Student chapels here heating up

The sound of worship music fills the air, and over 300 students and teachers are singing along to the music; some with hands raised to the heavens.

This isn’t a church service, this is Revolution Of Grace (ROG), a monthly student chapel here, lead by both students and staff.

These services deal with pressing issues in today’s youth and their faith, such as personal testimonies about God’s forgiveness, staff member’s experiences in high school, and of course what the Bible says about these things.

“I like the way [Revolution Of Grace] portrays the ideas instead of just saying, ‘God says this,’ because a lot of kids aren’t susceptible to that, and they don’t really care,” said Senior Isaiah Cavanaugh. “But when [the message] is given in different terms, it not only captivates us but uses examples.”

Christ-like behavior is the goal of the students who initiated “Revive” two years ago. Revive is a fully student-led ministry, started by Alumni Lauren Kinney, Alumni Elijah Cavanaugh, and Senior Isaiah Cavanaugh. This is an optional service, which features music, sermons, and food, which is 100% student-led, student-attended, and student-organized.

Both of these services offered each month not only explore the theological side of a message, but the ethical, logical, and moral sides of a message as well.

ROG is a school-sponsored service that all students must attend, however Revive is optional.

“[Revive] It’s smaller, more intimate, and it’s just… the fact it’s not mandatory kind of makes it better because it’s people who want to be there, not people who are forced to go there,” said regular Revive attendee Senior Carson Pinon.

About 60-100 students choose to attend Revive each month. The service begins with music, and is followed by a message from a variety of students each time. There is no requirement for a student who wants to speak at Revive, other than have a message to share.

“Revive is an intimate and sincere worship session because it is designed for students and led by students,” said Senior Sam Hall, Revive worship leader. “I hope Revive continues to expand its influence and is carried on by future God-seeking upper classmen.”

Junior Sage Post spoke about self confidence and worth at Revive in February.

“At first, I had no idea what I wanted to talk about, but I asked around, and [Junior] Ari [Williams] suggested talking about identity,” said Post. “As I continued to think about that, I decided to talk about Self Worth and Confidence because I believe that is a relevant issue in teenagers lives. What most people think when they hear something about self confidence is not having enough of it. However, many people have too much of it. I just wanted to share what God says about our confidence level and worth.”

The message was well received by all who attended.

Part of the new 2020 vision for our school is more focus on students’ spiritual growth. Next school year, ROG will add a second monthly service, making three total worship services available to students here per month.