Alumni Chapels have an interesting place in the life of the university.  They are not the most popular chapel in the eyes of the students.  Someone has invaded their campus.  Someone is sitting in their chapel seat.  Alumni.

Yet, despite the invasion of the institution’s routine, Alumni Chapel is incredibly important.  It is important because it provides us an opportunity to highlight the lives and accomplishments of our own.  We honor people who have been our students, who are now our graduates, our alumni.  In effect, it affords us the opportunity to take our measure.

In certain respects Northwest Nazarene University is unique.  It is a place where the norms of success, accomplishment and notoriety are different than those of the world.  NNU professes and teaches ways of knowing and being counter to the trends and conventions of our materialistic, monochromatic world of self-centered values.

Consequently, to attend the NNU Alumni Chapel is to expect something different.  Remarkable.  I wasn’t disappointed.  As I sat in the NNU Alumni Chapel I marveled at the lives of those being honored.  I was astonished by the humility, the imagination, the commitment and zest for life displayed by each of the award recipients.  These people are changing the world; not just their world, the world.

Jennifer, Christine, Rand and Judy are rescuing children from slavery and prostitution, teaching a country to care for its sick and frail, healing the spirits of those damaged by life, bringing beauty and elegance to places otherwise barren and dreary.

In celebrating these few, we are asking; is what we stand for, what we teach, transferring, transforming?  We are checking our posture.  How have those we sought to shape taken shape?

The results are truly remarkable.  I was genuinely humbled by these good people and the lives they are leading.  As I listened to them, I was once again struck by the fact that NNU is a place where success is measured in service.  But don’t just take my word for it; take their word for it.

Watch the following NNU-Tube clips, short interviews with some of the honorees; I hope you are as gratified, as I was, by what you hear.  I am so very proud of them and the hope, help and love they provide.   I’m glad to call them Alumni of NNU.  And I am proud of the place and the people that had a part in shaping them for their life’s calling.