Evensong Update Delete

The Bible makes clear that spiritual growth is dependent on both personal devotional life and corporate worship. Community in a university setting occurs best when students and employees come together in fellowship. Southern makes possible this fellowship primarily through its Chapels, Vespers, and Convocations, although community occurs during other functions throughout the academic year. The following meetings occur weekly on Southern’s campus:

Chapels: Though the residence halls are gender-exclusive, their chapels are not. Chapels occur on Tuesday evening at 8 p.m.

Hall Worship: Although part of the residence hall chapel program, hall worships are more informal, occurring on your hall and led by the RA of your hall. They occur at 10:00 p.m. in both Talge and Thatcher/South Halls on Sundays.

Morning Meditations: A third option of the residence-hall-chapel program, Morning Meditations occur at 7:30 a.m., Monday through Friday, in the Talge Hall Chapel for those students who are morning risers. A short worship meeting ends in time for you to make 8:00 a.m. classes.

Vespers: The most-popular worship service at Southern, Vespers opens the Sabbath on Friday evening. Most often held at the Collegedale Church, it occasionally is held in Iles

E. Center or at the Goliath Wall. The program begins at 7:30 p.m. An Afterglow service occurs afterwards.

Evensong: Evensong is a special worship tradition in our community—a time when uplifting music and devotional readings celebrate the blessings of Sabbath and prepare us for the coming week. Held at the Collegedale Church, Evensong begins approximately half an hour before sundown and usually lasts for half an hour.

Southern's School of Music is responsible for organizing and facilitating the programs.

Convocation: Southern accentuates its liberal arts program with its weekly convocation series. Meeting at 11:00 a.m. every Thursday of the academic year, it is an hour when the entire academic community assembles to celebrate God’s good gifts of intellect.

Convocation provides a unique opportunity to celebrate persons whose scholarship, art or public service embodies the ideals of a Christian, liberal arts university. The mission of the convocation program is to enhance the academic program of Southern by celebrating and honoring academic achievement and presenting programs that enrich the classroom experience. Speakers bring a variety of perspectives on topics and issues drawn from across the spectrum of liberal arts disciplines in the arts, sciences and humanities. This Southern program is intended to promote broad discussion and active response from the academic community, extending beyond the convocation setting to classrooms and residence halls. The goal is to broaden and deepen our appreciation of creation and culture and to equip us to become discerning agents of redemption.

Consistent with Southern’s mission, the ultimate goal of convocation is to foster the development and application of a Christian worldview, though individual speakers need not endorse this goal. Other purposes of convocation include:

To present programs that will reinforce and/or challenge perspectives expressed elsewhere in the academic program
To encourage students to listen respectfully and learn graciously both from those with whom we agree and disagree
To have the opportunity to meet and understand those outside the community and to provide them opportunity to meet and understand us (i.e., the purposes of the program extend beyond just the period of formal presentation)
To provide some common experiences as an academic community, which can serve as points of reference for illustration in other academic activities.

Cultural Credits: All convocation programming is deemed cultural because of their emphasis on academic, contemporary, or cultural topics. Students are expected to earn a certain number of cultural credits as part of their attendance requirements (See chart below).

Because Southern's Worship and Convocation program is co-curricular, all students, both residential and commuter, are required to attend a set number of services during a semester. This number is determined by class standing as follows:

Requirements for residential students:

Class Standing	Chapel Credit	Cultural Credit	Total Credit
Freshman	45	15	60
Sophomore	41	14	55
Junior	37	13	50
Senior	34	11	45
Graduating Senior	Exempt

Requirements for commuter students:

Class Standing	Chapel Credit	Cultural Credit	Total Credit
Freshman	30	10	40
Sophomore	27	9	36
Junior	24	8	32
Senior	22	5	30
Graduating Senior	Exempt

Requirements for part-time students: Part-time students (defined for this policy as any student taking 6-11 hours) who reside on campus follow the residence hall requirement for their class standing. Part-time commuter students are to maintain worship attendance at the same level as full-time commuter students.

Exempted students: The following cohorts of students are exempted from earning attendance credits. However, their voluntary attendance at these community-building events are still welcome:

Married students.
Students with children.
Military veterans.
Students 23 or older prior to the start of the semester (If you turn 23 during a semester, your credit amount will be prorated. Please come to the office of Student Development to find out what your prorated number is).
Students who have already earned 124 academic credit hours.
Students involved in student teaching.
Students who are completely online or Consortium students

Students may earn Chapel Credits in the following increments:

1 Credit: Evening Worships, Morning Meditations, Student Organizations, Departmental, Schools, Class-sponsored Convocations, and Evensong

2 Credits: LifeGroups, Vespers, Weeks of Prayer (Fall, Student Week of Prayer, and Residence Hall Week of Prayer), Thursday Convocation, Performing Arts programs, Music Department Concerts

The following chart reveals the consequences of failing to meet chapel attendance expectations. If a student fails to meet cultural credit expectations, they will incur an additional fine for failing to meet these requirements.

	Fewer than 10 credits missed at the end of the semester	10 or more credits missed at the end of a semester
First Offense	Probation	- Probation - $5 fee per credit missed
Second Offense	- Probation - $5 fee per credit missed	- Probation - Meet with VP of Student Development - $5 fee per credit missed
Third Offense	- Probation - Meet with VP of Student Development - $5 fee per credit missed	Semester suspension
Fourth Offense	Semester suspension	Semester suspension

Reductions in credit expectations: Chapels, Vespers, and Convocations are all integral

co-curricular parts of attending Southern and are required for all undergraduate students taking 6 hours or more. As such, exemptions are rare and for exceptional situations only.

The following circumstances are situations that might necessitate reductions:

Being a commuter student that has no classes on Thursday,
Attending nursing clinicals or skills labs during the Convocation hour,
Working as a nurse whose shift is regularly during the Convocation hour or Friday night,
Working an on-campus job that cannot close during Convocation (examples of such jobs are Food Services student personnel and a number of desk jobs that must remain open 24 hours a day). The question that will be asked of work that is occurring during the Thursday 11:00 am hour: Is it a job that cannot do without student labor during that period of the day? To apply for a reduction, please go to the Student Development webpage on the Southern website and click on the Chapel Reduction link. A reduction is for one semester only as class and work schedules change by semester. Therefore, you must fill out a reduction form every semester.