Chapel, Evening Prayer, PRAISE! show record attendance

Students, faculty and staff fill every seat in Weller Chapel at a daily chapel service, held every weekday at 11 a.m.

Photo credit: Rebekah Freed

By Michaela Gibbs, Natalie Guske, and Allan Huskins III

This story is featured in the September print edition of the Sower newspaper. 

The number of students attending on-campus worship opportunities throughout the week is higher this semester than in past years.

Concordia offers a number of events, including daily chapel services in Weller Hall, Evening Prayer on Tuesday and Thursday nights and PRAISE! on Wednesday nights.

Rebekah Freed, campus Director of Christian Education, said that daily chapel services have been drawing between 300 and 450 students each.

Evening prayer is led by pre-seminary students every Tuesday and Thursday at 9 p.m. Photo: Hunter Remington.

Senior Hunter Remington, Concordia’s student leader for Evening Prayer, said that their services were averaging 200 people in attendance weekly.

The student leader for PRAISE!, junior Morgan Rohde, said that students had filled the bottom level of the chapel each service this year.

“I think [the busiest chapel days are] sometimes Mondays since it’s like the beginning [of the week]. I don’t have the statistics of this,” said Freed. “Maybe in a few weeks we’ll [know more] … I think a lot of people are thankful for the opportunity to have communion on Wednesdays, so that’s also typically a big day.”

Freed said many times campus music ensembles sing or play on Wednesdays so that may bring more people to chapel for that.

Senior Lily Beck, a member of the PRAISE band, said that she has seen an increase in PRAISE! student involvement this year.

“I believe that people want to help with PRAISE! because they see the community’s growth and the unique opportunity it offers others to contribute and serve, whether that be singing, playing an instrument, reading the announcements, or running the tech booth in the back,” Beck said.

Senior Luke Lawrenz, student chapel assistant/producer, also has noticed an increase in attendance in chapel and PRAISE!.

“Attendance at events [or at least chapel] has been up the last couple years. That is partly due to the increase in class size the last several years,” Lawrenz said. “PRAISE! has had record attendance in the last few weeks as compared to the last several years.”

PRAISE! is led by students like Cadison Hecksel, Eden Dehne, Olivia Nafzger, and Luke Lawrenz every Wednesday at 9 p.m. Photo: Luke Lawrenz.

Lawrenz said more people auditioned for PRAISE! this semester, compared with last year, with many of them freshman, sophomores or transfers.

“This year in chapel, attendance has been so high that we have been consistently running out of seating and hymnals, causing us to have to put all parts of the service on the screen, where in years past we did not have to do this,” Lawrenz added.

The shortage of seating and hymnals has led the chapel team to start tracking attendance so they can plan for any accommodations that need to be made.

“We just started [tracking attendance] this week so we don’t have good data,” Freed said. “But we can kind of watch throughout a semester, kind of what are the trends and that kind of can help us figure out like what would their steps need to be or if we were buying more hymnals, how many should we even buy?”

The increased student involvement and attendance have allowed a sense of connection among peers to grow through worship and ministry over the past year.

“I do [feel a sense of connection],” Lawrenz said. “I have met many people and friends who I otherwise never would have because of my involvement in campus ministry, both attendance and participation.”

Beck also feels connected to campus through serving in PRAISE!

“PRAISE! has led me to meet so many incredible people and has helped me grow not just as a musician, but as a person who is reliable, ready to improvise, and loves to praise the Lord,” she said.

Freed said the different campus ministries provide ways for people to create community and to volunteer and lead.

“All those different ministries, chapel, Evening Prayer, PRAISE!, the Attic, small groups — in all of them, there’s lots of ways to get involved,” she said. “And I think that’s just one of the coolest things.”