HKBTS’s Morning Chapel ─ Communal Worship and Spiritual Formation
Introduction
Each morning chapel service—the communal worship of our Seminary community—enhances the spiritual formation and strengthens the foundation of the spiritual lives of our faith community.
Our seminary has inherited two different traditions: On the one hand, as an institution of theological education, we have inherited an academic tradition which seeks to provide a solid grounding in Biblical and theological knowledge and equip students within a multi-dimensional ministerial discipline and training; On the other hand, we have also inherited a monastic tradition which values nurturing the character and spiritual lives of the community as a whole. The morning chapel service is an excellent example of communal worship and is a tool for the development of the spiritual formation of the whole community.
The Seminary’s morning chapel service is held three times weekly, from 10 to 11 am every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Every year, in both the first and second semesters, there are approximately over eighty morning chapel services held. Beginning in 2009, all full-time students have been required to attend morning chapel. Praise the Lord that the attendance rate has been encouraging during these recent years and that the overall atmosphere has been steadily improving. The entire seminary community is becoming integrated into one body and everyone is actively involved.
Because the contents of morning chapel services are so rich and full of variety, they help to nurture our students throughout their daily lives, and also solidify this worship community to enjoy such a beautiful hour of spiritual formation, worship, and praise. The Seminary has arranged that every student has a turn to be actively involved in the service as the presiding chairperson, the song-leader, the pianist, the interpreter, or the one who leads the communal prayer. Through mutually ministering to one another during these morning chapel services, our students become better trained to serve and be served in the ministry.
Convocation Exhortation from the President
Morning chapels begin with the Opening Convocation of each new school term. President Cho will preach a sermon message on the first day of the first and the second semesters. The President highlights the direction and the main emphases of each new school term in order to encourage all the Seminary’s faculty, students, and staff and to keep the community growing together.
The President’s Opening Convocation this year was entitled, “The Forgiving Community”.
The Convocation Academic Lecture was held on the second day of the new school term. This year we had Rev. Brian Lam, our chaplain and the Director of Student Practicum and Lecturer of Practical Theology, who gave a lecture entitled, “Transition, Transformation and True Community: A Spirituality of Mentoring”.
New Students’ Testimonies of God’s Call
Soon after the beginning of the first semester, new students are encouraged to share their testimonies of God’s call. Not only do their testimonies help enhance mutual understanding among students but they also enable the whole community to grow and understand the life stories of each of our new students. These precious life stories show how God works in each of our lives and how God leads our new students as they become part of the fabric of our seminary community.
In each of these morning chapels, three new students are chosen to share their testimonies in turn, followed by a prayer from a teacher who leads the faculty and students as a whole to pray for these particular students. While God always allows the one sharing their testimony to experience God’s call again, He also enables these stories to touch the hearts of the older students who can then reflect upon their own journey of consecration and revisit their own experience of following the call of God.
Church Music Worship Workshop
There are approximately four church music worship workshops during every school year which allow a group of graduating students taking “The Worshipping Church” course to put into practice what they have learned by designing and conducting an entire worship service during a morning chapel service. They divide themselves into several groups which are then responsible for planning and implementing different sessions of the worship service and the preacher for this service is one of the students as well.
We are blessed to be able to worship God together in these morning chapels designed by students. Because the students come from different denominational backgrounds, they can take the opportunity to think deeply about the meaning and design of each worship service. Through these church music worship workshops, students can learn not only from the course and their experience, but also from each other.
Graduating Students’ Preaching
During the 2009-10 school year, the Seminary began to have graduating students preach in the morning chapel services in order to give them an opportunity to gain more experience in preaching. Through this experience, graduating students can get the encouragement or the evaluation they need to further develop. We are very thankful for these preaching sessions. We always feel encouraged by them because students’ overall performance is very good, demonstrating how each student is dedicated to preaching the word of God. The entire seminary community enjoys supporting them and giving them positive encouragement.
Two teachers will act as the “gate-keepers”; they are responsible for going through each student’s sermon message in detail to avoid any deviation or error in hermeneutics or in theology. After the sermon message is preached, a teacher will go to the pulpit and lead the whole community to pray fervently for the student doing the preaching and to entrust him or her to the Lord as a community.
After the chapel is over, all those who are present will go up to the front and shake hands with the student, offering him or her encouragement and support. Such spontaneous hand-shaking and hugging from the whole seminary is a common and heart-warming scene at our morning chapel service.
Expository Preaching Week
The Expository Preaching Week is held in April in the second semester in which a teacher in Biblical Studies preaches the sermon message for three consecutive days in the chapel.
