Tag: worship

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Stories In Focus

United in Worship and Christ // Houghton Hosts Roberts for Night of Worship

Photo courtesy of Houghton SGA

Students from Roberts Wesleyan College came to campus to worship, united with Houghton students. The event, which took place in the recital hall on November 8 at 8 p.m. was run by the Student Government Association, and was intended as a way to unify the two colleges in their Christian worship. The night consisted of  worship songs, prayer, and refreshments, all in the pursuit of unity between the two student bodies.

Melissa MacLean ‘17, Executive Officer of Spiritual Life, began this event last year. She said, “It all started as a dream of mine freshman year to bring the two opposing schools under one roof as worshippers of the same God.” At the time, she said, “…I didn’t have the resources to make it happen, so I left it as a dream and prayer for God to fulfill one day.” That dream, according to MacLean, was able to become a reality two years later when she “was elected into the position of Chaplain.”

Last year, the event included worship and prayer together, led by teams of students from both colleges. Ian DeHaas ’17 has been involved in the worship portion of the night both years. He said, “There’s something unique about a night of worship. Even more than the obligation of Sunday morning, the people who come out to worship together are really invested because they chose to be there. We sing together, we pray together and we remember who we are.”

This year’s event had the same format as last year’s: two colleges coming together to worship. Emily Barry ’17, another Houghton student involved in the leadership of UNITED, said, “The goal of the event is for us to come together as one body of Christ in a clear and tangible way, by worshipping and praying alongside one another. It was a beautiful and powerful testimony to see students coming together like that.”

That Friday, the leaders of UNITED were happy to see the recital hall filled again for a second year as Houghton welcomed a group of Roberts students to campus. DeHaas stated, “Once again, it was good to see the recital hall filled. We had time to pray for one another and time to connect afterward with some of the folks from Roberts. All around, it was a blessing and encouragement to see the two student bodies come together as Christ’s body.”

Now that the second year of UNITED at Houghton has taken place, the organizers are looking to the future of the event. Melissa MacLean said, “I hope to make it an annual event for the two schools, as we otherwise don’t have much contact other than sports.”

Despite the rivalry between Houghton and Roberts Wesleyan, events like the UNITED Night of Worship continue to remind students that both of these Christian colleges exist for the same reason, to bring glory to God.

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Opinions

The Crumbling of the Church Family

AllanaParis RGBThe Church has always been big on family. Many churches preach about how today’s society has lost the value of family. The divorce rate is thrown around and pastors have people raise their hands to see who actually eats dinner together. While this is a lovely sermon that I can’t disagree with, I am finding it increasingly hypocritical. Not because I find that Christians do not have whole, healthy families, but because the Church itself has ceased to be a family.

This issue never bothered me until a third grader at my home church came up to me and informed me he was angry he could not go to ‘his church’. When I told him that he was at his church, he explained that his church was the children’s church and that I had a separate church in ‘the big room’. This completely horrified me. He essentially viewed the children’s church as separate, and did not realize that he was in the same church family as his parents.

What does that teach children? What does that teach anyone? It can create, in the most toxic of environments, an intense self-centeredness and narrow-minded attitude. How are we supposed to grow and stretch if we are only interacting with our own age group or demographic? I don’t have an issue with a Bible study geared towards a demographic for that relation and encouragement to happen. I don’t have an issue with specialized groups. The main issue is that worship should include the entire congregation.  

Church worship is meant to be done as a family. I find it discomforting that it is increasingly prevalent for churches to be split by age. It usually tends to look like this: infants go to the nursery, preschool/elementary aged children spend the ENTIRE church service in a classroom having “children’s church,” some churches put teens in a “youth service” and, even worse, there are churches having a separate church service for college aged students.

The ochurch-famne place where ages should mingle and find solidarity in Christ, where Christians engage with and learn from different demographics, where we learn to worship together whether or not we personally enjoy drum-kits or liturgy or gospel music, is gone. Families outside of church include the mixture of ages, the compromise of living with those of a different generation, so why shouldn’t the church have that too? Shouldn’t the church be a mirror of what God intended a family to be? We use the word family because it’s all-inclusive and signifies a personable and close relation, so why make church age exclusive?

