The LuHi Pod
A podcast for LuHi students, families, and our community.
The LuHi Pod
Season 7, Ep 2: The Purpose of Chapel with Pastor Vanderhyde
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We're back! If you missed the Zoeller+Hannah nonsense part of the show, you're in luck! Because we are back in the studio for more pre-episode fillabustering.
But we know that's not really why you are here, so on to the meat of the episode. Today, Pastor Vanderhyde joins us to share all about Chapel. What we do, how we do it, why we focus on the things we focus on - it all contributes to living out our mission to Encourage Growth in Christ. He walks us through why we have rhythms of singing, praying the Lord's prayer, and reading a psalm together each week.
If you have questions about chapel or anything we do at LuHi, we want to hear from you! Email us at podcast@lhsparker.org.
Our intro, outro, and segment music were written and recorded by Mr. Matt Zoeller. You can find us on most of the socials under the Lutheran High School handles.
If you have a question you want answered on the Pod, we do Q&A episodes each season! Submit questions anytime to podcast@lhsparker.org.
You can find chapters for each episode and transcripts here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2228322
Thanks for listening, subscribing, and sharing with your friends!
Intro music from Mr Zoeller!
SPEAKER_04Therefore, as God chose a people, holy and dearly love.
unknownIs there something in my head?
SPEAKER_04Cloth yourselves with compassion, humility, gentleness, patience, and bear with each other. And forgive one another. If any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive us the Lord. Forgive me.
SPEAKER_00Colossus 3, 12 to 13. Welcome to the Lou High Podcast.
SPEAKER_05Hannah,
Start of episode nonsense w/ Zoeller and Hannah
SPEAKER_05I have not seen you for like three months. I know. You've been insisting on talking to all these theologians. Oh, yes. I know. I know. But congrats on the awesome podcasting season in the spring.
SPEAKER_06Oh, thank you.
SPEAKER_05It was great.
SPEAKER_06I agree. I don't think anybody listened, and it it's our best work.
SPEAKER_05It's our best work. And you know what? Michael Monty listened.
SPEAKER_06He did? Yeah. What did he do?
SPEAKER_05He listened to every episode we've ever done all this summer. And he said, you guys can talk about anything. Just make sure you keep talking.
SPEAKER_06Oh. Thank you, Mr. Monty.
SPEAKER_05Thank you, Mr. Monty.
SPEAKER_06Come on the podcast anytime. We'd love to talk to you. Um, also Okay, just so people know, the the spring semester, it was high school time machine.
SPEAKER_05Working title.
SPEAKER_06Working working title. Yeah. Still, it could still change people. But if you didn't listen, it was so good.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I cried a couple times.
SPEAKER_06I mean, yeah, our our students and our teachers, they brought it. Yeah. And they're short, they're like bite-sized episodes. They're really.
SPEAKER_05She was one of our teachers.
SPEAKER_06Oh well.
SPEAKER_05One of my favorite ones.
SPEAKER_06Oh, thank you. Yeah. No, it there, you guys, it's so good. Uh, don't sleep on those because they're really, really good.
SPEAKER_05And and I just said and and all all capsidly because I'm just segueing into the next thing. Excellent. And in Hannah's piece, she reveals that her and I are friends. Because we are. It's true. This isn't like the fourth time this has come up in a couple of years. Because we're friends. We're friends. And you know what? And true friends don't need to say it all the time. They just say it now and then.
SPEAKER_06Just like we don't greet each other.
SPEAKER_05As it's natural, like we don't greet each other. Yeah. Okay. Do you remember, Hannah? Uh I'm gonna guess seven, eight years ago.
SPEAKER_03Oh no.
SPEAKER_05You were fairly new here, but we had been skiing already and you know, hung out a few times, I think. Yes. And uh so we were friends. Yeah. We didn't need to say it, but we were and the sometimes in the summer I try to cut my hair in like the dumbest way, just to kind of you know, stick it to the man or whatever. I don't know. Yes, good. I got my own issues.
SPEAKER_03We'll sort those out all the hair on hair, yeah.
