Meet Senior Tony Gorga..

For me, Chapel's a community of open minds and open arms. It's a welcoming place we can come to be with Jesus and with each other. The Epistles of John constantly remind us that, above all things, we are called to love. That is the basis of our faith; and a love for God and each other draws us to Chapel each week.

Meet Junior David Keyworth..

I am a psych, history double major I am a junior, and I love chapel because it is an opportunity in the middle of the week to come together with my brothers and sister in Christ and praise the lord. It is a chance to forget everything that is going on and worship. It is also a chance to serve the lord with talents while worshiping him and helping other worship him.

Meet Sophomore Mark Miller..

I'm a transfer Sophomore and music education major. I love chapel so much because I get to work with a great group of people who are not only fun to be around, but also strong in their faith. Yes, we get to praise God every week, but what's better than doing that with a group of fun Jesus Freaks? I was so distant in my faith last year at Western and everyone in chapel has helped me recapture my faith and recapture the guy I used to be.

Meet Sophomore Jon Rennhack..

Chapel is my release from the chaos that is Albion College. Chapel is a place that I can forget about the rest of the world. I can forget about my homework and my upcoming exams, and I can simply worship God. Not only do I have time to worship God, but I get to do it in a great atmosphere. Chapel is a place where everyone is accepted and I do not need to keep up any walls. Every week since the first week of freshman year I have went to chapel. Every week I am greeted with a hug and I leave refreshed. Chapel is my escape.

Meet Senior Kristi Weage..

To me, Chapel is a community of believers that come together Wednesday nights to worship God. The fellowship I experience at Chapel each week is a perfect midweek pick-me-up. I know that no matter what I am feeling, when I go to Chapel, I will feel uplifted and loved, and I will be able to open my heart to worship God.

Meet Senior Cori Weddell..

I’m Cori, a senior at Albion. Chapel has been one of the constants during my time at Albion. It has been a place of growth, challenge, comfort and growing fellowship and community. It is the service that gets me though the rest of the week and reminds me God I depend who gives me strength on a daily basis. To me, the highlight of chapel is the pure worship that I get to help lead. Chapel is a joyous place of heartfelt worship and true communion with God- I wouldn't give up my Wednesday night for anything!

Meet Freshman Brandon Whitford..

I’m Brandon, a freshman at Albion. I believe that god works in many ways and in many of people. I feel that chapel is a place of sanctuary where people can come and escape from their stress; to focus on only god and worshiping him. I believe that this is a place where you can come and openly express your love for god in an environment that is comfortable and excepting. This is a place where one can lose themselves in the worship and love that god pours down in abundance. And finally, this is a place where one can learn from the messages of peers and grow in their spiritual relationship with God.

Meet Chaplain Dan..

Chaplain Dan has been a huge supporter of Chapel since he arrived in the fall of 2003. He started the Chapel on Tour outreach ministry, takes the leadership team on retreat, finds resources where needed, and ministers to the leadership team when they need someone. He's been a leader in making sure Chapel has stayed ecumenical, building up the whole body of Christ at Albion College. And he keeps Chapel connected to the faculty and staff on campus, and keeps reminding the newbies that they stand on the shoulders of great Chapel leaders of the past. CD stays out of the spotlight on Wednesday nights (sits in the back), because he believes God has given Chapel to the students in order for them to explore their gifts of ministry.

Welcome Back.

It's certainly good to be back. For those of you who don't know me, or didn't notice my absence, I spent last semester in London, England. I had a brilliant time, and loved every minute of it, but I admit that I've missed this Chapel community. There's something so unbelievable about a group of Christians getting together, worshipping and sharing life. Hopefully you've felt it, and feel a part of that community. Over this next year, we have the opportunity to make 9-10 on Wednesday nights anything that we want it to be. And I hope that we take full advantage of that time, and use it not only to strengthen our walk with the Lord, but further His kingdom on Albion's campus.

I so look forward to meeting those of who are strangers, and getting closer to you who I call my friends. We in Chapel would also like to extend a warm welcome to the class of 2013. Great job in choosing Albion. I've met a few of you, and I'm confident in saying you seem like an amazing class. That said, anyone, regardless of class, who is interested in taking an active part in making Chapel what it is, and learning more about our leadership team, please let us know. We are always open to new additions, and feel that God's placed tons of talents in our Chapelites. Feel free to contact us via this blog, email, or just approach one of us on a Wednesday night. We're pretty nice, most of the time. :)

Be blessed,

CA.

