Chapel
October 14, 2010
Speaker, activist Anton Flores to speak at GC
Speaker, teacher and activist Anton Flores, “a prophetic voice of justice for immigrants,” will be on campus Oct. 27 - 29. Flores will present a special chapel at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 27 and again in chapel on Friday morning, Oct. 29 at 10 a.m. Both chapel events will take place in the Church-Chapel, and Flores will visit with other campus groups as well. Four years ago, Flores left the security of his job as professor at LaGrange College (Ga.), to live in solidarity with undocumented immigrants. In order to get to know the Hispanic community better, Flores opened...
April 1, 2010
GC Students Hold On, Let Go
Bob Yoder, Goshen College’s campus pastor, spoke during Monday’s chapel titled “Holding on and Letting Go.” A time of anointing followed where students, faculty and staff were encouraged to “go and be moved to love with the love of God.” Yoder spoke on John 12:1-8, the passage in which Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with perfume. Placing the story in context, Yoder reminded the audience that Jesus had just healed his friend, Lazarus, and had promptly gone into hiding. After returning, Lazarus risked his safety to “host a man for dinner with a death sentence,” Yoder said, referring to Jesus. It...
February 18, 2010
Bell Leads Students in “Songs of Iona”
During the tedious midterm week leading up to spring break, students, faculty and community members took some time out of their busy schedules to attend Wednesday’s special chapel called “Songs of Iona” led by John Bell. What most audience members noticed immediately about Bell was his Scottish accent, which he addressed in the introduction of his presentation. “It’s better for me to sing than speak, because you all have an accent,” he joked, promising to speak slowly. Bell’s animated and casual tone continued throughout his presentation, in which he led the audience in song and discussed the surprising origins of...
February 3, 2010
Chapel on porn brings issue to surface
“This morning we’re going to be talking about a topic that isn’t always talked about openly: we’re going to be talking about pornography.” This is how Campus Counselor Char Hochstetler opened Monday’s convocation on the subject of pornography use. Over the next 45 minutes students heard a personal reflection from an anonymous male student, an analysis of pornography used by a Goshen therapist and ways they could learn more. This convocation was first imagined two years ago when the Campus Health and Wholeness committee identified it as a leading issue for student education. Last semester, Hochstetler and other faculty members...
October 7, 2009
Culture for Service award recipient speaks on leadership
John Martin, a recipient of the 2009 Culture for Service Award, shared words of wisdom from his two years at Goshen last Friday in chapel during Homecoming weekend. The Culture for Service Award recognizes alumni whose lives exemplify the college’s previous motto. The award seeks to affirm those who have served the college, community, church, and world, or whose professional and personal achievements are models of the motto. After Martin left Goshen 37 years ago as a self-proclaimed “dropout with a low GPA,” he went on to complete his B.A. degree in special education at Illinois State University and earned...
September 23, 2009
Torres-Fleming: From the South Bronx to Manhattan and back
Alexie Torres-Fleming, speaker and Christian urban leader, shared her faith journey with the Goshen College community at the special “Celebrate Service Day” chapel on Wednesday morning. Torres-Fleming was born in a housing project in the South Bronx—the poorest area in the country. Her father came to New York from Puerto Rico before she was born, and he got a job where he had to complete tasks such as washing urine off of elevator walls. Despite her sometimes difficult living conditions growing up, she said, “My life was wonderful, to me.” It wasn’t until she entered high school that she began...
April 15, 2009
Ten minutes added to chapel and convocation
Next academic year, Friday chapels and Monday convocations will be extended to 40 minutes. In an on campus survey last year, the spiritual life advising committee – a group of students, faculty and administrators – examined the current chapel expectations and realities at Goshen College. "We found that students really value the time for singing," said Bob Yoder, campus pastor. According to those interviewed in the survey, a majority felt that singing builds community. After reviewing the results from the survey, the committee submitted a request to President's Council, in which they proposed a lengthening of the chapel time by...
March 18, 2009
Author and activist visits campus: Claiborne invites scandalous grace
Shane Claiborne invited Goshen College to “love God, love people and follow Jesus” in a special chapel on Wednesday. Claiborne is one of the founding members of The Simple Way, an intentional faith community in Philadelphia. Through his message "The Scandal of Grace," Claiborne stressed that people should not only believe in Jesus, but follow Jesus in their lives. As Claiborne reminded his audience, Jesus had an awesome imagination and did cool things like pulling coins out of fish mouths – and that’s something worth following. “Jesus came for the people that are broken, not for the people that have...
March 11, 2009
Ordinary radical lives the simple life
Shane Claiborne, a self-declared “ordinary radical,” writer and social activist is coming to Goshen College next week. He is speaking at an extra chapel on Wednesday titled “The Scandal of Grace,” and during regular chapel on Friday titled “Another Way of Doing Life.” Claiborne is also speaking on Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Downtown 808 Goshen Theater and has a special question and answer session for students at 9:30 p.m. in Recreation-Fitness Center room 104. Claiborne has written two books, "The Irresistible Revolution" (Zondervan, 2006) and "Jesus for President" (Zondervan, 2008). He lives in a community in Philadelphia called...