SPEAKER_05But I had cut it. This was when the mullet was not back, and I cut the mullet, I cut my hair into a nice mullet. And then I came back for opening meetings, and uh everyone's just like, good to see ya. Did you cut your hair? Okay, nice, good to see ya. Hey, how was your summer? Did you cut your hair? Hey, how was your summer? Did you get a haircut? And uh, and really I'm like, I didn't just get a haircut, I cut it into a mullet, and I did it myself. Like, it's the worst kind, it's so bad. And I knew I was gonna cut off you know, party on what is it, business in the front, party in the back. I was gonna cut off the party in the back when school started, and I did. But Hannah Buckholz was the you were the only one, the only one who said such a problem. Oh my gosh, what did you do to your head?
SPEAKER_07No, I have no memory of it.
SPEAKER_05You're like, that looks horrible.
SPEAKER_07Oh, I'm so sorry.
SPEAKER_05No, no, no. This is another one of these backwards compliments that I like to do and might do another one soon. Um and I said, you know what? This hair is a friendship test. I want to see who will tell me the truth.
SPEAKER_06That's terrible.
SPEAKER_05And including my own wife, I think, my own siblings. Hannah Buckholz was the only one who told me the truth.
SPEAKER_07I hate a mullet. I hate a mullet.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Well, you were right to say something.
SPEAKER_07Thank you.
SPEAKER_05And you did. And right stand by it. Yeah. So I thank you. Years later, I thank you. Have you? I know you have because you do this a ton. But do you remember before you got used to it, do you remember hearing your own voice recorded like for the first time?
SPEAKER_06Yes, and I still hate it. Same. Because so I hear my voice often annoyingly. Do you know what a YOTO is? A YOTO player. Uh it's like an audiobook player for kids, but it's got no screens. It's like an anti-screen thing. You can record, like you can record your own stories. You can buy them, but they're kind of pricey. So you can get your make your own. That's probably true.
SPEAKER_05Okay, Yodo. There's your freebie.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, seriously. Not again. Uh, but you can record your own cards. So I have like me reading The Gruffalo and me reading Cornbread and Poppy. Do you know these any of these books? Yeah, yeah. Okay, kids' books. Yeah, kids' books. And so I I will like hear my voice in another room because Will's listening to the Yodo somewhere else, and I it's very jarring. I do not like it.
SPEAKER_05Outsourced your own parenting to yourself.
SPEAKER_07Yes.
SPEAKER_05Meanwhile, Hannah's in there doing the post on the editing this podcast.
SPEAKER_07Seriously, I cannot get away from my voice.
SPEAKER_05Hey, Will. I'm so sorry. She should have been reading those in vivo. Not buying something. Not buying a YODO. Unless, unless Yoda sponsors the show. Then I'll take that all back. Yeah. Take it all back.
SPEAKER_06They will not.
SPEAKER_05And by the way, Hannah has leveled up. Check this out. Hannah, what was that?
SPEAKER_06Uh, that's our brand new podcast desk that someday people will see on video, but it's not really a video.
SPEAKER_05I thought we were doing video today, which is why I brought. Check this out. A little asthmer. Which is why I brought this. Yeah. Tell everyone what it is.
SPEAKER_06It's a little, not a blackboard, a whiteboard. It's a little tiny whiteboard.
SPEAKER_05A marker board. I didn't bring any eraser. I was just gonna do the word this.
SPEAKER_07Oh. And you did it. Yeah, I did it.
SPEAKER_05Who did this? I did this. I did this. But Hannah did this.
SPEAKER_06That's not true. Nathan Heynem did this. This.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, he did that. He did that.
SPEAKER_06Well an asthma-filled episode.
SPEAKER_05I did this. He did that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Oh my gosh. Okay.
SPEAKER_05Um today we No, if you guys could see this, it'd be so funny. Larry Abbott meets Costello.
SPEAKER_06Oh man. Um today our guest is. Yeah, who's on first?
SPEAKER_05That was good. Who's on Zen Girk?
SPEAKER_04This is amazing.
SPEAKER_07This is what the people will come for for sure.
SPEAKER_05Um that's the new 6-7 of 2026. Bring back that. Tell the kids. Oh.
SPEAKER_06Oh my gosh. Um, that's wonderful. Okay, Daniel Vanderhyde, Pastor Vanderhyde, is here to talk about chapel. Uh, we've had Pastor Vanderhead on before, and we know that you guys are good friends. Are you still swimming together?
