First Chapel Looks to the Hope of Zechariah: Photogallery

Led by President Steve Timmermans, Ph.D., the first chapel of the semester provided the opportunity to come together as a community to worship and to refocus.

Looking to Scripture as students, faculty, and staff look ahead to the second half of the academic year, Timmermans offered “a picture of hope,” based on Zechariah 8:1-8. The verses paint an idyllic picture of a faithful city, “full of boys and girls playing in its streets.”

Timmermans pointed out two kinds of hopefulness in these verses: the foretelling of the coming of Christ and the second coming. But the broken world we live in is a contrast to the city described in Zechariah, said Timmermans, recounting visits to Johannesburg and the issues in America’s own cities.

As Christians wait for the second coming, Timmermans urged that the response should be to “join in the work of the kingdom by returning” and refocusing on who we are as God’s children. Second, he said Christians should “join in the work of rebuilding” by regularly participating in prayer, service, giving, and doing all of this through the power of the Holy Spirit.

First-year worship scholar Ruby Gunderson ’15 of Elk River, Minnesota, led the prayer response, and freshman Jordan Ghiglia of Wenatchee, Washington, read the scripture. The songs of worship, led by students, included “My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less,” which was fitting, as Timmermans notes in this week’s blog post.