Reader feedback: Share your favorite (and not-so-favorite) chapel experiences

At Christian universities across the U.S., students are back in school — and back in chapel.

The Christian Chronicle is preparing a feature on chapel trends. We would love to get input from current students, recent graduates and not-so-recent graduates of colleges and universities associated with Churches of Christ.

Please post responses below or send us an e-mail about your chapel experiences. Make sure to include your full name and school you attend (or attended, plus the years you were there). Feel free to include the name of your home congregation as well.

Questions for current students:

1. What role does chapel play in your spiritual life? Do you look forward to chapel, or do you tend to view it as a requirement that you must fulfill as part of your education?

2. In your opinion, should chapel be required of students, or optional? Why?

3. What types of chapel services do you find to be most helpful to your spiritual walk? Please share stories of your favorite chapel experiences.

4. What do you like least about chapel? How, in your opinion, could chapel service be improved on your campus?

Questions for former students:

5. Please share some of your favorite chapel experiences from your college years. What did you like best about chapel? Least?

6. Looking back, do you think that chapel services played any sort of role in your faith formation? If so, what? If not, why?

7. In the U.S., many higher learning institutions founded by religious groups have since shed their connections to their founding faiths. Does chapel play a role in keeping Christian universities focused on their founding purpose? Why or why not?

(Feel free to answer any of questions 1-4, too.)