SPEAKER_05Uh we we have been running together more in the summer, but we did actually swim together quite recently.
SPEAKER_06Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_05Mostly running though, yeah.
SPEAKER_06It's been real hot to run.
SPEAKER_05You know, you gotta get it early. It's yeah, it's nice in the morning.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Great. Well, do you have anything nice to say about Pastor Vanderheight?
SPEAKER_05Um Yes, I do. He is a sinner, like all of us, who struggles with pride and struggles with impatience and uh, you know, selfishness.
SPEAKER_06I said, Do you have anything nice to say about Pastor Vanderheight? And you lead in the he's a sinner.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, well, a little context that nobody has. Here it comes. Great. He reached he gave like the uh opening homily, I suppose, for um for all the Lou High faculty at our opening thing. Yeah, it was orientation ceremony, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Service, yeah, meetings.
SPEAKER_05And he was talking about uh clothing being clothed in uh all these all these holy attributes that come from Colossians three. Colossians three, twelve to thirteen. The theme song you hopefully just heard. Yeah. And uh he's talking about wearing those things as clothes and how you know we run out of that willpower is a fleeting thing, but the Holy Spirit is available with all of this, and it's kind of like getting hand-me-downs from Jesus or from the Spirit, you know, same thing. And and uh so he's like, When when I run out of patience, I pray, like, Lord, give me some of your patience, you know. Yeah, he he said it better. But but were you there, by the way?
SPEAKER_06At this at the opening. When he did this, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_05That's great. Yeah, and then he did all that and he said something like, Boy, you know, there are times when I really struggle, and we're all rolling our eyes, and we're like, We've seen you with your kids. Yeah, you don't you don't struggle like we struggle, you're dad of the year. Yes, and then he said something like, and there's times I have to pray for patience, and then I have to pray for humility, and then I have to pray for forgiveness, and we're all like, Come on. Yeah, seriously, and then uh yeah, and then he's like, Maybe you know someone who does these things really well, and that's inspiring. And we're all like, Yeah, we're all thinking of you, man. We're all we're looking at you. Yeah, you are the one. Yeah, it's true. So we all thought this was funny, and then afterwards we kind of told it to him, and and he was like, No, no, no, no. My point is I hide that well, but uh I can relate to sin. And I thought, you know what? Of course he can.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, of course he can.
SPEAKER_05We can't let's not just take this from him because we all like it.
SPEAKER_06When we were actually when we were joking about that yesterday, I was feeling bad in the moment of like, if he were because we were joking behind his back, which you know, great. Uh good job, us. I was thinking there, I was like, if he was here, do you think he would be sad that we're like, you don't get us, you're so great. Like, is that kind of hurtful to him?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, exactly. And that you know what, Hannah? Keep all of this because that's why when you said say something nice about him. Okay. I'm gonna say he struggles with the same stuff we do.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, okay. That I see.
SPEAKER_05None of us see it, but we're gonna believe it. Yeah. Because he said it's true and he never lies and he's perfect. So that's a be true. That's so great.
SPEAKER_07Yes, here we are again saying mean nice things.
Conversation with Pastor Vanderhyde
SPEAKER_06Hey everybody, welcome back to the Lu High Pod. Excited to have Pastor Vanderhyde back on the podcast today. Um, if you missed his most recent episode called Christ Alone, it was part of our summer school with the theology department series. Go back and have a listen to that. Um, but if you don't know who Pastor Vanderhyde is, I'm just gonna let him introduce himself. So, hi, thanks for being here.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Thanks. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. This is your third year as our campus pastor.
SPEAKER_01Right. Well, so the first year was an internship. So this is my second official year as a pastor. Nice but yeah. Very cool. Yeah, it's and great to be here.
SPEAKER_06For people who don't know, you were here before you went back to seminary and you were teaching.
SPEAKER_01I taught taught here for 11 years and then uh moved away for three years and went to seminary in St. Louis and came back. And uh it's just a wonderful family, it's a wonderful community here. So it's really great to be. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06And you're an alumni, actually, aren't you? That's right. Yeah. Yes.
SPEAKER_01We still have teachers in the building uh who are teaching, who actually taught me. Uh I graduated in 2005 from Denver Lutheran.
