Chapel: Embracing Community and Peace

[APPLAUSE]
Paislee Burney: Hi, guys.
My name is Paislee Burney, and I am the student chapel
coordinator this year.
So I'm just going to take a few minutes
to explain chapel from the student perspective.
And then at the end, I will introduce the chapel committee.
So I think chapel is one of those things where you come--
and I'm sure you've all heard this several times--
but you come to chapel, and you're
going to get out of it what you put into it.
And I know that for a fact from a personal perspective.
My freshman year, I did not want to go to chapel.
I sat in the back most days because my friends
were sitting in the front.
And I was like, why would they want to sit up there?
It's 30 minutes out of my day that I
could use to do something else.
But then second semester of freshman year,
I realized that chapel was here in a really intentional way.
It's set as a point in the day to kind of bring us together
to create this intentional community
if we let it be that for us.
I think it's scary because we're like, we don't know this.
Not all of us are from Church of Christ origin.
And so we get scared because we don't know the songs,
and we don't know the people, and we're
worried that we're not going to get something out
of chapel today.
But we can get something out of it.
And maybe we don't get something out of it today,
but we'll get something out of it tomorrow.
And I think it's important to recognize that
and to just pour ourselves into it
so that we know if I'm not invested in it,
then you probably aren't going to be invested in it either.
So if one person is invested in it,
then we should all try to invest in it.
And I'm not saying every day because days are hard,
and that's OK.
And then the chapel committee this year
is Janet Anderson, myself, Paisley Bernie, Ben Haley,
Kylie Hutchinson, Warren McNeil, Josh Stevens, and then
Keegan Stewart and Connor Bryant.
: [APPLAUSE]
Josh Stephens: Thank you, Paisley.
I'm not going to say, hey, raise your hand if you're
excited that you're here.
You should be excited to be here.
And I appreciate Paisley pointing to the fact
that, listen, sometimes to step into uncomfortable places
makes us feel a little apprehensive.
But what you are a part of right now is an opportunity.
It's an opportunity to gather with our creator.
It's an opportunity for us to gather together as a community.
It's really encouraging when we look around
and we see our professors, we see staff, we see coaches,
we see the LCU community, administrators that
believe in this process too.
So chapel is a part of our identity as a university
and has been since the very start of LCU's history.
What I get to talk about is kind of the not so fun part.
Raise your hand if you know you're
supposed to get spiritual life credits.
OK, awesome.
And some of you are really in tune with that.
Because every Monday, an email goes out
to students saying, you have this many spiritual life
credits.
And I've had a number of people saying, well, technically,
I should have an extra credit.
Because you're right, you should.
Thursday, as you know, if you've come to chapel,
scanning is like a unicorn.
We have not scanned to really go out of chapel.
First, we had some issues with our IDs,
which those have been corrected.
Thursday, we found out we have some issues with our scanners.
We have brand new scanners that will be here today.
So starting tomorrow, you will scan to get a credit.
So right now, everyone's getting a credit.
You cannot leave right now, but you're getting a credit.
But there's a few things I want to remind you.
If you go in the student handbook,
you can see how many spiritual life credits
you're required to attain.
So if you don't have an exemption,
you're required to get 45 spiritual life credits.
Now, we'll be in chapel 40 times this semester.
So if you come to chapel, you'll have 40 credits.
Then we have our Friday small groups,
which if you didn't get a chance to sign up for a small group,
you can come by the Student Life office
and we'll gladly help you with that.
We also have seven online or virtual chapels
that hopefully will be released soon.
And so I'm excited because members
of our athletic department did those seven virtual chapels.
You'll go on through Moodle.
It'll be anywhere from a four to eight minute thought.
You answer a question and you get a credit for that.
And so there's a lot of opportunities to get credits.
If you wonder if you're entitled to exemption,
you can look at the student handbook.
You can come by the Student Life office.
But again, I think the main thing
I want to encourage you to do is--
I know I talked to a student earlier this semester.
And I said, listen, every time I saw you last semester, which
was in my Friday small group, I was like,
I felt like you hated my guts.
And she was like, no, I don't hate your guts.
I hate being required to be somewhere.
I understand that.
This is not church.
This is an opportunity.
And so my hope is that as you look around,
even before chapel, you hear people talking.
You hear when you come in and we'll
have different kinds of music playing.
There's all kinds of opportunities
for connection in here.
But it takes you being intentional about plugging
yourself into this community.
At freshman orientation, our orientation students
heard me say, you get what you put into it.
If you come in here and you want to be disconnected,
you can be.
