The Purpose of Chapel

The following excerpts were taken from an address entitled The Purpose of Chapel written and given by Dr. Daniel Chamberlain on October 4, 1977. It is the earliest chapel address in the Houghton Archives from President Chamberlain’s tenure, given at the request of the Chapel Committee.

“I would observe that Chapel is not what makes a college Christian. We have chapel because we are a Christian college, but we must be very sensitive to the danger that chapel becomes the holy water that we sprinkle or pour or in which we are immersed – as your form may prefer – that sanctifies what would otherwise be a secular institution. The academic and spiritual in short are not to be viewed as Siamese twins. The moment we adopt that point of view someone will vote for their surgical removal. Rather, the intellectual and spiritual mission of Houghton must permeate all that we do. Heart and brains are essential to the life and health of the body. It is possible to separate Siamese twins and both live. But divide the heart from the brain and you will surely destroy both. Thus, chapel becomes the occasion and the activity for our corporate correlation of faith and learning. We hereby serve notice that our faith is a vital part of all we do. We will not regulate our Christianity to our catalog and to our ceremonies. It will be a regular and integral part of our lives together…

“Chapel provides opportunities for corporate worship. Now, I would hope that in our corporate worship together we learn that good worship has vitality, certainly, and that means it is alive, but that it also has variety… we will have grown corporately as we recognize that each of these is a valid way of expressing and experiencing worship and that all of these forms can have integrity.

“Chapel will provide instructions and examples of integrating our faith and our learning. Again, I stress here that chapel cannot, does not profess to, carry this load alone. It must be done consistently in our classes and there we will see many more specific instances of how this integration occurs. But here we can together experience some things that give us a common point of reference and community is maintained and heightened as we have common experiences to share…

“Chapel will provide the opportunity for specific kinds of sharing what God has been doing…. There will be times when we will want to talk about what God is doing corporately, and this makes an excellent opportunity… I would hope that in chapel we are inspired to serve… Chapel provides for us the opportunity to emphasize the importance of relating religious experience to life. We must constantly be reminded of the Christian perspective on our culture and on our ethics. We must constantly and consciously avoid being squeezed into the world’s mold as we are reminded in Romans. We are bombarded incessantly with secular sources and if we do not work very hard we will not even be aware of the influences – subtle or not so subtle – that has upon our values, upon our outlook. We must constantly be reminded that Christ is Lord and chapel is one of those very best ways to remind us of that in our activities and in the words that we hear from this pulpit.”

Reflections

from Rev. Dr. JL Miller, Interim Dean of Spiritual Life

President Chamberlain’s thoughtful leadership regarding the core work of chapel on Houghton’s campus continues to shape our worship today.

Dr. Chamberlain always understood that chapel worship was corporate—it was an expression of all of us together. It’s never a bunch of individuals worshiping in parallel. It’s all of us together, learning to love God together, and—in a diverse community—learning each other’s love languages for God. Standing on Dr. Chamberlain’s legacy, we maintain an approach to worship that centralizes the importance of keeping the Word of God central. Houghton does not consider spiritual formation as an optional garnish to the larger menu of higher education. God’s Word sustains our community, and when we gather for chapel, we’re reminded of the source and strength of our life together.

Houghton does not consider spiritual formation as an

optional garnish to the larger menu of higher education

Dr. Chamberlain understood the essential need to connect our spiritual lives with our whole being. As a result, Houghton’s chapel services continue to pursue the important balance of head and heart. We invite students to encounter the life-changing love of God while recognizing this reality does not happen in a vacuum. God’s grace meets us within our lives, relationships, and the larger world around us. As a result, we continue to create spaces for students, faculty, and staff to imagine how life as a Christian informs and shapes our relationships with the world around us.

These approaches are still central to who we are today. Houghton is diverse, even more diverse than during Dr. Chamberlain’s tenure, and so the chapel is diverse. Sometimes the organ thunders; sometimes a band plays. Sometimes a well-dressed speaker speaks from the pulpit; other times, a preacher in sneakers strides the stage. We are finding our way forward together—and the Word is still central. Every time we gather together, the Word is read aloud and proclaimed. For the Houghton community, chapel is where we gain our breath, our life together, our life with God.