#WeWill

Written by Ben Gardner, Class of 2020

Joshua 22:5 “But be very careful to keep the commandments: to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to Him, to keep His commands, to hold fast to Him and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

When you think of the word chapel, what is the first thing that comes to mind?

This school year, junior high students, with the help of Miss Kemper (Junior High History) are changing the ways young students view chapels through the implementation of the school’s very own student-led chapel team.

The Junior High Chapel Team has been hard at work this year, bringing in guests to speak, Christian bands to lead worship, and brainstorming ways for their peers to get excited about weekly chapels. The theme adopted by the Junior High this year, #WeWill, is based on Joshua 22:5. This theme was chosen to encourage junior high students to begin to take ownership of their relationship with God and develop a more personally formed worldview as they are entering a great period of growth in their lives.

Chapel is and always will be an essential aspect of King’s Schools. Each week, all of King’s Schools’ students and faculty take one hour out of their day to completely focus on worship and community. In creating the Junior High Chapel team, the goal was to make chapels a more exciting and interactive experience for students, led by students. This year, an Armor Class was created specifically for students wanting to be a part of facilitating and planning the structure of chapels.

“In the past, there were small groups of 8^th grade students who have helped facilitate the running of chapel,” says Miss Kemper. “However, there is a sense of ownership that has occurred for this new chapel team that encourages them to continually ask, ‘What will help engage my classmates?’ Whether it’s the games, the songs, or the speaker, the students are now aware of how to go about planning a chapel and reflect on which elements of a chapel are more successful in a large group sense.”

The student involvement in chapel also helps the chapel team develop a greater understanding of how they can positively affect change in their community. One member of the chapel team, Halle Hagos, states, “Seeing chapel unfold each week is really cool.” Gabe Vitale, another member states that “planning chapel offers a time for the team to serve our brothers and sisters in Christ.”