Expository preaching is a form of preaching that expounds the meaning of a particular passage of scripture in detail. It summarizes the central meaning of a Bible passage using effective communication methods to explain what the message means for the congregation. In the past few years, several of our Old Testament and New Testament teachers took turns to preach in the Expository Preaching Week. Not only did they demonstrate their abilities and the benefits of expository preaching to students, they also guided students to read the text of certain biblical passages or books more scrupulously in order to help everyone have a deeper insight into the truth of the Bible.
Dr. Tony Sher, Assistant Professor of Old Testament, was the speaker for last academic year; the main theme was, “The Ideal King (Messiah) in the Book of Samuel.”
Mission Week and Short Term Mission Sharing
Apart from talks and lunch-time sharing meetings on the theme of “Mission,” there are also quite a number of morning chapels devoted to sharing the mission ministry, including the 3-day Mission Week, which enables the faculty and students together to have an overview of the contemporary mission scene and to reflect on the integral mission of all Christian missions. The Mission Week is held bi-annually. The themes in our last few years are “Paul’s Missionary Theology and Strategies,” “Reflection and Outlook of Baptist Missions” (combined with Baptist Heritage Week), and “Local Church and Partners in Missions.” Our Seminary faculty along with others from Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, and the United State acted as speakers.
At the beginning of the school year, “Students’ Sharing from Short-Term Missions” allows students to share their experiences and the knowledge they gained from their visits or exchanges in the past summer with the seminary community. In other chapel meetings, students will also have the opportunity to meet with missionaries who visit the Seminary. On such occasions, students can learn more about the needs of missions round the world and pray for the missionaries and the ethnic groups in those places. We seek to nurture our students to have a heart of mission in many different aspects in the hope that no matter where they are and in what church they serve, they will not forget the call for missions.
Baptist Heritage Week
The Baptist Heritage Week is held in October every year with a view to deepening students’ understanding of the Baptist faith, history, and traditions. It is held on three consecutive days during morning chapel. The themes covered in recent years are “Snapshots of the Early Baptist Leaders in China and Hong Kong,” “400th Anniversary of Baptists: Heritage Revisit,” “The Contribution of the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention to the Development of Local (Hong Kong) Baptist Churches (1950-1997),” and “Baptist Faith and Polity.” The speakers are primarily our own teachers. Baptist scholars from overseas are also invited to speak during Baptist Heritage Week.
The Mission Week, Baptist Heritage Week, and the Belote Lectures are public meetings, and we are pleased to have alumni, pastors, ministers, teachers, and students from other seminaries join together to explore different issues. In this way, there are more opportunities for our students to learn and exchange ideas with people that can enable them to enrich their beliefs and broaden their vision.
During the Baptist Mission Week in March 2012, Dr. Brian Stanley from University of Edinburgh spoke on the theme, “Revisit and Outlook of Baptist Missions.”
Belote Lectures: The 3-4 day series is an important academic lecture series of the Seminary. The day-time lecture is held in the Seminary’s chapel and the evening lecture is held at a local church. The speaker of our last Belote Lectures was the renowned American Prof. Thomas Long who gave us a profound and down-to-earth exploration and demonstration of the preaching ministry. The turnout was extremely enthusiastic with approximately 200 pastors and ministers present in the day-time lecture every day.
Student Union and Graduating Classes
Every year, several morning chapels are conducted by the Student Union. For example, “The Handover Ceremony of the Student Union” in which the executive committee members share their experience in serving the seminary community or “The Thanksgiving Day” in which the whole seminary community expresses our gratitude to God and men. Towards the end of the school year, there are “Graduating Students’ Sharing Meetings,” followed by “The Commissioning Ceremony” together with a farewell speech from a teacher. Regardless of whether it is during the “Graduating Students’ Sharing Meetings” when we sing Auld Lang Syne or in the solemn atmosphere of “The Commissioning Ceremony,” there are many moments which unavoidably tug at our heartstrings and move us all as a community.
The Commissioning Ceremony in May 2013.
Guest Speakers’ Sharing and Passing on Their Visions
The Seminary not only provides students with opportunities to exchange thoughts and ideas with guest speakers through the Mission Week, Baptist Heritage Week, and the Belote Lectures, Baptist pastors are often invited to come to share a sermon message through which our students can learn from their ministry experience and can be encouraged by them.
We also invite speakers from different organizations and denominational or church backgrounds to share a Christian message in the morning chapel. For example, last school year, Dr. Chan Nim-chung, the Chief Executive of Cedar Fund, shared with us, “The Integral Mission,” and Dr. Lee Kam-hon, Emeritus Professor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, shared with the Seminary community, “Business Ethics.”
