you’re just going to have to trust that their are some sharp students in this chapel.
For the families that are part of a Christian tradition, they were encouraged to chat with their student about what communion means their family. And if families are not, then they were encourage to talk about what sort of symbolic actions their family participate in to remember who you are and how you live.