SPEAKER_06Nice. So the Hollenbecks?
SPEAKER_01Uh I had, yep, I had Mr. Hollenbeck, I had Mr. Parrot, Mr. Stelling, okay, Mr. Gherky.
SPEAKER_06Oh, right, sure.
SPEAKER_01We're all teachers that I had. And uh Mrs. Kidston did her student teaching, I think my senior year.
SPEAKER_06Wow, okay.
SPEAKER_01So she had just arrived. Nice.
SPEAKER_06Those are some it might have been my junior year.
SPEAKER_01I think I had two years with her.
SPEAKER_06Nice. But yeah. Those are some big names.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, that's amazing. Uh and okay. Cool. Well, thank you for coming on today. What we're gonna talk about, the topic is chapel. Chapel is a big deal around here. Um a lot of our think prospective parents maybe don't quite have a understanding of what it is. And if our parents have never, you know, been uh on campus while we're having chapel, this will also hopefully be informative for them as well. Um so we do chapel three times a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Um that's with a lot of intention. I know a lot of other private Christian schools in the area do it once a week or maybe a couple times a week, but we do it three times, which I'm pretty sure is the most.
SPEAKER_01So anytime I talk with someone, yeah, they they always say, Oh wow, that's a lot. And it's only, you know, it's only twenty five minutes each of those times. So some of the some of those places may have a longer time, fewer days a week, but it is great. It's it's really the only time we gather all together as an entire school. Yes. Other than some homecoming activities, things like that. But but uh when do you want to, you know, when if you want to see the entire school community in one room at the same time, uh chapel's the place where that happens.
SPEAKER_06It's pretty amazing actually, thinking about when I first started here, we did it in the flex room, which is really no more. Um we had chairs on the floor, it was full-ish, but now you walk into the gym on a Monday Wednesday Friday morning and it's it's packed.
SPEAKER_01Right. We fill the bleachers and then we have 400, 450 chairs on the floor, on the gym floor. Um we've got a lot of people involved who do a wonderful job. Sarah Ness is wonderful in organizing. Yes. Uh Chris Lazel is wonderful.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and we have a worship class, we get volunteers who set up chairs. With it's there's a lot of people that that put a lot of work in to really make this work for us. Yeah, those movies. That's a huge blessing.
SPEAKER_06Yes, it's it's awesome. It's a really good team. So that's amazing. So just to start us off, um, maybe you can talk a little bit about what is the purpose of chapel? Why do we meet? Why is it important?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Gathering together as a Christian community is uh a beautiful thing. And so our school really is centered on encouraging growth in Christ. That's uh part of it. We are we are nurturing academic excellence and encouraging growth in Christ. And so um we do that in a lot of ways. We have theology class where you learn about your faith, uh, you discuss with your classmates and your teacher. Uh that's a really important thing. But for us all to gather together as a community and actually hear God's word together, pray to Him, sing together, uh, these things are formative for us as a community. And so um it is a really a central core thing of who we are that we would um actually gather together and do this. Not just not just a classroom environment where we're learning about the faith, but we're actually um practicing the faith. We're actually praying and uh and singing and hearing God's word together is a really wonderful thing.
SPEAKER_06I've started thinking about, you know, not just like you know, the people in my church congregation or the people here, but like just the body at large of you're really not alone in your faith walk ever because you know people all over the world are yeah.
SPEAKER_01And what that's one of the big things we get to do is connect with the church from all times and places, and uh we'll talk more about that later here, but but um what we're doing there is not just with the people in the room, even right? It's actually a bigger group of people who are uh connected through faith in Christ. So we're we're uh we're the visible uh representation of the body of Christ that we can see there in the room, but then we're even connected to other Christians from all times and places, even those who have already fallen asleep in the Lord. Uh we are worshiping alongside them. So that's yeah, that's amazing. And of course, Jesus says where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them. So that's the thing. We're also it's not just us, and then God is somewhere out there and we're kind of reaching out to him, but he comes and he's there in the gym with us too. Yeah. Uh, and he's feeding us and and um nurturing our faith. And uh we believe that firmly. So that's that's a yeah, so that's a huge deal. That's who we are as a school.