This school year, we had Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo, International Director of Barnabas Fund, who came to share with us, “The Challenge of the Church and Mission Ministry in Islamic Context”; Rev. Lam Wing-keung, Pastor of Christian and Missionary Alliance Tai Po Church, talked about promoting prayer ministry in the church; Mr. Kei Chi-hing, Chairperson of Fullness Social Enterprises Society, gave a talk on social enterprises, conscience consumption, and the practice of our Christian faith.
Dr. George Wilson, shared with our students a talk on the topic of “Religious Education.”
Rev. Lam Sau-kwong, the General Secretary of the Baptist Convention of Hong Kong, came to share with the Seminary community in March a talk entitled, “A Life-Long Vocational Call.”
Dr. Lee Kam-hon shared his talk called “Business Ethics.”
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Conclusion
The contents of the morning chapel are varied and diversified. There we can find the preaching of Christian truth, the communication of visions, the passing on of role models, as well as the renewal of our souls and the broadening of our visions. We value these morning chapels that promote and facilitate communal worship and spiritual formation. They are the moments our Lord uses to leave indelible marks of insight and instruction on the path of growth and consecration of each of our seminary students.
The Morning Chapel: Our “Happy Hour”
Mak Wai-yan (M. Div. 3)
At 10 in the morning, all classes come to a halt. Teachers and students leave the classrooms, walk up the 24-step stone staircase leading to the Seminary’s chapel, pass the thick, dark brown wooden door with the school motto engraved, and take a seat on the long benches inside. This is the way teachers and students go to the morning chapel service every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. They put aside their busy work and studies and take the time to gather together to worship God.
We, as students, professors, or pastors, seldom have the opportunity to fully focus our attention on the worship service at church or on where students take their practicum because most of the time we have our own “duties.” Therefore, the morning chapel that takes place three times a week is both a time when teachers and students gather together as a community and also a “Happy Hour” in which we can wholeheartedly dedicate ourselves to worshipping God.
The content of the morning chapel is very rich in terms of variety. In the fall term, there are new students’ testimonies of God’s call, sermons preached by our teachers, and also topical messages from guest speakers. During the spring term, there are opportunities for graduating students to “try a hand at” designing a worship service. Besides the morning chapel being rich in content, occasionally there are special programs as well. For example, on Thanksgiving Day students from each class walk to the front and count the blessings of God in their lives. Also, during the sharing meetings conducted by the graduating classes, students will recount the life changes that they have experienced during their 3-4 years studying at the Seminary by means of acting out a drama or singing hymns. Sometimes an extra item will be inserted, for example, the president will interview a teacher in a relaxed, amiable way to enhance students’ deeper understanding of the teacher and his future plans. Of course, on every Thursday there is a time particularly set aside for teachers and students to pray with one heart for one another’s needs. All these components of the morning chapel seek to enable the Seminary’s students to gain a personal experience of the diversity and the unity present in our Christian faith.
What impresses me most about the morning chapel in which all members of the Seminary take an active part, is that every individual has the opportunity to experience serving others in different positions and thereby appreciate the fullness of one another’s lives. Students can have the opportunity to take turns to serve in such posts as the presiding chairperson, the song leader, the pianist, the prayer leader, and the interpreter. We learn to serve God and others by working together and having exchanges with brothers and sisters in Christ from different backgrounds; we also learn how to be served, how to allow different people’s life stories to touch us and how to build up one another and shape one another into a community that testifies to God’s presence with us. After attending the morning chapel for more than two years, I have realized that each of us has different and distinctive gifts that we need to learn to whole-heartedly offer up to God what we have learned and gained in our lives in each of the posts we have served. May glory be to God.
Next time when you come to the morning chapel, I hope that both you and I can see the life stories of people composed and written by God and the community that He has shaped and that you will treasure this Happy Hour when we come together to worship God.
Many Very Precious Lessons Can Be Learned
Ng Chung-yin (M.Div. 3)
As this is my third year in the Seminary, I have taken a good number of courses, read a lot of books, written course assignments using thousands and thousands of words, and learned some of the theories and knowledge behind exegesis. These are indispensable for future pastors to learn and be trained in. However, on the seminary campus there are many other kinds of training. One of which is the morning chapel. No course credits are given for students to join the morning chapel, but it enables me to learn many precious lessons outside the classroom.
