School Worship
School Worship
Overview
Worship is an essential element in the process of spiritual formation at Saint Mark’s Episcopal School. Chapel’s sacred purpose connects those present to the awe, beauty, and mystery of the divine. A respite from the busyness of contemporary life, it offers the opportunity for music, prayer, story, silence, and reflection. Worship in the Episcopal school tradition is closely attuned to the social, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual needs of our students. The chaplain and student lay leaders create an intentional chapel program that moves participants forward in their spiritual development and that encourages a positive outlook and intentional practices of overall health and well-being.
Corporate Worship
Corporate worship plays a unique role in drawing students of different ages together and building community throughout the school. Parents, parishioners, alumni, and other members of the wider community of the school are graciously welcomed to join us, whether we are sharing worship online or celebrating God’s love together in person.
Lower School Chapel
Overview
Lower School students gather for chapel once a week on Tuesday mornings. The service is a simplified, age-appropriate form of Morning Prayer from The Book of Common Prayer, the central worship guide for the Episcopal Church. Students hear stories from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, along with a brief reflection on what God’s Word has to say to us today. We sing together, we pray together, and we listen for God’s loving voice in the words of Scripture and in the meditative quiet of our own hearts.
While celebrating the times and season of the church calendar, students also learn to honor the observances of other religious traditions and the secular calendar. When social distancing protocols have been lifted, students will have the opportunity to serve as worship leaders by being acolytes, readers, song leaders, and ushers. Until that time, worship is offered virtually through a multi-media presentation that can be accessed online by students in their classrooms as well as by students who are learning from home.
Middle School Chapel
Overview
Middle School students gather for chapel once a week. Like the Lower School, they gather on Thursdays for Morning Prayer, but a service of Holy Eucharist is also offered to Middle School students once a month. Middle School students learn leadership skills by serving as prayer leaders and readers during the service of Morning Prayer, which is taken from the service of the same name in The Book of Common Prayer.
Worship for Middle School students is multi-media and incorporates teachings on other world religious traditions and cultures highlighting the diversity of the world’s religions while sharing the strengths and commonalities of different traditions of belief and practice. Middle School students take an active role as worship leaders, and they lead the service of Morning Prayer almost entirely themselves. Holy Eucharist is offered to the Middle School community as a way for students, faculty and staff to connect with the sacred tradition of Christ’s Last Supper, and to be included, regardless of faith background, in the central worship practice of the Christian faith.
