Ann VanLoenen, Flower Mound, Texas

Chapel is an integral part of the week at Faith Lutheran Day School in Flower Mound, Texas. Each Tuesday and Wednesday, the school day starts with chapel in the church’s Gathering Place. The children come running into the Gathering Place to meet their teachers at chapel, and find a place to sit on the carpet with their classmates. Many parents and younger siblings stay to share in this special time. The room is full of students, teachers, teacher’s aides, parents, younger siblings in strollers and car seats.

We even take chapel on the road!! Twice during the school year, when we go on school-wide field trips to the Pumpkin Patch, and Kid’s Kastle (a local park) we have chapel outdoors. When we have chapel at these places, other visitors share in our special time.

Pastor John Guilfoyle leads chapel each week. He plays his guitar and sings with the children. They learn many new songs throughout the school year during chapel. All of the songs are “action songs” or have parts where a child is asked to add the name of an animal or action. Pastor John reads a story from the Children’s Bible (by Zondervan Publishing), and talks with the children about the story. On a regular basis, there is a profound observation by one of the children that makes the adults laugh or think about the story differently! Chapel closes with a prayer that the children repeat after Pastor John. This is a fun, interactive time for everyone as we learn and grow in Christ together.

The goal of our chapel time is to introduce the students (ages 18 months to kindergarten) to Jesus by building a wealth of Christian stories and songs into their school experience. The stories and songs the children learn in chapel are reinforced in the classrooms again with crafts, at story time, circle time, and music time. The stories are grouped to go along with a character trait that the children are learning about each month. For example, in November we focus on thankfulness for al that we have been given. To make this lesson concrete, the children are asked to bring canned goods for our local food bank. They present these gifts during chapel.

Chapel time is integrally woven into the fabric of the school day. It’s not something “extra” added on as an afterthought, or maybe occasionally. Because of the importance of chapel in our school day, it has become a form of evangelism to our day school families. Parents are in a comfortable, familiar setting with the day school staff who they know and trust. It becomes a comfortable place for them to ask questions about faith or theology, about our church, and a place to nurture their spiritual lives. We intentionally include the parents because they can learn the stories and songs along with their children.

Many parents today know that they want a faith life for their children, but may not know what that means, or how to provide that for their children. Hopefully, what we are doing at Faith Day School, makes this place welcoming, and allows parents to feel a part of a group, where they and their children can be loved and nurtured. We invite our Day School families to be a part of everything we do at Faith Lutheran Church, and therefore hope they feel the door is always open to them.

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