But let me remind you, you're not guaranteed a credit
for being here.
We want you to be connected.
So if you have your phone out, and if you're
looking at your phone like this, one, what's wrong with you?
Like, I get it.
If you're like, man, I love Candy Crush,
and I really-- like, I'm feeling it right now.
I don't even know if people play that anymore.
But if you're feeling that, don't do it like this.
Do it like this.
And you know what?
Maybe someone's like, oh, I bet they're
reading their Bible on their phone.
Or that person looks like they're in prayer.
Lord, thank you for that.
I pray that you bless that person.
If you feel the need that you have to do that, fine.
I'm going to encourage you to turn it off, put it down,
and listen to what's going on.
Now, the Lord gave us all a really special skill.
It's called whispering.
And so if you really need to talk to the person next to you,
it's cool, because you can be like, hey, what's up?
Oh, did you watch that Texas Tech game?
Yeah, I cried also.
Like, you could do that, OK?
But if you're talking to the person next to you,
like I'm talking to you right now,
do you think that's going to be a distraction?
For sure.
That means you're not connected to what's going on in here.
And that means you could get stopped on the way out.
And we'll have a conversation about whether or not
you need to get a credit or not.
We don't want to have those conversations.
So if you need to talk to someone next to you,
then that's fine.
Whisper.
But the last thing I want to encourage you,
or I call Jana up here, is look around real quick.
A lot of you are by people that you know.
There's a number of you that are around people
that you may not know.
I'm a firm believer that the Holy Spirit engages us
in every moment that we experience every day.
I think the biggest thing is--
[LAUGHTER]
You could not have planned that better, because God knows
all things and is working, people.
And what's going on here.
Yeah.
Thank you, Jesus.
OK.
So there may be times that the chapel program, you're like,
dude, I'm not feeling the chapel program.
That's OK.
That may be one of those days where the Holy Spirit's saying,
I'm not here to talk to you right now.
There's the person next to you.
There's the person behind you or in front of you.
There's someone in here that needs to hear that.
I really want to invite you into--
if you're not vibing with what's going on,
and we have all kinds of programs
scheduled throughout the semester,
if that's not your jam, that's OK.
Maybe you're not the person that the Spirit's
trying to speak to their heart in that moment.
Maybe it's someone else.
So instead of being a distraction,
if you could say, this is an opportunity
to help that person connect with the Spirit,
I'm not going to whisper to them.
I'm not going to talk.
I'm not going to be on my phone.
I'm not going to have random things play out loud.
Maybe if we step back and we say, Jesus,
this time is about you.
And I don't care where you are in your walk with Jesus.
If you don't know Jesus, listen, you heard Dr. G talk about,
there's faculty, there's staff, there's coaches,
there's friends, there's peers here
who want to help foster that relationship between you
and Jesus.
So if you don't know who Jesus is, just don't raise your hand.
But come and ask, OK?
Because there's nothing more important, with all respect
to my faculty colleagues, you're going
to learn a lot of awesome things this year.
But nothing is more important than you
learning that Jesus loves you and you are valuable to Christ.
And you will see that in your academic classes.
You will see that in chapel.
And I think you will see that in the community of Lubbock
Christian.
So I'm really excited because Jana Anderson is going
to come up and share our theme, which
I think is really important for this year.
So give it up for Jana Anderson, everybody.
: [APPLAUSE]
Jana Anderson: Well, good morning to you.
Let me pause and get my bearings here.
It's good to see you today.
Thank you for being here.
My name is Jana Anderson.
I'm a writing and literature professor
in the Department of Humanities.
And as we thought about our chapel conversations this fall,
we were drawn to an oftentimes overlooked fruit of the spirit.
And one I think that we are in dire need of cultivating,
and that is peace.
I want to take you in scripture to some
of Jesus' very last words.
He was saying goodbye to his disciples.
And I don't know the tone of these words.
We don't get that in print.
But I think his words must have sounded urgent.
These are the last things he was going to say to them
on this side of heaven.
And they're the words that he wanted to leave with them.
So they must have been very carefully chosen.
I'm going to read from John 14.
I'm going to begin around verse 18,
and then conclude around verse 27,
then flip over to chapter 16, where those words end.
Read along with me.
He says, "I will not leave you as orphans.
I will come to you.
Before long, the world will not see me anymore,
but you will see me, because I live, you will also live.
On that day, you will realize that I am in my Father,
and you are in me, and I am in you."
Then picking up in verse 26.
"But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you all the things, and he'll
remind you of everything that I have said to you.