To give a solution of how I feel congregational worship should look, let me start with an example I have witnessed while at Houghton. One of the ministries that I have encountered the last few years is Sojourner’s Mennonite. While their style of worship is unusual and not meant for every worshipper, there is one thing that every church can take away from them: their focus on family. Children help pick out songs for worship, the older members might bring food to share or play an instrument, college aged congregants may lead worship. It’s communal. Church should be a place where all ages feel welcome and included. I think a church should have congregational worship that does not focus on an age group, but worship that clearly recognizes the diversity of ages represented and respects them. Worship that makes one look at what they can give instead of what they can take and, in many cases, that simply starts with blending age groups together.

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News

City Harmonic Headlines Houghton’s First Accepted Students Weekend

Featuring The City Harmonic, Houghton College, will host its first Accepted Students Weekend, allowing prospective students to experience Houghton before many of them make their final decision.

The weekend, beginning on Thursday, March 19 and will conclude Saturday, March 21. Friday, March 20 at 8 p.m. in the Wesley Chapel, Houghton will welcome multi-award winning rock and worship group, The City Harmonic, with special guest and recent Houghton graduate, Taylor Wilding ‘14. The performance will take place as a stop on their nationwide tour. Friday, March 20 at 8 p.m. in the Wesley Chapel.

The Admission Office has put together a weekend “geared toward providing accepted students an opportunity to visit campus, meet other potential classmates, and interact with faculty and staff,” said senior admission counselor, Zina Teague. Accepted students will arrive on Thursday evening and will stay through the weekend, leaving Saturday morning.

Screen Shot 2015-03-19 at 11.21.26 PMEach accepted student will have the chance to stay overnight with current Houghton students, view a movie in the Kerr-Pegula Athletic Complex, and attend The City Harmonic concert. Following the concert there will be an after party in the Center for the Arts building and all current and prospective students are welcome. Teague said of the accepted students, “Overall, we want them to have a chance to experience what it’s like to be a Houghton College student.”

Houghton offers many Visit Days or Opportunity Days for prospective students to have a tour of the campus, attend classes, and meet other current and prospective students.  However, this Accepted Students Weekend offers high school and transfer students the opportunity to spend a weekend on Houghton’s campus, while attending events to make their stay more memorable.

Accepted Students Weekend is unique to other Visit or Opportunity Days because it offers accepted and current students the chance to attend The City Harmonic concert. According to Housing Liaison and Resident Director of Lambein, Krista Maroni, the concert is helpful due to a lack of activities during overnight visits. Maroni said, “I’ve found that hosts often struggle to find creative activities to share with their visitors. The concert provides an easy way for current and prospective students to share an experience and connect. Ideally the concert and the after party can be a jumping point for future connections.”

Maroni also mentioned how the concert will leave accepted students with a “lasting memory of their visit”.  In past years, Houghton has hosted bands such as Jars of Clay and Sanctus Real, so The City Harmonic will add to Houghton’s repertoire of award-winning performers.  Having The City Harmonic perform during Accepted Students Weekend enables accepted students to engage in an energetic, exciting weekend that is different from the typical weekend here at Houghton.  Maroni stated “Prospective students are vital to Houghton’s future and the culture we want to create; this concert is an expression of that value.”

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Opinions

Worshipping Sentimentality

In the beginning of October, Lenny Luchetti spoke in chapel on the virtues of worshipping God with the head as well as the heart. He explained that when he first began attending college, he loved to lose himself in the feeling of worship through praise songs, a semi-charismatic and hands-in-the-air kind of guy. He would observe with slight disdain the behaviors of others who sat quietly through worship services without actively taking part. Eventually, as he grew in his faith while at school, his perceptions changed, and the point he made was that God deeply values the efforts of the mind and the act of praise through academics and critical thought. What he left to be inferred, however, was that both methods of connection to God are equally worthwhile, and that it is merely a matter of personality which form of worship one chooses to employ. I would argue that this is not true, and that worshiping God with the “heart” is not really worship at all.