A couple of thoughts about ministry

Wow... God has seen a lot of growth at Albion over the last few years while I have been here. He has raised people up with hearts and passions for ministry, and He has seen them graduated. A new wave of people now grow up behind them. After three and a half years of serving God in Chapel I have learned a few things about ministry, and I'd love to share them with you.

The first is that in order to have a successful worship session, people need to be absolutely in love with God. They need to be passionately seeking after Him. People who worship love God, and people who love God worship Him. It just seems to be me that that is how it works. People who don't love God are less apt to worship Him. Loving God can come from a bunch of different places. But perhaps you can do things to help people learn to love God. For example, you can help people learn to love God by having sound teaching. Teaching that encourages God's followers to learn more and more about Him. By having sound teaching, some of your more conservative Christians might be more persuaded to join you in worship. To encourage some of the more liberal parishoners to take part in worship and in loving God, try service, especially serving the underserved. For "seekers" try encouraging more fellowship. If you encorperate all three aspects into your Christian community, I believe God will add to your number daily. Those that He will add to your number will be of diverse backgrounds too...

Give it a shot. At Chapel in the next few weeks we are really hoping to release some plans to get our group of Jesus lovers out into the world to do some neat things. We hope to have fellowship events, service events, and hopefully we should get some teaching coming down the pipe from some of our senior students who have had a ton of expierience in the ministry.

God will raise up His generation of lovers, by diversifying our worship expieriences perhaps we can diversify and grow our congregations.

God bless,

JR

A Vision for the Future:

I think one of the hardest things for me to hear from people who are going into the ministry, or have just joined the ministry is that when you get into church ministry, you go from working in teams (like you did in College) to working alone. In addition, one of my friends tells me that rather then being able to go out and cast his net into the waters to bring new people into the faith, he spends a lot of time jumping through hoops... 

I guess one thing that I see happening in the American Church is that pastors get caught up in fitting the profile of the ideal pastor. Namely, having to do 10 hours of Community Service like stuff... Being prominent and serving on some city school board or something like that, making sure the facilities are kept up, and all that. At the end of the day, it is just kinda wild that pastors spend their whole lives preparing to "do ministry" and perhaps they never really get the opportunity to do so when they have to "fit the profile". Don't get me wrong, everything they are doing is good stuff, but for some of us, who have the burning heart of an evangelist, we need to be out there. My suggestion is that at a church like the one I hope to kindle, pastors would only work part time at the church, and the rest of the time they would spend out in the community, either working or building the kingdom... Economically, I don't know how this will work out, either for the pastors or for the church, but it just seems like a healthy model for a team of evangelists, namely a team I would like to work with/for. 

Jon's Dream for a Church Plant!

This is the blueprint for the church that I hope to be a part of some day... in a lot of ways, I hesitate to call it a church. Instead, I'd prefer to think of it more as a place where people can come to get their ministry tools sharpened. I would hope that there would be all kinds of things going on in this space that would make it a community center for some, a church for some others, and a place for people to come to get filled for yet some more. The room would be versital enough that it could either have a stage in the middle, which would be like church in the round, or it could have the stage towards the front, so that it could be more of an auditorium...

I have tons of prayers for the place, I feel like there has been this huge epiphany in my life and I am getting this neat vision for the future of the church I am going to help start, but I guess this revelation is really just a work in progress.

Chapel is Looking for Speakers....

If you feel like God has put something on your heart to share with your classmates here at Chapel, please shoot one of the members of the Chapel leadership team an email and we will get you on the books...

God Bless,

Jon

Chapel Announces New Weekly Message...

New To Chapel, every Sunday members, or maybe just me, of the Chapel leadership team will be giving a short maybe 5 minute Sunday message for people. The videos will be published on Youtube, and will be available for anybody to access and use if they are interested. Most likely these messages will include a weekly challenge that emerges from scripture.... Stay tuned for more information, and check out the blog for the first video tonight!

Blessings,

JR

CHAPEL ON THE QUAD!!!

Tonight at 9pm, on the quad, by Kresge Gym, Chapel will be outdoors! Come out to hear an amazing message from Jeremy Covell, our sound man, and join the Fiske Christian House (across the street from Goodrich Chapel on the corner of Ingham and Cass) immediately after for a sweet ROOT-BEER KEGGER!!! Come by and enjoy refreshments, your Chapel buddies, other amazing people and fellowship. See you there!

BB