Peace I leave with you, and my peace I give you.
I do not give you as the world gives.
Do not let your hearts be troubled,
and do not be afraid."
And then I'm flipping over to 1633,
almost at the very end of his words to them.
"I have told you these things," he said, "so that in me,
you may have peace.
In this world, you will have trouble."
That's a guarantee.
"But take heart, because I have overcome the world.
In me, you will have peace."
I thought about where exactly is that peace,
because I don't see or feel that very often when
I look around a room, or when I scroll down a screen,
or when I look into my own heart.
There have been things, even in the last year,
that have just kind of knocked me flat, literally
and figuratively.
And peace has seemed more like an unachievable goal,
rather than a gift already given.
When we take stock of what the world has been through
in just the last five years, I'd say that it splintered us.
We have very good reasons to feel uneasy.
I made a list, and these don't include
any of the difficult things that you have faced personally.
This is just something that's happened around the world.
Here's the list.
We emerged from a global pandemic.
Our freshmen who are here today were eighth graders
when they went home for spring break and didn't return.
We've had repeated and challenging economic
disruptions and rising prices.
We are just in an absolute information overload
with social media and other things.
We're just drowning in content, and we're
starving for community.
We are experiencing political extremism.
When I look to the far left, I look to the far right,
I just don't think I have a place anywhere at home
there anymore.
We've had ecological disasters.
We've had threats of civil wars.
We've had threats of nuclear war.
All the disinformation, all the yelling.
You know, good news doesn't get the clicks, right?
It's the bad news that makes the headlines.
And in your personal lives, maybe the betrayals
and the deceptions and the chaos that has just left you
knotted up on the inside.
And I'm wondering what's keeping you from peace.
This morning, my freshman couldn't get the photocopier
to work, and we can't get documents printed.
We have little things like that that disrupt us.
And then we have some things that are really, really big.
But here's the good news.
Jesus said, I am living with you with peace.
In me, you may have peace.
But what if this person wins the election,
or that person wins the election?
And what if the economy gets worse, and I can't get a job?
And what if nothing works out?
And what if the broken things in my life don't get mended?
And what if everything we know changes?
What if?
But the word tells us that everything that has been
created is at his command, that he has mastery over the wind
and the sea and the earth and the galaxies
and every living thing that has breath.
He's not scrambling around.
He's not throwing together some inferior plan B.
He hasn't run out of mercy.
He's not short on love.
His love is secure.
You are secure.
And as his image bears, we have been given peace.
We don't have to live as the world lives.
I don't have to live as the world lives,
tossed around by every bad headline
in every uncertain moment.
So I have a favor to ask you.
Would you think of people you know personally
who are anchored in Jesus so that the fruit you
see in their lives is peace?
And would you consider asking them, going up to them today
after chaploid when you see them this week,
asking them to host a conversation in this room
this semester?
And would you ask them on Fridays,
when you go to your small group, how they have harvested
peace in their lives?
And would you consider watching them closely this semester,
just watching them and asking them maybe
if they can mentor you in the way of peace?
We're going to talk about that in my small group on Fridays.
And I would love for you to think about that with me.
You are very welcome there.
And I want to say a thank you to the peace bearers
that I have seen at work just the last two
weeks of this semester.
People either spoke peace over me
or I saw them extending peace to other people.
These are just a few names--
Ingrid Johnson, Brett Mort, Rose Johnson,
Sunny Park, Amy Smith, Randal Dement, JoAnn Long.
Do you know JoAnn Long?
A person of peace.
Sonja Dixon, Amy Hardesty, Tonia Boyer, Tracy Sparks,
Abby Williams, and there's so many more.
They're here.
And I'm telling you, these people
would not be a bad place for you to start when you're
looking for people of peace.
Go talk to them.
You better believe I'm going to ask them
to join this conversation.
I can't wait to hear from them this semester.
Satan is the author of chaos.
He loves it when you're in a constant state of panic
and uneasiness.
He loves it when you're anxious.
But his time is short.
And believers, today we have been given the stage--
2024, September.
We've been given the stage to shine the light of peace.
So let's stop trying to adjust our eyes to all the darkness.
That is a waste of time.
Instead, let's receive this precious gift
that we've already been given.
I am desperate for Jesus.
I am desperate for peace.
When Paul was in prison, he wrote in Colossians 3:15,
"Let the peace of Christ rule your hearts,
since as members of one body, you were called to peace."
In the prophet Isaiah in 5512, "You will go out with joy,
and you will be led forth with peace."
May God bless the reading of your word.
You're dismissed.