The morning chapel service begins at 10 am and so teachers and students can have a class break and gather together at the seminary chapel. When we all sing hymns of praise together, I am reminded by the Lord that standing before the living God, my identity is that of a worshipper. When I listen to the word of God, I am reminded by the Lord of how great God is! Even though He is above all things, He became flesh and lived among sinners. His love, riches, and wisdom are boundless. In the chapel service, I am also reminded by the Lord that as a created creature and a worshipper, I must not put the living God who is beyond all things into the “test tube” to study. Nor can I ever describe this God of eternity fully by typing thousands and thousands of words in a computer keyboard. The chapel service reminds me that as a student of theology I must kneel humbly before God in search of His guidance.
The morning chapel is also like God’s spring and autumn rains which water the Earth, renewing my strength when my soul runs dry. When I read my diary and looked back over my seminary studies, I often found myself facing difficult circumstances and problems. It was God who gave me encouragement and comfort through the sermon messages in the morning chapel!
I have learned many precious lessons in the morning chapel. Joining one morning chapel after another, when all the Seminary teachers and students gather together to praise God and listen to His word, reminds us all to be Jesus’ disciples together and to be a community that worships God.
A Seminary That Preaches and Listens to the Word of God
Andres Tang (Teacher of Christian Thought)
Over the years of seminary teaching, seldom can I find myself just listening to the preaching of God’s word without preaching on Sundays. However, it is also because of my teaching in the seminary that I have had so many opportunities to listen to the preaching of God’s word during the weekday morning chapel services.
In these few years listening to the word of God in the seminary chapel, as I listen to different teachers explaining the word of God and to different graduating students explaining the word of God, I find myself living in a community of the word of God. It is through mutually explaining the word of God that we nurture one another and grow together.
In these few years listening to the word of God in the seminary chapel, I find more and more students and many staff workers sitting, paying close attention to teachers and students faithfully explaining the word of God. The life of this community born out of the word of God seems to become more and more vibrant every time.
In these few years listening to the word of God in the seminary chapel, I increasingly find that it is a community devoted to listening to the word of God. Likewise, it is a community devoted to preaching the word of God. A seminary must first be a community devoted to listening to the word of God before it becomes a community of preaching the word of God. In humility we listen to the word of God and then have it internalized, being thankful for the brother’s or sister’s preaching (as a channel of God) that builds up our lives. Only by doing these things can we in turn be able to preach the word of God with humility.
In these few years listening to the word of God in the seminary chapel, I increasingly find that all that we learn here ultimately converges into the pastoral ministry of preaching. A seminary is to educate and train workers to minister in churches. To do so, the seminary itself must first be nurtured and trained. Therefore, the practice of the seminary’s preaching and listening to the word of God is to enable the word of God to help teachers and students to be shaped into a humble disciple community worthy of being used by God.
A Time of Serenity That I Cherish
Clement Shum (Teacher of New Testament)
I really like the morning chapel; it allows me to have a time of serenity. The morning chapel is held between the first and second lessons. I particularly cherish such a time when we can take a break and gather together to worship God in the Seminary’s chapel. The reason is not that I need a break but that I like such an hour of serenity between two class lessons when we can sing, pray, and listen to the word of God.
I have always liked listening to the preaching of God’s word. In the morning chapel I can both listen to the sermons of other teachers and to the messages of many outside speakers. In the recent few years, I have been looking forward to listening to the preaching of our graduating students. Although there is still room for improvement in their preaching, I find a dynamic force at their back supporting their preaching so that I, sitting off stage, can always share a sense of community and common purpose with them.
In the last few years, new students’ testimonies of God’s call have been added, and like other students, I love to listen to their stories too. These stories may not be dramatic but we can see that their dedication to ministry is true and pure; these stories always stir up many of my personal recollections prompting me to reflect whether my own dedication to ministry remains unchanged. I was particularly touched by a new student’s consecration sharing several years ago. He recounted that since he was a child he had made a resolution to be a pastor. He upheld this vow unwaveringly in this direction all through the years in an effort to equip himself in a seminary as early as possible. Many who have been called by God have had moments when they would step back or run away, but this student had kept his promise and sustained his consecration to God! I can see God’s choice and God’s works in this student. His sharing not only made me feel excited but also evoked in me a drive. I said to myself, “I will teach him wholeheartedly in order to make him a truly good pastor.”
Another morning chapel that I was deeply impressed was when the Watoto Children’s Choir from Uganda came to the Seminary two years ago. The choir was composed of orphans who suffered from hardship and even inherited AIDS from their parents. That day we had the opportunity to pray with them in groups so that we could directly and intimately get in touch with them and pray for their needs. As a father, I had a strong feeling toward these vulnerable orphans who needed to be protected and I was thankful that our Heavenly Father had entered into their lives, showing forth His loving care and gentle kindness.