Sharing a birthday with the university itself, Baylor chapel was created for students to find their faith community — a mission that has continued to this day.
Browsing: Chapel
Seventy years ago in the fall of 1954, the dream that was Tidwell Bible Building came to fruition and was completed. Since then, thousands upon thousands of students have made their way through the building’s halls and classrooms, becoming a part of Baylor’s long legacy of scholars.
Baylor’s traditional chapel offering — large-scale student gatherings in Waco Hall — has been scattered into a variety of “calling and career” options in recent years, as the chapel department pushes to personalize the chapel experience. The result: more than four dozen options, including everything from Aviation Chapel to Eastern Orthodox Morning Prayers.
Baylor has always had specific class requirements for graduating, such as taking Chapel, lifetime fitness, a foreign language and a science. Each of these classes counts toward attendance, tuition and GPA, so why don’t students get proper credit toward their degree plans with them?
The continued lack of interest in Chapel may not be a fault on the students’ part. It could be a call for Chapel to change and cater to those who fall through the cracks, bringing in guest speakers with diverse backgrounds and stories to reach them on a deeper level.
To get away from the crazed frenzy of a college campus preparing for Thanksgiving break, students from the Wilderness Spirituality Chapel traveled to Meridian State Park over the weekend for a time of rest, renewal, exploration and fellowship with one another and God.
While I cannot speak to Baylor’s historic reasoning for maintaining compulsory chapel, as director for chapel, I can tell you how we seek to exercise its value to Baylor students and our community.
Baylor is most likely first and foremost known for being a Christian university — and with that comes the pressure of following Christian ideas and including religious education in its curriculum. While I think it is great for Baylor to maintain its religious traditions, I think the Chapel requirement should no longer be included in its core curriculum.
“It’s been wonderful seeing the Lord work through students lives in that sense … revealing the opportunity that prayer presents and how you can find peace from it,” Barberena said. “You can see it working through the students as well — the way that they treat each other, the kindness and love that everybody shows for each other. You can see it in the way that we are a Chapel team.”
“The beauty of the Gospel is that when you speak it across cultures … it resonates,” Aughtry said. “And I think that’s what I’m trying to do in all the faith and arts chapels, is find something that resonates with the art-making process, with storytelling process.”
Being an agnostic myself, it can be hard to bring value to Chapel. Although I have already done my time, I would like to have known how to continue learning from every video and question I complete.
After being challenged in Chapel to “change the world in a day,” Baylor students raised more than $24,000 for charity, Baylor announced this Monday.
Chapel: As undergraduates, we’ve all been through it.
Every undergraduate at Baylor is required to attend Chapel in some form, although the requirements vary. Chapel, a time of worship every Monday and Wednesday, is one of the oldest and most valued Baylor traditions. It has been a part of student life for more than 160 years.
Although Chapel is a valued tradition, it is taking up time that many students can’t easily sacrifice. It’s also taking money. There is a class fee of $65 for attending Chapel.
This week, all members of the Baylor community will have an opportunity to experience the final moments in the life of Christ, says Ryan Richardson, associate chaplain and director of worship.
Christians have made themselves “selfishly holy,” Micah Bournes, a traveling artist and spoken word poet, said in Chapel on Monday.
Rachel Held Evans, author of the recently published “A Year of Biblical Womanhood,” spoke at Chapel on Monday about her year-long project to discover how to live the life of a “biblical woman” according to laws set forth in Scripture.
Mark Thallander, a world-renowned organist who lost his arm in a car accident in 2003 played during Chapel in Waco Hall on Monday.
Baylor alumna Laura Cooksey is thriving in the world of Christian music with her debut album, “Unshakeable.”
Grief filled the air in chapel Monday morning as students joined in prayer over the loss of Winter Park, Fla. first-year Truett Seminary student Jake W. Gibbs.
“Christians have a responsibility to stand up in positions of global leadership across the medical field, specifically reaching out to the needs of Third World countries,” Dr. Fred Yaw Bio said Monday during the annual events presented by Baylor’s Academy for Leader Development and Civic Engagement.
Chapel attendants heard a message combined with melodies Monday morning in Waco Hall. The service featured a 45-minute concert with rising Christian worship band Gungor.
