The Spiritual Life Team is making subtle, but important changes to chapel this year. Those changes include more frequent split chapels, and a new system for middle and upper school students that includes new seating arrangements in the Arena that allow for middle schoolers to fit in like a puzzle piece. 

When being asked about the split chapel changes and what it means for the students David Ottolini, Director of Spiritual Life, said: “Give upper school identity and ownership. […] Chapel is for the Westminster community entirely, but especially through students.” 

The Spiritual Life Team wants upper school to take more of a leading charge in both upper school chapel and all school chapel. The new seating arrangements feature putting the middle schoolers in the back of the arena which allows them to move in and out of the space, and it also allows them to observe the upper schoolers and use them as an example on how to worship. Due to the change of having more split chapels, the Spiritual Life Team is wanting to invite more student speakers to speak during the upper school and all school chapels. Having more student speakers allows for more relatability while still keeping a constant theme throughout the school year. In addition to this Ottolini and the Spiritual Life Team would also like to make middle school chapel a more hands-on and exciting experience for the 7th and 8th graders. 

According to Ottolini, the hands-on changes to middle school chapel will allow for: “middle school chapel to feel more like a camp […] which means more upbeat songs like a summer camp.”  

The Spiritual Life Team is striving to include more engaging worship songs for the Middle School Chapels. All of this is to make chapel more of a fun experience that middle schoolers can look forward to. Another crucial change that will occur to the middle school chapel is the new role that Ken Wolfe, an 8th Grade English and Bible Teacher, will be taking to make chapel more enjoyable. Having Wolfe take a large role will allow middle schoolers to feel more comfortable, and will also allow him to use his storytelling skills to make chapel more engaging for a younger audience. 

When asked about the difference between middle schoolers and upper schoolers in chapel Wolfe has this to say: “Middle schoolers need worship to be different from adults […] and I don’t want it to be the Ken Wolfe show.” 

Wolfe saw that the middle schoolers were not meshing well in the all school chapels last year, and he aims to use the new middle school chapel system in order to get them ready for worshiping in the upper school chapel. Another one of Wolfe’s main points was getting rid of the feeling of wanting to be cool and fit in that a young middle schooler may have in order to grow more comfortable in the chapel setting and around each other. As stated before, the Spiritual Life Team is working to make middle school chapel a more summer camp like experience, and Wolfe wants to use not only his experience working at a summer camp, but his love for performing in front of others to help teach the middle schoolers songs that they can remember. Although Wolfe will be performing for the students he doesn’t want to use this as a way to glorify himself, but instead to glorify God. He is very excited to teach the students songs that they can use to worship for the rest of their lives. 

In order to make chapel more light hearted, but still important, Wolfe wants to along with memorable songs: “bring to the middle schoolers illustrations and scripture that help them understand who God is, and who He can be to them.”

These illustrations should help middle schoolers with their growing relationships with God, and in turn get them ready to build their relationship with Him in a deeper way as they get older and move on to upper school chapel. The Spiritual Life Team is making sure that chapel is ever changing in order to make both upper and middle school chapels more interesting for the students, but also leading back together. Ottolini and Wolfe are very excited to bring these changes to chapel as a whole this year with Ottolini saying,

“More changes allows the team to be able to talk in specific ways with the middle and upper schools […] two chapel programs that are one.”