Our chapel team leaders opened this morning’s worship with the pledges, the Lord’s Prayer, O Canada and the Land Acknowledgement. The first Bible reading cam from Proverbs 3:3-6. Mr. Bailey then opened in prayer, thanking God for His goodness, which was also a great introduction to our first song, “Goodness of God”. Even though it is not a song that is often sung at Wesley, the students sang from the heart and filled the gym with praise.
Next, three students in Grade 4 announced that our Care & Share event on Wednesday, April 24th, will be to support Luke Goh at Toronto City Mission. Luke is a graduate of Wesley from the Class of 2015 and he was the guest speaker at last week’s chapel service.
After the second Scripture reading, taken from Ephesians 4:30-32, Mr. Bailey re-emphasized the point that we should look at each day without bitterness. Instead, we should seek to serve God with happiness and a servant heart. This was the segue to the second song, “Make Me a Servant”, which was led by two chapel leaders.
Our guest speaker this morning was Mrs. Vant Erve. As the school year begins to wind down, many of our remaining chapel speakers will share messages about some of the character traits for which some of the school awards are given at year end. Today’s message was about perseverance as demonstrated by Nehemiah. Mrs. V explained that perseverance is often required when we face something really difficult that requires us to keep working at it, until we can get through it. Often, we can experience many things at once that requires us to persevere. As some students may not be familiar with the story of Nehemiah, Mrs. V showed a short video to give additional context. Then, she went through some of the key points that we can learn about perseverance from Nehemiah. She also used the help of several Grade 8 students who read from various passages from the book of Nehemiah. Her main points included the following:
- See what needs improved
- Ask God for help
- Set goals and make a plan
- Work towards your goals wholeheartedly
- Work towards your goals wholeheartedly &, when things aren’t going as planned, ask God for help to find solutions rather than giving up
Mrs. V also emphasized the need to keep God at the centre of our goals and to remember that our goals should be set up to glorify God. Another important point that she made was to remember that God is in control. Mrs. V then concluded in prayer, thanking God for his promise to walk beside us or carry us during really difficult times and for helping us persevere to reach our goals – the ones that honour and give glory to Him.