Biola offers an immense amount of uniquely valuable chapels each semester. The opportunities seem endless, and the reason lies in the fact that Biola seeks to meet each student’s different spiritual needs as they grow in their faith.
Numerous Worship Opportunities
Singspiration and AfterDark may prove most popular; however, each chapel can aid students during different times of their college careers. Spiritual Development, the department in charge of hosting chapels, seeks to serve students by listening to what they want and incorporating that into the weekly chapels.
People can connect to God in many different ways, and Spiritual Development hopes they can recognize those different ways as they bring in numerous worship opportunities for different students’ personalities.
“Here we just have so many options of different styles based on what students need out of chapels,” said Justin Sinclair, senior music composition major and and undergraduate chapel intern. “But just to have the variety every week is really nice for students to get to choose what best fits their spiritual life.”
Refining Students
Chapels help refine Biola students, according to Landon White, Talbot graduate student and graduate chapel intern.
“All universities are doing things to equip minds, but to equip character is a less common thing you see at universities, so I think chapels help that,” White said.
A New Theme
Each year, Spiritual Development chooses a theme for the chapels. This year, they picked the theme “Undivided: the character or the Kingdom of God,” and the theme verse Psalm 86:11. The chapel staff seeks to have each chapel follow the theme of the year while still staying true to the purpose of that particular chapel. Sinclair, who works specifically with chapel bands, explained the bands seek to incorporate the theme into their songs.
“There are six chapel bands. As a group, we are pushing all of the groups to pick songs according to this theme, but that’s sort of the wider goal,” Sinclair said.
Spiritual Development hopes to listen to what students need for chapels during the year. They commission their groups of interns to attempt to understand what students want.
“Throughout the year, Spiritual Development works to assess how the students feel about the chapels,” Sinclair said.
According to Megan Okada, senior Christian ministries major and undergraduate Spiritual Development intern, even though Singspiration is the most highly attended, students’ desires for chapel styles change as they grow in their faith.
“Honestly, my favorite chapel at Biola has changed during my time here, and I think it depends on my season of life and where the Lord has me at that time,” Okada said.
Many students complain about the number of chapels they need to complete, but Okada encourages students to enjoy this opportunity because it greatly aids spiritual growth.
“My life has been so changed by some of these speakers and some of the messages and some of the student leaders,” Okada said. “There’s definitely been a huge growth in my heart through chapel.”