SPEAKER_06It's a that's a really beautiful picture. That's so cool. Um cool. So can you walk us through what does a typical chapel look like, chapel service look like? I know you said it's about 25 minutes long. Tell the people what are we doing in there?
SPEAKER_01Sure. So you could kind of just imagine what this looks like. I'll I'll paint the picture here. You you uh we the bell rings after our second period of the day. Uh we start school 7:40 in the morning, and then uh we have two periods of class, and then bell rings at the end of that class, and everybody heads to the gym. And it's a lot of people. Uh we even have a little bit of extra time in that passing period to get everybody in there. So they all come, they sit down. Uh, they have an assigned seat basically. Uh they don't just sit wherever they want. Um, we mix up our school. We take some freshmen and some sophomores and juniors and seniors who don't all have the same classes together, but we we put them together in a group. We call them chapel groups. And there's one teacher or staff member who is assigned to that group. Um so yeah, everybody kind of gets spread evenly throughout the gym. Um, you're sitting in a with other people that you may not have a class with. It's kind of cool to to have these this other connection besides just your classmates. Um and when uh when it's time for chapel to begin, we have some announcements. First of all, again, it's it's uh our main gathering that happens where you have the whole school there. So there are some announcements that happen uh just having to do with what's going on in the life of the school at that time. And by the time those announcements are done, we have about 20 minutes left. So 20 minutes where we uh set aside our our work for the day, the the worries and the anxieties that we're thinking about, we set those things aside um and we focus our attention on Christ. Um I guess I could say you maybe also not just setting them aside, but you know, we bring those worries and those anxieties and whatever's going on, we bring those to to lay them before Christ. And um, so yeah, so we'll we walk into the gym, uh, a bell rings for us to get started, we have some announcements, and then we say, All right, now it's time uh we're beginning our our time of uh of chapel, and uh we begin it with the invocation of God's name because where God's name is, that's where he is, that's where his presence is. And so we begin in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And uh we believe in uh one God who is three persons, and that is uh mind blowing. We don't understand it, but this is the way that God describes him to himself to us, that we um we see clearly in the scriptures in the Bible, we see clearly that the Father is God and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God. Yeah, and yet uh there is one God, and so uh there's already relationship and community in God Himself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and we speak His name there, and and um that's how we begin our chapel. It it um points us in the right direction. It points us, okay, this is who God is, this is who we are here to hear from and to speak to. So, yeah, so the invocation is how we start things off. After that, uh depending on the day, we have some different things that go on. We'll uh we'll speak a psalm together this year. We're gonna have A psalm of the week each week.
SPEAKER_02Welcome.
SPEAKER_01And really excited about that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So we'll we'll speak it together. That'll be participatory. It's not just uh, you know, kind of passively listening to it, but actually speaking it together. Um we'll sing some songs. Sometimes we sing a really new song that's that's uh been written recently. Popular on the radio. Yeah, and uh we have great songs that we sing that way. Uh sometimes we'll sing an older hymn and we try to intentionally put those into the mix as well because um some of those older songs really have uh a rich depth of um formation for us in the faith. And um maybe might even say some things that might sound strange to us. Uh it's great to to learn and be formed by what other Christians from other times and other cultures have have written. There's a wealth of devotional material out there from the church through the centuries, and so we really do try to connect back to uh some of those older traditions as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um it's not even like this is just Lutheran material here either. This is really uh these songs are coming from uh again the church of all times and places, so we try to mix that in there.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. I want to circle back to the you know the age age old hymns. Um, but I think it was Augustine, don't quote me on that, who said, When you sing, you pray twice. Um which I love thinking about that. And just uh scripture is so valuable and reading a psalm so valuable, but there's something just uh I think the way the Lord created us to when we sing and when we worship in that way and we when we do it all together, there it's it's really powerful. I really appreciate that time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it it's more than information, it's not just that we're learning something new, but it's um these words are the words of scripture uh or they're formed by scripture and they're sh then shaping us. Yeah, they're they're shaping our reactions. Uh when I'm later on in the day, maybe the words of that song come back to mind or something like that. Or some of the prayers that we'll pray um can really shape our devotional life and shape the way that we react to what happens throughout the day.
