Bethany’s tradition of the annual Spiritual Life Week was continued with Bible professor Michelle Hershberger coming in to speak to students about the question of finding identity. She preached and offered Biblical reasoning to address this question and provided students with the opportunity to reflect on their own identity. For those who attended Mennonite Convention in Phoenix this past summer, it felt like a continuation of conversations that happened there, and her ideas did not really present a new perspective. However, for students that did not attend Convention, it was probably an interesting teaser into a topic that could take months to fully develop.
~Katie
This year’s theme for Spiritual Life Week was a question that many high school students struggle with as they think about making a life for themselves outside of their families. Finding your identity is never easy, but this week, it seemed like it was. Though I enjoyed the exuberance of the sermons, they left me without a satisfactory answer to the question, “Who am I?” The problem is that this question takes years of self-discovery to answer, and though school should be a place where students can search for it, tackling the question in one week could never have yielded concrete results.
~Rachel
Spiritual Life Week at Bethany is arguably one of the best week of chapels in the school year. Michelle did a decent job of expressing her points and they were familiar from convention. The most exciting, and startling, part of the week was on Thursday. While explaining the idea that we need to let God take off our dirty clothes and underwear of sin, and let him clothe us in His holy robes, Michelle started stripping layers. Thankfully it didn’t go any farther than white shorts and a t-shirt, but this was only after shedding 4 or 5 layers. It proved her point though, and proved it well. I thoroughly enjoyed Spiritual Life Week this year.
~Corey
This week was Spiritual Life Week at Bethany. This is a week where a special speaker comes to Bethany to talk about a certain topic. This year, Michelle, a bible professor from Hesston College, came to Bethany to preach to students about finding their true identity.The question that she provided us with was “Who am I?” This task is hard for even adults to answer. To help us understand this question, Michelle provided biblical examples along with examples from other cultures. Although the examples may have entertained the student body, I still feel confused as to who I am. I am pretty sure that I will find my true identity over the course of this year.
~Brianna