At Grove City College, every student must attend chapel a certain amount of times per semester, though the amount varies for commuter students and on-campus students. Typically, the normal student is required to attend 12 chapels a semester, which is very doable. For three and a half years, the schedule was chapel Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:25 to 9:50 a.m. and vespers on Sunday evenings. Vespers was a worship service held on Sunday nights for chapel credit.
They just changed the chapel schedule this semester. Now, the chapel schedule is Wednesdays from 11 to 11:50, and we have Formation Friday which consists of small groups that meet around campus and discuss specific topics. You sign up for your small group on Formation Friday, which lasts five weeks, and you discuss topics picked by a professor on campus. Some professors choose to do a book study where you read a certain amount of chapters per week and then discuss it in your small group that week. Small groups are a great way to get more personal with chapel and make it welcoming to conversation and relationship. On Mondays from during 11 o’clock, everyone has a free hour, which is nice if you want to meet with a professor or get some lunch.
After conversations with some of the upperclassmen on campus, a lot of people were uncomfortable with the change because it has been the same for our whole time at Grove City and suddenly has changed our last semester. However, this new chapel schedule leads to closer community on campus so that you can meet and connect with many different people that you would not normally get the chance to connect with. Chapel is a great thing that we have on campus and this new schedule should allow for a great impact on campus.
