Spiritual Life

Spiritual Life

You are a Jesus follower.

At Houghton University, you will live authentically for Christ in our world and serve God with everything you've got. This is a safe place to ask questions and find answers while walking alongside others who will support and challenge you.

Explore Spiritual Formation

Worship is at the heart of our life together.

At first glance, the spiritual life experience at Houghton University is seen in weekly Chapel gatherings where students, faculty, and staff join in worship together. However, there are countless interactions and gatherings that occur daily, each creating a dynamic spiritual life component on the Houghton Campus.

Spiritually formative conversations with professors, fellow students, or roommates about faith, belief, or spiritual practices happen unscripted throughout each day. Bible studies, prayer groups, worship gatherings (Koinonia and Mercy Seat), Life Together Groups, and Around the Table are part of a weekly tapestry of offerings that make Houghton an overtly Christian campus. It is this rich expression of faith and practice through small and large group interaction that makes Houghton a unique community, one that values the academy and the church.

Our Christian Faith

The Christian faith is central everywhere at Houghton—here’s what we mean when we say that Houghton is a Christian place.

What We Believe

Spiritual Life Values

Spiritual Formation

Spiritual formation is the ongoing process of becoming more like Jesus through practices that shape our lives around Him.

Cultivate Community

Community is the seedbed of spiritual formation, where becoming and belonging grow through shared practice and relationship.

Practice Service

Service is the outward expression of an inward work of God in us, as we faithfully use our gifts and resources to bless others.

Fearlessly Engage

Community engagement is the practice of living with a Kingdom mindset, partnering with others to share the Gospel and cultivate wholeness, abundance, and flourishing in our communities.

Houghton student standing with arms raised in worship.

Here, everyday rhythms become opportunities for God’s presence…

Since coming to Houghton, my faith has grown in ways I never expected. I thought I understood what it meant to pursue God, but being here has taken my walk with Him so much deeper. The cross-country team has surrounded me with Godly teammates who challenge and encourage me every day. Intentional Bible studies with peers, great mentors, and prayerful professors have all pushed my faith to places I didn’t know were possible. Houghton’s Christ-centered community has transformed how I live out my relationship with God.

Rachael Smith ’26

Chapel

“Praise the Lord, all you nations! Extol him, all you peoples! For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord!” Psalm 117

In Chapel, students, faculty, and staff are invited to encounter the life-changing love of God both individually and in community. It is a unique and important space that provides an opportunity to imagine how the Christian life informs and shapes our relationship with God and with the Houghton community. It is where we breathe together, sing together, and learn to practically engage both our head and heart in relationship with God and one another.

Encounter God through music, Scripture, prayer and sermon
Engage with a diverse community of Christian from around the world
Grow in your understanding and knowledge of God
Expand your understanding of the Bible and the Christian faith, and how these root us in our identity as God’s beloved children
Experience worship that helps connect you with God and others

Monday and Friday from 11:10-11:50 a.m.

Listen to Chapel Recordings

Worship Opportunities

Daily Morning Prayer

Each weekday at 8:30 a.m., we gather for morning prayer in the Office of Spiritual Life, on the lower level of the Campus Center. This is a simple, 15-minute service of singing, Scripture, and prayer for the needs of campus and the world.

Bible Studies

Spiritual growth is most effective in community. Encouragement, accountability, prayer, and learning are experienced in small group Bible studies. Throughout the week, Bible studies, led by students, faculty, and staff, happen across the Houghton Campus.

Koinonia

Koinonia is a student-led, informal praise gathering of college students who desire to encounter Jesus Christ through worship in songs, scripture, prayer, and testimony. Koinonia meets in the Wesley Chapel on Sunday evenings from approximately 7:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Mercy Seat

Mercy Seat is a student-led prayer movement which meets Monday–Friday from 8-9 p.m. in the basement of Wesley Chapel to intercede on behalf of the campus, the county, and the nations and to seek intimate encounters with the Lord. Meetings are led by a worship team, combining worship songs, intercessory prayers, meditation on scripture, and various forms of art.

Life Together Groups

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Hebrews 10:23-25

Spiritual growth is most effective in community. Shared experience, encouragement, accountability, prayer, and Bible reading are augmented in substantive meaning when shared in a group of committed Jesus followers who desire to apply their faith and learning to practical living.

Around the Table

To explore how we can hold serious, productive conversations and hold to our most cherished convictions and confessions without allowing our talk to turn into an occasion for bitterness and hatred.

Jonathan P. Case, Around the Table: Talking Graciously about God

Gathering for the purpose of meaningful spiritual conversation is seemingly a lost practice for modern society. Conversation is the seedbed for understanding, learning, belief, and belonging. Around the Table creates opportunity for theological conversations about faith and practice that are formative, intentional, and practical.

Houghton Wesleyan Church

The village church provides a vital link in the community of Houghton because of the mutual sharing, blessing and benefits among students, faculty, staff and neighbors of the college. The church holds worship at 8:30 and 11 AM on Sundays, and students are invited to a University Fellowship group at 9:45 AM, where church staff, members and students support each other in our walk with Christ. Students are also invited to participate in many ministries of the church, including youth group, prayer ministries and occasional mission trips.

A Passion to Serve

Service is a cornerstone of the Christian life – and Houghton is no different. Students have traveled to Buffalo to help refugee families read, volunteered as a Big Brother/Big Sister for local kids, taught soccer to children in Africa, visited and performed for elderly shut-ins, and more. Houghton students touch lives locally, regionally, and internationally – and, in turn, leave Houghton changed.

Global Christian Fellowship

Global Christian Fellowship reminds the Houghton students to look not only to those directly around them, but to be globally aware as well. GCF coordinates weekly prayer topics that focus on one campus issue and one global issue that are prayed for by the campus community daily. GCF also holds weekly meetings to promote global awareness and action, hosting missionaries as well as students who have a global outlook.

Salvation Army Student Fellowship

The Salvation Army Student Fellowship (SASF) allows students to be involved with the Salvation Army and its mission. By sponsoring a Salvation Army store in the basement of the Reinhold Campus Center every semester, SASF members have the chance to help further the charge of the Salvation Army.

SIM (Serving In Mission)

SIM is represented at Houghton by Benjamin and Christine Hegeman.

School Year Ministry Teams

Houghton students serve throughout the academic year at youth retreats, youth events, youth group gatherings, and other events as teams. They lead worship, help with activities, teach lessons, and more. Students are recruited, equipped, supported and sent out for these opportunities by Houghton professors and the Dean of the Chapel.

Past International Mission Locations

Area Churches

Houghton students attend many different churches in the area. Do you want to stay connected to the denomination in which you grew up? Or are you looking to worship in churches that expand your horizons about what Christian worship and community can look like? The Spiritual Life staff is always happy to sit down and discuss what approach might be best to grow your faith.

Directory of Local Churches

The official website of Houghton University