Spiritual Life
Chapels at Lancaster Mennonite High School
See our chapel calendar >>
Lancaster Mennonite High School faculty and students meet in the Fine Arts Center auditorium four times a week. The purpose is to call the school to commitment, challenge, community and celebration. This time of worship and cultural events invites students to personal faith, Christ-like love, peacemaking and service. Chapels give attention to the rhythms of the school year and the cycle of the Christian year. Special series with guest speakers, such as Commitment Week, Missions Inspiration and Education Week, and Career and Faith Week allow for focused and sustained attention to spiritual growth.
Why do we have chapels?
- Offer teaching that is warmly ecumenical from an Anabaptist perspective that speaks to heart and mind.
- Provide biblical teaching that integrates faith with current issues relevant to our faith journeys.
- Create a climate that disciples Christians as well as invites seekers to faith.
- Make time for worship, prayer, and reflection in the school day.
- Foster awareness of being God’s missional people in the world.
- Highlight special callings in the church and the world, as a way to nurture each student’s calling.
- Develop worship leading, performance, and technical abilities among students, as well as model adult leadership.
- Build community by gathering together the whole student body and faculty.
What’s in chapel?
- Balance worship and faith-focused chapels with occasional assemblies that, while not worship, build and celebrate community.
- Attend to school life, while at the same time developing awareness of the wider world and the global church.
Who speaks in chapel?
- Faculty and students
- Local pastors and representatives of Anabaptist-related institutions, from the USA and around the world.
- Guest speakers who know and respect the mission of the school.
What music do we sing and hear?
- In addition to the hymnal (Hymnal: a Worshipbook), from which we take our core music, we welcome and celebrate with a balanced selection of Christian music of other styles.
- Music groups from within the school regularly lead worship and perform.
- Choirs, particularly from Mennonite colleges.
Who directs the chapel planning?
The campus pastor, in consultation with the principal and superintendent. A Campus Ministries Advisory Council provides counsel and support. Student members of the Council assist by planning and leading some chapels.
Chapel Curriculum
In planning the chapel calendar, these subjects will be addressed, so that over the course of four years, students will be challenged to think, invited to faith, and transformed in their Christian walk.
Hospitality & community
- Welcoming, manners, civility
- Personal integrity and honesty
- Respect for others and property of others
Peacemaking & witness to the gospel
- Sermon on the Mount & other teachings of Jesus, restorative justice, nonparticipation in the military, patriotism, “hot button” life issues (e.g. capital punishment, abortion), anger
Discipleship – being transformed by the Spirit, not conformed to the world
- Knowing and following Jesus Christ
- Growing in faith
- Inviting others to faith
- Participating in missions and service opportunities at home and around the world
Faith stories, especially by staff, faculty, and seniors
- Historical stories
- Personal stories
- Testimonies of alumni
Finding God’s will and trusting God for the future
Vocation and service, including pastoral call
- Developing leadership qualities
- Ethics and integrity in life
- Study
- Devotions
- Death and loss
- Racism
- Disabilities awareness
- Divorce
- Depression
- Friends, dating, classmates, parents, enemies
- Getting along even when we disagree
- Handling anger & conflict
- Sexuality – intimacy, abstinence, healthy image and expression, singleness and marriage
Stewardship – money, time, talents, our bodies
Care of the earth and wholeness of creation
False gods and attractions that drain energy of the individual and community – who or what do we worship?
- Evaluate consumerism, media, popular culture (including music)
- Addictions – substance abuse, eating disorders, over-consumption, over-working
Spiritual disciplines – prayer, meditation, silence, fasting, serving, singing
- Understanding streams of spirituality
Christian traditions in art, music, and drama
Senior reflections – speaking, music, poetry, art
