Strength in Chapel

At Hardin-Simmons University, the campus comes together every Tuesday and Thursday for weekly chapel services. This time allows students, faculty, staff, and the community to connect with each other and their faith. Weekly services include guest speakers, music, worship, and testimonials.

Shelli Presley is the Director of Spiritual Formation at HSU. Shelli’s role is to engage staff and students in positive reflection, learning, and developing their Christian faith through a combination of formal and informal teaching and learning opportunities. Organizing weekly chapel is one of the avenues to accomplish this.

Each academic year, chapels are arranged around a theme. This theme provides unity across the weeks as various speakers use their time to share insight, perspective, and prayer. The theme for this year is “strength.” No one can live without strength from God, so the goal of chapel this year is to teach students how to strengthen others and to be strengthened.

Every Tuesday, a speaker will talk about strength in his or her own way. On Thursdays, students will share their personal testimonies, again tied to the theme of strength.

Shelli invites students to view “chapel as an opportunity—not a requirement.” She emphasized this time is an “ongoing journey for students, faculty, staff, and administrators.”

The semester’s theme revolves around Colossians 2:6-7 (NIV): “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”

All are welcome to attend chapel on campus! If you cannot attend in person, Tuesday services are available via live stream, with past recordings on HSU’s YouTube channel.