SPEAKER_06Yes. Absolutely about the you know, it's music just pops into your head, and it's just uh it's interesting how much that can frame your attitude and uh even if it's even if it's a song or a hymn that you maybe don't know well, it is crazy how your brain just kind of connects to those words and and it will spring back back to mind at a later time. Right. That's kind it's really powerful. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah, it really is. Um I love that. So, okay, you mentioned hymns. The one I was thinking of when you were talking, uh, it's a it's a Lenten hymn. I feel like we've sang it before. I know Mr. Colway has brought it up on the podcast before. Uh oh sacred head now wounded. Like talk about we don't talk that way today. Like we just I mean, but talk about a beautiful hymn that will really shape our understanding of that of the Lenten season.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah. So we sang that a couple times this last year, and and we'll sing it again this year. Um that's a song written in the 12th century. Wow. So this is this is 800 years old, right? That's crazy. And obviously it's been translated into English, but um it's a meditation uh that uh engages your imagination. You st you it's like you're standing before the cross and you're looking at Jesus there on the cross. You're looking at and it's focused on his head and his face. Um the first verse um, O sacred head, now wounded with grief and shame weighed down, now scornfully surrounded with thorns thine only crown. O sacred head, what glory, what bliss till now was thine. Yet though despised and gory, I joy to call thee mine. And it's it's kind of crazy how uh beautiful those words are, but but they're they're uh horrifying words at the same time, like having the word gory in there, you know. I mean so you're looking at Jesus' face and you're seeing the pain, grief, shame. You're seeing his his crown of thorns that's been shoved into his head. Um and and for that yeah, just to have that image there that you're pondering as you're singing um is just a a really beautiful way to to pray to God and to have him um share with you what it is that Christ did for us on the cross. Yes. So yeah, to sing those kind of words um i it it it's great. And again, just to have that contribution from somebody who wrote that you know eight hundred years ago is uh is a really beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01We have a there's another favorite that I have, um, On My Heart imprint your image. This is written in the 17th century, and it goes like this On my heart imprint your image, blessed Jesus, King of Grace, that life's riches, cares, and pleasures never may your work erase. And that's coming from the the parable of the sower who spreads the seed and the thorns that come up to choke out the seed, choke out the faith are the the riches and the cares and the pleasures of the world. And those things threaten to destroy our faith. And so this song is a prayer that that um God would uh form us to be like Christ on my heart imprint your image. Um and then that uh life's riches, cares, and pleasures would not erase the work that you're doing in me by your Holy Spirit. Um it's great to to recognize that our faith is something that needs to be fed. It's constantly something that um it's not just something we have and possess and have it in our pocket, uh, but it's something constantly needing to be given by God and fed by Him. Um so that that prayer helps to form those words for us and shape that view. It's a prayer we're speaking to God, but at the same time he's forming us through it. It's beautiful. And to do it together. That's the great thing about singing, is we get to do it together.
SPEAKER_06So you mentioned when we don't know what to pray, when we don't even have the words to like put it into like what we want or or what we're afraid of, or all the like songs so often do this, and especially I think these older hymns give us these words of I didn't even know I needed to pray that or and I just love how these old hymns are also like you were saying connected to scripture, and I think you find that a lot in in these older hymns of and and in the newer ones as well.