worshipThe other day while I was driving, Jamie Grace’s “Beautiful Day” came on the radio. The “It’s been ‘like’ a whole day” in the first verse managed to slip by me unnoticed the first time around, but the chorus left me incredulous and indignant. After a few bouncy lines about how happy God makes her, Grace sings, “This feeling can’t be wrong/ I’m about to get my worship on/ Take me away,” implying, or rather, explicitly stating that worship is some kind of altered state of being one enters into with the expectation that they will come away feeling blissful and transcendent, reminiscent of a drug-induced high or the rush of sexual intercourse. In her Grammy-nominated song “Hold Me,” Grace reinforces this interpretation with the lyrics, “I’ve had a long day, I just wanna relax … I know I should be working but I’m thinking of you” in which Jesus is essentially equated with a happy hour cocktail, and put at odds with “work,” which I can only assume Grace is not, in this case, using as a means to honor Him.

I do not mean to personally insult the no-doubt well-meaning Jamie Grace. What I do mean, however, is to question the ease with which Christian society accepts this kind of bubblegum Christian pop praise music without any basis in scripture or intentional theology. Worship is intended to be a thoughtful meditation on the grace and the goodness of God, a practice that should no doubt invite feelings of gratitude, joy, and peace, but that should nonetheless find its roots in concentrated study and reflection. The concept of worship as it is found in the majority of contemporary praise and worship songs is that of “chasing the feeling,” craving the joy without the contemplation, the intimacy without the commitment, the sex without the relationship.

People do worship in different ways. I would not try to take away from those who connect most fully with God through music the right to do so freely and with joy. But there cannot be a divide between innervation and cerebration. Those who worship through song must be able to count on the lyrics to be studied and deliberate. Difficult and far-reaching questions that exist within the Christian faith can have devastating effects on those seeped in the superficial, sensationalist theology of pop praise music. They are not taught to ask, and they are unprepared to answer. In the words of Grace, “I’ve got not need to worry, I’ve got no room for doubt,” but what exactly grants her such infallible certainty is unclear, and in a faith as encompassing and exacting as the Christian faith, there can be no room for sentiment without qualification. Impassioned worship without a strong grasp on the basics of Christian theology is meaningless and empty, and Christians brought up in the tradition of vacant worship are not worshipping God, they are worshipping a semblance of the side effects of God’s entity. They are worshipping titillation.

I want to reassure you that I recognize the usefulness and, in fact, necessity of music in worship. The Bible would not contain so many references to praising God with song if it was not an important aspect of our faith. But let us never fail to recognize the dependence of meaningful emotional connection with God on intelligent and critical examination of our beliefs.

 

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Stories In Focus

Worship: A New Vision for Chapel

“I’m very intentional about talking about worship as rooting us in a bigger story,” Dean Michael Jordan said after settling into his office chair. This story is the larger Christian story, but it is also Houghton’s story.”

Jordan_MichaelAlthough the morning was quite chilly, Jordan wore flip-flops with his suit coat, adding to the informal, yet intimate nature of the conversation. “It really occurred to me how lonely people are in general,” Jordan said, going on to talk about the pressure on students at a Christian college and how they feel the need to find God’s will for their lives and to be confident in their spiritual walks when, quite frankly, some are not. Jordan said, “Chapel is about connecting students and helping them see you’re not alone.” Therefore, Jordan hopes that chapel will serve the function of binding people together in a Christian community through worship.

One of the ways the community comes together is through music. After praising the Philadelphia Eagles in one of his recent chapel talks, Jordan mentioned his desire for the college to be fluent in three forms of worship: hymns, contemporary Christian songs, and Gospel music. In doing so, Jordan said his ultimate goal is to help students “love a breadth of Christian music and to be a grateful participant [as]  one.”

His plan seems to be successful judging by the ovation the Gospel choir regularly receives, and the heartfelt singing accompanying hymns such as “Be Thou My Vision.”

“We should ask questions about worship and how each contributes to the service”, he stated. In this way, Jordan believes we can see the value in each form of worship and how all are  used to bring God praise by the various church backgrounds represented by Houghton students.

