“Preserving What Chapel Can Do:” The New Interview Format of Chapel

Article by Justice Newell (‘23).

Amongst the numerous changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the loss of in-person chapel services has been significant for returning students at Houghton College. Despite this change, Houghton’s Spiritual Life department has been deliberate with creating chapel services that still engage and challenge students’ beliefs, all while maintaining the policies enacted to keep Houghton’s students healthy. 

Of note, the format typically used for Wednesday chapels is interview-based. During this service, there are generally one or two guest speakers that are interviewed by either Nuk Kongkaw, Director of the Mosaic Center, or the Dean of the Chapel, Michael Jordan. The topic of discussion varies with each speaker, but a common thread binds them all together. 

According to Dean Jordan, that thread relates to the types of issues present in the Christian world beyond the scope of Houghton. These speakers are, as Jordan proposed, “the many other voices asking some of the same questions, sometimes related questions, and then sometimes questions we don’t even know that we should be asking.” 

 In years prior, Houghton had speakers deliver sermons or presentations before an audience of hundreds of students and staff. But with the COVID-19 pandemic, in-person chapel services became mostly impossible. As a result, public worship time on Mondays and Wednesdays have been lost, with Friday’s “worship on the quad” remaining the only public worship time.

Regarding that change, Jordan said, “ I really treasure things taking place within the context of worship. And I never want to lose that ground permanently. But, I’ve kind of made a conscious decision that this [discussion format] won’t really be worship in that way, you know, like Monday and Friday can be worshipful moments in their ways.”

Since the first online chapel service more than a month ago, students have been engaging with the new interview format of chapel to varying degrees. While many students gather to watch the chapel livestream together, or watch from the comfort of their dorm room, students like David Bowers (‘21) chose to become a part of the discussion. On October 14, Bowers, an Intercultural Studies Major on the pre-med track, facilitated an interview with Grace and Sunday Bwanhot, Nigerian missionaries on mission in the United States. He found the experience to be vastly rewarding.

“As I sort of alluded to in the interview,” Bowers said, “often you see missions as, you know, white people going to non-white communities and breaking their culture and telling them about Jesus as they become more like white people. And I think the image of a couple from the Muslim part of Nigeria, working among the Diaspora in Chicago, just basically breaks that stereotype in every way.”

Aligning with Dean Jordan’s goal for the discussions, Bowers believes that the interview format of chapel is critical for broadening the student body’s perspective on Christianity, as well as reaffirming their core beliefs. He remarked, “I’d say that my biggest takeaway was [the Bwanhots’] testimony of just listening to that call, even when, from the outside, it doesn’t make sense. It’s just that active, intentional submission to the will of God for your life.” 

Student engagement with the new format extends past Bowers’ discussion with the Bwanhots. As a particular strength of the format, Ashley Archilla (‘23) cited the live stream’s chat feature. “There’s the comments section,” she explained, “and they sometimes do include questions from it, so it’s interactive in that way.” 

Dean Jordan also voiced his support for the live comment section, as he believes that it is critical for engaging with difficult conversations. Recounting a recent example, Jordan said, “There was a time when there was something a speaker had said that one of the people in the chat had some concerns about, and they put it out there. And then some faculty came alongside and were like, no, no, this is what this person meant. To me, that was really rewarding.”

He continued, “ Like, how often have I sat in chapel and thought, ‘I wish right now that some of my colleagues could help this go down, because I know some people are having a hard time with it?’”

Though students have shown support for the new chapel format, concerns have also been raised. “The disadvantage [of the format,]” Bowers offered, “is that because it’s sort of off the cuff or unscripted on the part of the interviewees, students maybe don’t get as full a picture of the sort of message that the guests would want to communicate, you know, as opposed to if they had time to plan and prepare a message.” 

Similarly, Archilla was quoted as saying, “I preferred when it was just the guest speakers speaking because they’re free to discuss what they want, and it flows more easily. They gave an introduction and they had a PowerPoint presentation that goes along with it, which I think is engaging.” Due to the technological wall between the viewer and the speaker, she said, it is also easy to “zone out. And it’s easy to just not focus on it.”

Though many things about this semester may be deemed a “work in progress,” the unique problems that COVID-19 has presented offer the world a chance to grow and experiment with new things. Reflecting on the nature of the semester, Dean Jordan concluded, “ Like I say, it’s so surreal. And I really like trying to think through how to best preserve what chapel can do, all acknowledging it’s not what it can be.” Someday chapel will return to normal, but of course, until then, a particular phrase will have to make its way from the recording room to students’ computer speakers, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord!” 

What are your thoughts on the new format of Chapel? How do you like the Wednesday interviews? Impressed? Find it lacking? Comment below or get in touch with us via Instagram, Twitter, or email (star@houghton.edu)!