By Will Allen
Have you ever felt like attending chapel is a chore that you get little out of? Do you find yourself stressed or preoccupied during worship and distracted during the sermon? I sure have, and I have an idea or two about why this is and how we can get more out of chapel.
Ah, junior year, when my first class on MWF was chapel. Oh, the dreams I dreamed of productive mornings… but after evenings (and nights) of intentional procrastination, in which no homework was done, I would wake at nine and languidly spend an hour preparing myself for the day. The stress would hit me at ten as I worked feverishly to complete my many German assignments. And in order to get everything done, I had to study for Frau Meilaender’s dreaded bi-weekly “vocabletest” (if you know, you know) in chapel.
Cut, Copy, Paste, and that’s most of my junior year. I got the chapel credit, and I passed the tests, but I remained stressed and tired, and I sure can’t tell you what “washing-machine” is in German or many other words for that matter. In short, my time became contaminated, and as a result, I was stressed and learned nothing. And that makes for a pretty hollow college experience. Ideally, I’d want to be not stressed and to have learned a lot, but because I refused to focus on one thing, I got the worst of both worlds.
By the grace of God, I passed German, and this year, I decided to not do homework in chapel. Instead, I’ve used some chapel skips to finish assignments, and doing so has helped me focus in chapel. I’m glad to say that it’s been a much more fruitful experience, not because I remember the message of every sermon but because putting aside my homework and its accompanying stress has helped me open space in my mind for God. However, to make space for God, I’ve had to do more than let go of external stressors like homework.
I also often struggle to overcome internal stressors affecting my focus. My own doubts, worries, and feelings of inadequacy tempt me to use chapel as a pick-me-up. When I look to chapel to fill me up with comforting emotions, my soul acts like a vacuum that takes everything and judges it as useful only if it makes me feel good. The focus shifts from praising God to comforting myself, thus making the methods I use to do so idols that I worship shadows that bear only the connotation of an open and reverent heart. Even closing my eyes and folding my hands can become an idol when I allow my need to feel the comforting feeling I’ve felt before while worshiping to overshadow and steal my focus away from the real purpose of worship, which is honoring God.
So what should I do? Should I give up on good feelings? Well, this situation reminds me of something Jesus once said. “If you grasp and cling to life on your terms, you’ll lose it, but if you let that life go, you’ll get life on God’s terms” (Luke 17:33 The Message). So the way I see it, if we’re just willing to let go of our desires and focus on the goodness of God, we’ll receive the comfort we were ignoring God to get in the first place.
Whenever I find myself needlessly criticizing the worship because I don’t like the song or phasing out during the message because I think it’s boring, I just remind myself that chapel is not about me getting my desires gratified. It’s not about us. It’s a chance to encounter Emmanuel – God With Us, if we trust Him enough to let go of our stressors and focus on Him. When we offer God space in our lives, God enters that space and fills it with His presence. And God’s presence assures us that we are loved unconditionally, giving us real rest from the stresses we face. And in turn, this assurance helps me trust God enough to tune back in.
I think this quote from The Message sums it up nicely.
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Mathew 11:28-30
Chapel can become an unforced weekly rhythm of rest that reminds us that we are God’s Beloved Children. If we give God a little bit of space and a little bit of focus, we can find in Chapel an emotional security from which we can face the rest of the day.
So, in summary, if you want to get something out of chapel, put away your phone or homework and focus on God, not on your own needs. You’ll get so much more than you would if you were distracted by your responsibilities or only focusing on whether your experience is satisfying.
Focusing on God can take some focus. It may be a yolk, but the yolk is light, and the burden is easy. It fits us and refreshes us more than we could ever on our own. Perhaps according to the Community Covenant, chapel is technically a forced rhythm, but we all know that it’s oh-so-easy to hit the “scan and scram”. I think missing chapel isn’t so much a punishable offense as it is a missed opportunity to let God reassure us that He loves us no matter what. And on the flip side, going to chapel does not make us righteous, but it might be a real opportunity to recover our lives as individuals and as a community in Christ. ★