In addition to music, chapel speakers and their messages are an important topic of discussion on chapel days. As he leaned back in his desk chair, Jordan explained that he chooses chapel speakers in collaboration with the Spiritual Life Committee; they select speakers by looking for people who will share topics they believe are important to the community and ones that will build connections to the outside world. For example, Dr. Lenny Luchetti who spoke in early October came from Wesley Seminary, representing both one of Houghton’s sister schools and a reputable seminary for graduate work. Also vital to picking chapel speakers is finding people Jordan referred to as understanding the difference between teaching and preaching. He elaborated on this distinction as the knowledge of when to present facts and when to realize the urgency of a message, and his or her need to make their intent clear and accessible to the audience, in this case, the Houghton community. One of Jordan’s regrets from his time as a Houghton student is that the speakers sometimes lacked this urgency, so he hopes that now chapel speakers will be able to provide that clarity. On days when Jordan speaks in chapel, the passion he has in presenting God’s word and drawing people together in Christ is palpable, evidenced by post-chapel conversations around campus.

In between his duties as chaplain, SPOT engagements, and family dinners in the cafeteria, Jordan works hard to make chapel the spiritual center of campus life. He hopes that students will stop thinking of chapel as a duty someone has forced them to fulfill; rather, over time chapel will form and shape student if they give themselves to it, he said before taking a sip from his coffee mug. If one does this, Jordan said, one will realize that “taking that time really helped me to look at God differently and understand myself differently and to root me in a community that I wouldn’t have been otherwise.”

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Arts

“Diary of Love” Recital

www.houghton.edu

The recent faculty recital, Diary of Love Songs, featured Kelley Hijleh, voice, Sharon Johnson, piano, and Steven Thomas, violin. Martha Thomas, wife of Thomas, the violist, said that the recital was “a musical energy that has been birthed by love,” and according to Professor Kelly Hijleh- she has got it spot on.

Hijleh is the lead vocalist of Diary of Love Songs, and has been part of the Houghton faculty for 21 years. She said her hope for the recital was that to unite the campus through music. Hijleh said that this recital was more personal to her than previous recitals because it is, in effect, a story of her own relationship with her husband of 23 years. The recital featured two pieces written by her husband, Mark Hijleh. One, More Precious than Rubies, was first played at the couple’s wedding, and will be played once more, this time by Hannah Hijleh, the couple’s daughter. “Romantic love is a great gift from God” Hijleh said, “and I have attempted to share my life story.”

A member of the music faculty for 10 years, Johnson explained that this recital encompasses her relationships with dear friend Kelley Hijleh and her students. She said the recital was a special bond she was able to share with Kelley, and said the experience was one that enriched their friendship. Johnson also said that recitals help her to better communicate with her students by helping her to bridge the gap between musician and teacher. “I am not just a teacher but also a learner and that creates a holistic environment for students,” she said, “and that can be seen clearly when I perform on stage.”

“Music is very present in our life and in worship,” Thomas said, “ and when we worship we are closest to God.” Thomas said that the recital was a very exciting event for him and a strong expression of his own spirituality as he said, “I am most intimate with God when I play music.”

The recital was unanimously described to be “all about love.” A theme that is reflected both in the repertoire and the participant’s back stories. To begin, Hijleh and Johnson performed four Italian love songs from the 17th and 18th centuries. The first two selections highlight the beloved, while the third, a decidedly darker melody, “depicts love that is faithful in the face of faithlessness” according to Hijleh’s program note, and finally the fourth piece reflects the “fiery passion” that is “often depicted in love songs. Hijleh brought life to the lyrics with dramatic expression and a passionate delivery of the melody. Following the Italian selections, is another series of four pieces by Johannes Brahms. The themes of passion, fire, and love are present throughout, and Hijleh’s performance mirrored these well. Also on the program was Hijleh’s performance of an aria from the French opera, Louise, entitled “Depuis le jour.” It was an “exuberant” piece that Hijleh said “[captured] for [her] better than anything the feeling of being in love.