I end each tour in the cathedral, the Cathedral of the Ozarks.
It's everything a good cathedral should be with its stained glass windows lining the sides (the blue panels on the lower half telling the story of the university and the red panels on the top half telling the story of Christ), the large pipe organ at the center of the stage (used only for special occasions such as the Candlelight service in December, a must-attend), and rows upon rows of wooden pews (which were actually constructed by carpentry students back when JBU was a "working campus").
The Cathedral isn't just awesome for its own sake, though, but rather for what goes on in there.
Each week, we have three different chapels: "The Gathering" and tuesday/thursday chapel.
During my three years at JBU, I missed 5 chapels, usually for an academic conference, but there were a couple when I had just gotten out of early morning soccer, it was cold, and I wasn't feeling the walk up the hill. Regretted each miss.
Here is why.
JBU chapel makes "its" into "thems".
At The Gathering, you hear from one of our seniors. They share part of their "story", some of their thoughts on a piece of scripture, or just something that's been stuck in their head about Jesus and Christianity.
And, you know, you look at people who are older than you and think, "They have everything so well put together, and I don't and oh crap how do I get like them." They look nicey nicey up there in the pedestal of your mind.
Then they talk. And you realize that they've got their stuff too. And somehow, that makes you feel as though you're able to have stuff too and still be valuable and still be someone that Jesus could love and could be used by him.
Thursdays bring an outside speaker in. JBU understands that no matter how sheltered and Christian an upbringing or high school or college experience is like, our students will be shoved into the big bad world after and shit goes down in the big bad world.
If we were to continue to helicopter parent them, we'd be doing them (and the kingdom of God) a serious disservice.
So, on Thursdays, we bring people in to speak to our students who we absolutely know are going to challenge their way they look at doing life and approaching "hot topics" of now.
When they leave university, we want them to know who they are, why they are who they are, what they believe, and why they believe what they believe. So when the shit hits the fan, they'll know up from down.
Tuesday chapels, though, are my personal favorite in terms of humanization. Tuesdays, one of our staff or faculty comes to speak to us. Now, I say staff or faculty because it could be anyone from your 18th century british literature professor to the campus custodian to the campus president to one of your friendly neighborhood admissions counselors.
We all subconsciously do it, don't be ashamed or try to deny it. When we meet someone, anyone in a particular profession, there's a part of our pseudo conscious brain that things, "You are ____." You are admissions counselor/custodian/grounds keeper/cashier/literature professor.
Just a little tiny chunk of us believes that janitor spends his/her nights in the supplies closet with visions of urinal cakes dancing in their heads.
What we don't think about when we meet them is their family structure, financial issues, or childhood memories.
We especially don't point to them and think, "Hey, I'll bet you know a lot about the theology of John 1." No!
But that's what chapel does!
We hear pieces of their real lives outside of who they are at work. We know them and their story and through that, we become a bit more human ourselves because we can no longer look at them without knowing that there's more to them than excellent vacuum skills.
The Cathedral isn't just awesome for its own sake, though, but rather for what goes on in there.
Each week, we have three different chapels: "The Gathering" and tuesday/thursday chapel.
During my three years at JBU, I missed 5 chapels, usually for an academic conference, but there were a couple when I had just gotten out of early morning soccer, it was cold, and I wasn't feeling the walk up the hill. Regretted each miss.
Here is why.
JBU chapel makes "its" into "thems".
At The Gathering, you hear from one of our seniors. They share part of their "story", some of their thoughts on a piece of scripture, or just something that's been stuck in their head about Jesus and Christianity.
And, you know, you look at people who are older than you and think, "They have everything so well put together, and I don't and oh crap how do I get like them." They look nicey nicey up there in the pedestal of your mind.
Then they talk. And you realize that they've got their stuff too. And somehow, that makes you feel as though you're able to have stuff too and still be valuable and still be someone that Jesus could love and could be used by him.
Thursdays bring an outside speaker in. JBU understands that no matter how sheltered and Christian an upbringing or high school or college experience is like, our students will be shoved into the big bad world after and shit goes down in the big bad world.
If we were to continue to helicopter parent them, we'd be doing them (and the kingdom of God) a serious disservice.
So, on Thursdays, we bring people in to speak to our students who we absolutely know are going to challenge their way they look at doing life and approaching "hot topics" of now.
When they leave university, we want them to know who they are, why they are who they are, what they believe, and why they believe what they believe. So when the shit hits the fan, they'll know up from down.
Tuesday chapels, though, are my personal favorite in terms of humanization. Tuesdays, one of our staff or faculty comes to speak to us. Now, I say staff or faculty because it could be anyone from your 18th century british literature professor to the campus custodian to the campus president to one of your friendly neighborhood admissions counselors.
We all subconsciously do it, don't be ashamed or try to deny it. When we meet someone, anyone in a particular profession, there's a part of our pseudo conscious brain that things, "You are ____." You are admissions counselor/custodian/grounds keeper/cashier/literature professor.
Just a little tiny chunk of us believes that janitor spends his/her nights in the supplies closet with visions of urinal cakes dancing in their heads.
What we don't think about when we meet them is their family structure, financial issues, or childhood memories.
We especially don't point to them and think, "Hey, I'll bet you know a lot about the theology of John 1." No!
But that's what chapel does!
We hear pieces of their real lives outside of who they are at work. We know them and their story and through that, we become a bit more human ourselves because we can no longer look at them without knowing that there's more to them than excellent vacuum skills.
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