Each semester, the Office of Spiritual Life organizes a “Seek Week,” encouraging and instructing students about how to draw closer to God.
This semester the theme of the week was “Holy” and it took place Feb. 20-24.
On Monday, the week began with Chapel services led by Albert Tate, pastor of Fellowship Monrovia church in Monrovia, Calif. Tate also led the Chapel services on Wednesday and Friday.
Tate used humor and personal analogies to capture the attention of the students throughout the week as he preached on John 3:16, Isaiah 6, Psalm 23, the failures of man and the necessity of a holy God.
In addition to his Biblical preaching, he took time to drop in definitions of several slang words and a brief history of “Word Up! Magazine” in order to keep students interested.
“He was able to take things that happen in life today and find a way to relate it to the Bible and things that happened back then,” Dustin Cabral said.
Monday evening the Office of Spiritual Life hosted a worship night in Smith Courtyard and gave away “Seek Week” T-shirts to the attendees.
Also on Monday, they kicked off a prayer chain that students, staff and faculty could participate in from Monday through Friday.
“I went to the worship night and got to enjoy some beautiful worship,” Cabral said. “The prayer chain was a good experience, as well. There are causes out there that make a need to pray continuously.”
Wednesday evening students could attend a “Concert of prayer” that was combined with the weekly “Prayer for the Nations” event. This event was also the beginning of a 24-hour fast that was to encourage students to turn their hunger towards God.
Thursday evening, the Office of Spiritual Life hosted a movie night in Smith Courtyard. They screened the film “Beware of Christians,” which is the story of four college students who “leave religion to follow Jesus,” according to the tagline of the film.
Students got to see what it was like for other college-aged students to leave everyday life behind and make knowing God their number one priority. The film is an award-winning documentary and is available for purchase at www.bewareofchristians.com. Buyers can name their own price for the DVD.
On Friday, the week came to an end with another chapel message by Albert Tate. During the service, he challenged students to drop the desires of their own hearts and seek only the desires that God has for them.
Quoting Psalm 23, he said that if they were able to fully trust God then, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow them all the days of their lives, and they shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
“He used an interesting demonstration to show how goodness and mercy will literally follow you if you follow God,” Kevin Cotton, sophomore, said.
Cotton is an intern with the Office of Spiritual life and is a lead on another campaign that OSL lead throughout Seek Week. He and a team got students to fill out notes, buttons and thank you forms for on- campus foodservice workers.
