LAURA JANE KENNY | staff writer
The community one encounters in church is invaluable.
You wake up Sunday morning and look at your clock. It’s 8:30. Eh. You turn over to go back to sleep. but out of the corner of your eye you see your roommate getting ready for church. You try to fall back asleep and ignore your conscience that is whispering in your ear, telling you that you should get up too. The subtle sound of your roommate opening drawers just increases the guilty feeling in the pit of your stomach. Quickly, your mind shuffl es to fi nd an excuse that will allow you to sleep in. You went to church three times already this week.
A smile glides across your sleepy face. Chapel is church, right? You roll back over for another couple of hours. But should you?
Do you remember going to church back at home? Walking in was half the experience. I would go into church and try not to be overcome by dozens of little children running around. My friend’s 5-year-old sister would stand in front of me with her hand lifted toward my face, hoping that I would pick her up and spin her. It took me at least ten minutes to get to the worship center from the entrance because I knew that people would stop me to talk before I even reached the sanctuary.
Now think about walking into Chapel. There is usually no one younger than 17 and hardly anyone older than 25. The majority of the students are all within a few years of each other.
There is no one with crayons in his hands or cookie crumbs on her face. There is no one whose smile is surrounded by wrinkles. You look around and you see, with some difference, a whole bunch of people who are at the same place in life as you are.
“The reason it is not church is because chapel is one small generation slice of the people of God,” theology professor Steve Jung said. Chapel is one of the best examples of our ‘Christ’ cornerstone and it creates great community. I love the idea that we all come together to worship God and listen to speakers. Chapel was designed to create a God-centered community at APU. But if you limit your church experience to chapel, you are missing out.
“Chapel has always been a complement to the local church,” President Jon Wallace said. “We do not intend that student involvement in Chapel replace their commitment to worship, serve and fi nd faithful accountability in the local church.
We have placed the mantel of student spiritual leadership with our campus pastors, but we do notintend that this replace the authority or accountability that students have with their church.” There was a woman at my church in her seventies that would tap on the pastor’s shoulder during worship to tell him that she had a word from God. The music would turn down as she told the church what the Lord had put on her heart.
And let me tell you, every time it was good, really good. It is not that we do not have wise people at APU. I think students at APU are overfl owing with wisdom, but they are not really part of the congregation.
They are the pastors and the leaders. I went to church a couple weeks ago and the pastor was trying To give encouragement to the congregation. He had everyone in the church that had been a Christian for more than 50 years stand up.
It was inspiring to see these men and women stand and know how many decades they have walked with Christ. And I was going to church with them, experiencing God with them.
There are some awesome students at APU, but even if they have been Christians since the day they were born, they cannot even begin to match the experience of 50 years of wisdom.
“You have the past, the white haired people who bring wisdom and stability. They aren’t moved by fads. Then you have the future, the younger generation,” Jung said. This is an unattainable experience at APU. It should inspire you to leave campus on a Sunday morning. The act of going to church is not about checking something off your list. This mindset that chapel attendance replaces church suggests that God just wants us to go to church in order to fulfi ll our weekly quota.
God wants us to go to experience the body of Christ in its fullest. 1 Corinthians 12 talks about being different parts of the body and working together. There are approximately 250 churches in the greater Azusa area. APU and Azusa are always looking for ways to close the gap between the students and Azusa residents. What better way to stir community than by attending Church in the community and not using Chapel as an excuse not to go.
