In light of black history month, I decided to go to the Black Student Association meeting to find out what they wished for at Azusa Pacific University. On Feb.16 at the weekly meeting, students of BSA held round table small discussions about healthy relationships with self and others, how to deal with conflict, and the emphasis on black love.
With the encouragement of BSA leaders Taylor Allen and Jamilah Relf I posed the question “What does BSA want on APU campus?” as students held hands in an Umoja (unity) circle.
Dejanee Mosley, A’lea Render, Alissa Matus, and Camille Smith each had their own ideas of what addition to campus would benefit BSA.
Together they decided that the Black Student Association wants chapel to allow more freedom for expression during worship. They want to see chapel, specifically worship at chapel to become a time in which diversity is not only acknowledged but celebrated.
I give credit to Chapel Programs for being intentional in having a diverse representation of student leaders on the stage. However my question is, with so much diversity on stage why do we continue to produce worship music through one culture lens.
To clarify I mean that worship is culturally relative. What might be the typical worship at a black church might not what individuals see at predominately white churches or Korean, Japanese, Mexican etc. There are many ways that people chose to worship and different style are often attributed to ethnic backgrounds. However the worship content that is produced in chapel tends to lean heavily to a White-American Christian style.
Alissa Matus, a senior chemistry major, said she gets bored seeing the same band sing the same songs at chapel.
“I’ve started checking out in chapel, just because it’s so boring it’s sad to say but it’s true,” Matus said.
Dejanee Mosley, a sophomore biology major, welcomes when gospel band performs because their approach is similar to how see would receive worship in her church back home.
“I notice that a lot of black people come from Baptist or Pentecostal backgrounds and when [they] come to APU [they’re] like where is the spirit?,” Mosley said.
Matus wants to “see a university show solidarity [with] people from different races, different backgrounds to show that [we are all] supported here at APU.”
There is significance in student’s ability to feel that the school supports their styles of worship.
There are over 50 nations that are represented at international chapel. Out of the average 600 students that attend iChapel two-thirds of students are non-international. Students come with open hearts willing to learn the traditions from other nations.
Mary Grams, Director of International Students and Scholars, brought iChapel to campus when the lord brought it to her heart that they was going to be many international students coming to APU.
“We needed a place in which who God is presented in an understandable way and an intercultural way that God, the Christian God is available to anybody, in any language but that’s hard to understand when you can’t understand the message or when it’s not in a form that’s typically to what you’re used to,” Grams said.
She created a space for students to be interactive with community, a reflection of their host countrie’s values and worship in their native tongue.
“We try to sing in different languages so people can feel like this is my heart language, this is my worship language, ” Grams said.
Grams stands behind the idea of BSA members and points to making the wishes of BSA known to however will be filling the new Chapel Programs position.
I believe we need to take iChapel as an example for celebrating the various student here at APU.
“Our God is a global God. The theme of nations runs throughout the bible from Genesis to Revelations. A Christian institution that values the Bible’s emphasis on cultures and nations, should seek to celebrate and affirm the cultures and stories,” said Vijay Jacob, the Assistant Director of iChapel.
For students who feel uncomfortable about chapel worship potentially performed in Korean, gospel style, in Arabic, through dance or any other forms, realize that biases usually evolve from remaining in a places that are uncomfortable to us.
I recommend trying to find out why differences make you so uncomfortable. It’s a good way to grow by learning that there are lessons to be learned from things that are foreign to us.
After all “one style is not the beauty of the body,” Grams said.