Getting Your Priorities Straight

To those who read my blogs,

My school does a chapel. It goes on twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I love it. It isn't exactely a Church service, we do alternate forms of worship and we get to hear from the student body & from faculty members as well! It is great. The only issue is that not a lot of people come to these chapel services. I must admit, I do not have the best attendance out there, but I try my best to make it to most of them. Well, this past chapel was a little different. The place was packed. People had to get new chairs it was so full. So why was I so disgusted at this chapel service? Scholarships were being handed out. Scholerships. The place wasn't packed because of an overwhelming need of Christ and community in the hearts of those there... it was filled because people wanted money! Really? Money? I could not stand it!

Now let's look at this for a second. Chapel is not mandatory, and people have lives outside of Chapel. Sometimes, people are too busy, or their lifestyle does not leave room for God. Fair enough. Everyone has their own stuff and I should not be the judge of that because I'd do a horrific job. If that is the case, then don't come to Chapel in the first place. The scholerships can be sent to you in a different way. If you are going to come to chapel, then at least put your heart into it! Here is what really disgusted me. I saw two girls in the back (one whome I used to be attracted to) studying flash cards during prayer and bible readings. Now it must not look to good on my part if I am snooping on two girls, but this is not exactely the case. I sit at the back because I run power point and I am also add. I was gonna notice if a mouse ran by behind me even if I was concentrating on the service, so there was no way that I'd miss this! I felt sick after I saw it! I thought it was so wrong! Here we are, 'devoting' our time to God, but really, we couldn't care less about what God might have to say and more about what is going on in our own lives! It's just the same old individualistic crap that the North American Church spews out! "Look out for yourself, because you're all that matters. Even if you have to sacrifice community and God"! And that's just it! They were sacrificing community, because we were all there together in commmunity trying to listen to what God had to say. Not only were they in their own world, but they were disrupting community more by distracting me (and possibly others) with their stupid flash cards! If your heart is not in it, then why are you even there...

The second issue I had with chapel today was this: I mentioned there were people going to get chairs to sit down... what I failed to mention was that there were chairs available, but you'd have to split off from your friends and sit with strangers or at least people you don't know too well. What is the big deal with that? Christianity is about community. The only creation God called 'not good' in the bginning was the single man. God had to make a woman for humanity to be considered good! Why can't we step out of our comfort zone once so we can experience more community? Is that too much to ask?

The last thing I wanted to mention was how chapel itself was violated. I mean, it is obvious a lot of those people did not want to be there... they never show up to any other chapel service , so why this one? Instead of making the time most of us devote to God, a time where we devote ourselves to getting money, why not make the time devoted to getting money on a seperate time! I came to the last chapel of the year dissapointed and spiritually upset because instead of pursuing God, we pursued money, and the almighty dollar is the god that really matters in our lives... or at least it seems to be the case for people in our school!

I know this blog post is a bit of a rant, but I really had to get this off my chest! Does anyone agree with this position? Am I totally off-base? I know there is an exception to every rule, but do I have an argument here? I don't know...

- Joshua