I am grateful that, during this pandemic, I've actually still been able to perform fairly consistently - albeit not at the pace I normally would have - thanks to my new youtube channel, a church family that welcomes a routine every other week, and a job at a Christian school where I get to do chapel services periodically.  This semester our principal decided to have me do all three levels of chapel (elementary, middle school and high school) in the same weeks.  This week was my first such week.

Monday mornings start with elementary chapel (grades K-4).  When I'm doing a chapel program for these youngest guys and girls, I go heavy on the showmanship and light on the message.  Don't get me wrong, there's always a Gospel component, but these kids are young!  It didn't help this time when one of my doves got loose and flew up out of reach on the gym's scoreboard.  To their credit, once the bird settled down up their the students were able to give me back their attention, and we had a good service.  In amongst routines where I juggled, balanced and produced live goldfish, I included routines that were meant to teach.  I use my Chinese Sticks for the first time ever to talk about cause and effect, particularly as it relates to our relationship with God.  And yes, after chapel, the dove returned to me.

On Wednesday it was high school's turn.  This is my favorite chapel to perform for.  Of course, I did a bit motr speaking and a bit less playing, but I did do my new 'hgh tech mind reading' to break the ice.  Most of the service was built around my juggling routine "Mary and Marty", a paraphrase of the account in Luke of Jesus' dinner with Mary and Martha. My emphasis was on slowing down and spending time in prayer and meditation.

Finally, today was middle school's chapel day (grades 5-8).  This comes with its own challenges as I teach the 7th and 8th grde kids juggling, so they come to chapel with a 'what can you do that I can't' attitude.  Fortunately, the answer is 'a lot'.  I started with "The Cevil is Bad", my four ball routine.  I also did "Standing on the Promises of God", which involves a variety od extreme balance board tricks, as well as a few other routines.  I also spoke about prayer, particularly the Lord's Prayer.  I actually broke it down into percentges: almost half of this model for prayer is declaring allegience to God's kingdom.  Over a third more is asking God to deal with our hearts: forgiveness, strength in temptation, and forgiving others/  Only seven words are specific requests: "Give us this day our daily bread".  And the request is simply for our basic needs of the day.  

I love being the chapel speaker when it is my turn, but three in a week was challenging: being prepared for each service, having the right props and so on.  I get to do a chapel week again in May.  Perhaps I should start to prepare now!