SPEAKER_01Like great words that we're singing that are that are new songs as well. Yes, it's wonderful stuff, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. So you see it on the screen and you sing it out loud, but then you can also turn in your Bible and like find find it there too, and I just think that's a really cool reinforcement. So Yeah. Yeah, but I love what you were saying about like when you don't know what to pray, when you don't know what to say, a song, a psalm, a hymn, th those are good places to start. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think a lot of our kids, I mean, we and we can talk about this too, like we will always say, like, chapel is not a replacement for your church. Like, we want you to find a church body and go find like go find a church home. Um, but it is a good reminder and just like three times a week reinforcement of how we spend our time and what we think about and and what what the things that are forming us, like here's here's something very countercultural to the world, and we're gonna do it three times a week. And um, yeah, I think I hope students are encouraged by that. Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. And we, you know, the goal is to is to um be as winsome as possible in these things. Some of these things may be strange, may feel like, oh, why are we singing such an old song? Why are we praying the Lord's Prayer? That's another piece. We'll we'll pray the Lord's Prayer in conjunction with the psalm. And um to pray a rote prayer that you didn't pray that you didn't write yourself can feel strange. Um it might feel in our age, um, authenticity is really important. So it it can feel hypocritical a little bit to uh to say, well, I'm I'm praying these words that I didn't write, right? Yeah, but again, this idea of um we don't know exactly what we need. And we don't we don't know how to pray, and we actually need God to form that in us, give us words, and this is exactly what Jesus did. Um we sometimes we think of uh rote prayer as being hypocritical, but Jesus goes the other direction. Um when he he gives the Lord's Prayer in Matthew chapter six, and he actually says this He says, When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. And then he gives the Lord's Prayer as a he says, instead, pray then like this, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Right? And so we have we have the Lord's Prayer, which amazingly actually covers every prayer that we could ever need to pray. So if so if you just stopped and thought, like, okay, what are the things that I need right now? What are the things I need prayer for right now? And you were to list those things, every single one of them you could put under one of the categories, one of the petitions of the Lord's prayer.
SPEAKER_06Oh, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_01Which is pretty cool. So it does actually cover everything. When I'm praying for my students, or if I've got a list of prayer requests from them, you know, I'll I'll pray through their names, I'll think through what it is that they're going through, um, but then I'll I'll wrap it up with the Lord's Prayer at the end because it does it covers everything. Yeah. And it covers more than we would have listed. Yeah. Oh, it's you know that's true. So that's I don't always remember that I need to pray and ask for God's forgiveness. Yeah, right? Yes. That doesn't always come to mind. It should. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Uh Daily Bread is usually top of mind, but everything else is right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Most of the things we list most naturally would come under daily bread. Yeah. Right? I need it's not just food, but it's shelter and um security and even health. Health, yeah, all this stuff, right? My daily bread, the things that that uh I need for my physical sustenance, right? But when you pray, um thy will be done, you're saying not my will. And you're also saying not the devil's will. Yeah. There's a whole bunch of things the devil wants, and the whole bunch of ways that the devil is trying to mess with us, and just to say, thy will be done to God is to say, hey, just stomp on the devil. Do what you know, like destroy him. Uh destroy what he wants and his plans and all of that. Uh I don't always naturally pray that when I'm just coming up with my own prayer. So uh yeah, to have the Lord's Prayer as one of the prayers that we pray. We also pray extemporaneously. We've got the times when uh where in a prayer is said more in the moment, and that's great too. Um but yeah, to have the Lord's Prayer as part of that, to have some of these older hymns, some of that may feel a little strange to some of our students. And uh those aren't even really overtly Lutheran things. Right. There's just something that the church has had all through the centuries that uh we want to tap into and make our time richer and uh more more deeply connected to God's word than we might be able to do on our own steam, on our own power.
SPEAKER_06Yes, yeah. And I like what you had said before about our faith needs feeding, and it's God's desire to do that. And it's also God's desire that we don't do that alone. And I think that's one of the beautiful things about chapel is it not that it's about checking boxes, but it does. It checks so many boxes of I see that I'm in a community of other believers, my I'm not alone in this faith. I see that this is strengthening my faith, and it's strengthening your faith, and and we can help each other in that, and and God is present, he is with us, he is the one um pouring his Holy Spirit out into this place, and it's just it's really amazing. It is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, it's uh it's a humbling thing. So it's yes, it's uh it's God at work. Yeah, it's God to win this.
SPEAKER_06That's that's beautiful. So for uh for any prospective family listening out there, uh the admissions office is offering something new this year. Do you know about this?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Okay, great. Oh yeah. Okay, this is exciting.
SPEAKER_06This is exciting. Um, I don't want to get it wrong. I think it's parents preview, praise, and I'm I'm butchering the name. I'll put it in the show notes. But basically, uh it's it's eighth grade parents. If you're curious about what chapel looks like, if you have never, you know, been part of part of a school chapel before. Yeah. Um you can come. We'll pair chapel time with, I believe, one of our core classes. Again, check the check the show notes. I'll put the link in there. Um, but parents are welcome. Perspective parents are going to be welcome. It's it's certain times throughout the school year, uh, so you'll select a date and all that kind of stuff. But if you are a current parent in the case, we'd love to have you come to chapel too. Yeah. Yeah. Do they need the RSVP or can they just Okay.
