In a typical (a.k.a. before 2020!) week at Denver Christian School, students would gather together for worship as classrooms, schools, or even as an entire student body. This regular rhythm of corporate worship shaped our days and our lives together.This year, the location of chapel looks different. We are gathering in homerooms, cohorts, and small groups to keep our group sizes small. It looks different, and it feels different too. We look back on pre-2020 corporate worship, like with many other aspects of life right now, with some sadness at what we’re missing. We look forward to the time when we’ll gather together again as a school community and imagine the joy this will bring! For now, we’re living in the present and leaning into it gracefully and intentionally. With open minds and hearts to how God is working in us individually and as a school community, we’re embracing smaller and more intimate worship experiences. Here’s what that looks like in each of our schools:
Elementary
Our elementary classes and online learners worship together each week, and this year rather than getting together in person, we join together via Zoom! Our weekly chapels have always included worship and a message, and we’re keeping those rhythms by singing together via a worship video and listening to our speaker there too.
While we’re definitely looking forward to worshiping together in person again, we love seeing other classes singing and doing the motions to worship songs on their Zoom thumbnails!
Our theme verse this year is Psalm 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God.” Last week, Mrs. Olson’s class shared how this verse means spending time with God and how that looks different for everybody. It could be spending time in your room praying, or spending quiet time with God on a walk in creation, or spending time in your backyard. There are lots of ways to be with God and to be still in his presence.
Middle School
This year in Middle School chapel we have been participating in group worship on a smaller scale. We’ve been spending time in our homeroom/cohort groups on chapel days by engaging in worship through a variety of different ways.
One example is working through our Middle School Touchstone with our cohorts. We’re in different rooms but doing the same activities so that there is consistency across the middle school.
Another way we’ve been holding chapels is by having a speaker Zoom into each cohort at the same time.
Our principal, Mr. Amidon, led a chapel focusing on our spiritual emphasis theme, “Be Still.”
7th grade teacher Mr. Kloosterman and a few of his students led a chapel over Zoom that reflected on their time earlier this year at Camp IdRaHaJe and the spiritual growth that happened there.
High School
This year, we’re continuing spiritual disciplines and practices that we found to be valuable for our students, but we’re doing this in homerooms and small groups instead of large groups.Most weeks, we Zoom as groups to hear a message from a speaker (one of our teachers, a local pastor, or a member of the community). After our speaker shares, we focus on a more personal level as homerooms through discussion, journaling, and sharing what the Lord is highlighting to us this week through chapel.
While we miss singing and praying in large groups, the Lord is teaching us how to be more reflective and vulnerable in these smaller communities, which we’re counting as one of his blessings in this most unusual year. Being part of a community in which the rhythms of worship shape our days and our lives together is one of the reasons that families choose Denver Christian School for their children. Click here to learn more about the benefits of a Denver Christian education.