By Peter Bernardino
This year, with chapel services held in the Wallace Gym, where basketball is played and pep rallies are conducted, no one knew what to expect. However, as the semester has progressed, the chapels are already evolving for the good, so I reached out to Reverend Brown to find out how he’s transitioned to this unusual sacred space.
“I feel like it started out rough,” Reverend Brown told me as we sat in his office, facing the empty spot where the old chapel used to be. Unlike in the old chapel, where the dark atmosphere made it hard to see students, the bright Wallace Gym now allows Rev. Brown to see all of the students clearly. “We had some behavior issues with various sorts of people that I found really distracting when I was trying to give a talk,” he lamented. “I was really sort of disheartened by that.”
Rev. Brown believes that part of the reason for the behavioral issues is that the new chapel space is not as spiritual. “I think people had a hard time, maybe tapping into a more sort of spiritual mindset,” he said. This was concerning because Rev. Brown wants chapel to be a place where people can decompress and feel a sense of belonging. When people are distracted, it is harder to achieve this.
So Rev. Brown changed the chapel’s seating arrangement. He feels like having everybody on one side is much better. However, seating has not been the only hard part about chapel. Unfortunately, the screens that project messages have created many unnecessary problems for Rev. Brown.
Although it may seem trivial, Rev. Brown now has to get to school “really early on chapel days and make sure that the scoreboards are on and working.”
Besides technical and seating problems, he has worked hard to find solutions that help everyone feel included. Due to more limited resources this year, it has been harder for chapel to appeal to people of different faiths and levels of belief. While Old and New Testament readings teach universal life lessons, students can still struggle to relate to them.
“I really want it [chapel] to feel accessible to everyone,” Rev. Brown told me. Rev. Brown likes to believe that “there’s so much more that unites us than divides us,” so he wants chapel to prove his point. Because of this, Rev. Brown has recently started incorporating pop culture into chapel messages to help them resonate more with non-Christians or students with different degrees of faith. For example, at the last chapel, Rev. Brown had the orchestra perform “I Will Love You” by Dolly Parton. In this song, Dolly Parton talks about how people will always care for each other even when they are separated. Rev. Brown tied her song to the parable of the Prodigal Son. While this message appears in the Bible, it’s also a universal value, allowing Rev. Brown’s message to resonate with more people.
Rev. Brown wants to continue to incorporate music. “Music was kind of lacking when we were in the old chapel,” Rev. Brown said. Music is universally known for its ability to express human emotions, so the addition of songs, a chorus, and an orchestra in chapel has allowed people to connect their faith with their emotions.
Although the chapel got off to a rough start, Rev. Brown believes that over time it will continue to feel increasingly spiritual. “Having done two years’ worth of all-school chapels in Wallace Gym has shown me that high school chapel can be done in different ways,” he said. Going forward, he “definitely intends to continue to experiment” with more efficient and inclusive ways of doing chapel.