SPEAKER_01If we start getting 300 parents and we don't have a place to put them, we'll figure that out. Have to figure it out. But uh no, yeah, we and we do. We have parents who who stop by. You know, sometimes they're we have a worship class, which we should talk about. Oh, yeah. Wonderful thing. But uh sometimes we've got students up front who are leading some of the singing, who are doing a skit or giving a message of some kind. And a lot of times their parents like to come and see it as well. So they we have parents actually there in chapel quite a bit. Uh and and yeah, you're you're invited. We'd love to have you. Yeah. There's a check-in process in the you know, so come early. You got you come office and and bring your ID and whatever, but and uh we'll make sure that's all done right. But uh we yeah, we'd love to have you come join us.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, we should talk about all the different you know, we mentioned a lot of people being involved in chapel, but it's not just always you up there or a speaker. There's a lot of different people who get involved in chapel. Do you want to speak a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_01Well yeah, so we're right. We've got a couple more things. So we didn't even mention the fact I don't think we talked about speakers much. We do a few things at the start, the Lord's Prayer Psalm, sing a little bit, and the the last 15 minutes out of those 20 minutes of chapel is typically going to be a speaker who is a staff member or a pastor from the area or another guest, sometimes alumni come back, you know, give a message, um, that kind of thing. So um that's Mondays and Wednesdays usually.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Fridays are our special. Fridays are typically either the worship class putting together some kind of a uh very creative message for us based on God's word. So they're they're starting with God's word, and then they'll create a fun video or they'll do a skit or um something else that that just engages the student body in another way. So that's a great thing. Um we also have a student band and a faculty band. So there's a lot of singing that happens on Friday. Uh beautiful thing. Yeah so and that worship class is pretty cool. It's juniors and seniors, and it's pretty competitive to get into it, actually.
SPEAKER_06It is.
SPEAKER_01Um so they apply at the end of the school year for the next year then. And so they work with Mr. Lazel and uh they put together messages, and they're a big they're really a big part. Well, they do a lot of setup too. They do. I mean, they're just a very um formative part of what chapel is. Yeah. And yeah, and we love it. Our student body loves to hear from them.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. They're running slides. Um they also I know always pray with the speaker beforehand.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, which is they welcome the speaker. I mean, they they set up his or her um mic, you know, and get them all set ready to go. So it's pretty awesome.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I know it it takes a village to make chapel happen. Right. Which is awesome. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's a beautiful time together. It's just a blessing to get to spend that time. And I'm thankful for a school that does carve out that time. Yes. It's not easy logistically to make that happen. And uh boy, it's it's just a it's a great time to all be together and focused on God's word.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Shout out to Mr. Ness, who he is our principal and he always makes it a priority. I feel like there have been times where if we ever have to have an impromptu half day or something, uh, he always, always, always thinks about chapel, which I love. Yeah, which is a blessing. Right. So cool. Well, super excited for this new school year to get going again, to see everybody in the in the gym. Um, but thank you for all you do. If a student on campus needs some pastoral care during the school year, where can they find you? Can they find you? Are you a resource for them?
SPEAKER_01Find me in the halls or send me an email and and uh I yeah, I do. I meet with staff sometimes individually, I meet with students sometimes individually, and um or I'd be happy to meet with families as well and just give pastoral care, which is kind of like counseling. Uh it's I mean I'm it's not the same thing as what a mental health counselor would give. Uh but my what I'm doing would be primarily listening and asking some questions and helping uh kind of process things um from a biblical perspective from God's word and asking, well, yeah, what does it seem like God would want in this situation? And um and then coming alongside with scripture for encouragement and prayer. Uh so I'm yeah, I'm really happy to spend time with you if you need that. Uh a student or or parents, you can reach out as well.
SPEAKER_06So yeah, amazing. You are such a just a blessing and such a resource for us, so I'm so thankful that you're here. Thank you for your time today, and we're so excited to get going with everything. So thanks.
SPEAKER_01Thank you.
SPEAKER_04If any of you as grieves against someone forgive us a lot for Colossians three, twelve to thirty.