| Celebrating the 80th Anniversary of John Gano Memorial Chapel
by Dr. Andy Pratt, Vice President for Religious Ministries and Dean of Chapel
This year marks the 80th anniversary of John Gano Memorial Chapel on the campus of William Jewell College which was formally dedicated September 26, 1926. The chapel building bears the name of Rev. John Gano, who was the pastor of First Baptist Church, New York City, during the years of the Revolutionary War. Rev. Gano is best remembered for his service as chaplain to Gen. George Washington's army. After the war, Gano moved to Lexington, Kentucky where he continued to preach in Baptist churches until his death. While he holds no direct personal relationship to William Jewell College, John Gano is representative of a person of faith, expressed through the Baptist denomination, deeply involved with the affairs of his country, dedicated to the struggle for independence and liberty, and committed to leadership with character.
If one considers the Jewell campus between Doniphan Street to the north and Mill Street to the south, John Gano Memorial Chapel sits in the middle of the campus, at the heart of College life. From Opening Convocation to Baccalaureate, 'Gano' is the place where the College community gathers for weekly chapel services and to conduct the signal events in the life of the College: Hanging of the Green, Achievement Day, and Honors Convocation. Through the years, Gano has been utilized for concerts, fine arts events, CUA programs, Tatler Revue, theater productions, lectures by noted speakers, and College meetings and gatherings too numerous to count. During the season of Advent we gather in the Chapel to welcome children born into Jewell families during the previous twelve months. On occasion we gather to remember and celebrate the life of a person related to the College who has died. On their very first day on campus, students gather in Gano to be matriculated into the College. On their final day, students gather in Gano for the Baccalaureate service. All these events in the life of the College taking place in Gano illustrates the way in which faith is interwoven in all the things we do.
Chapel services remain a vital aspect of what makes the William Jewell educational experience unique. On the Quad the Chapel building sits in a parallel relationship to the classroom buildings, Jewell and Marston Halls, as if to reinforce that spiritual growth and intellectual growth are interdependent parts of life. With the renovation of Yates-Gill College Union, the Library - the Union - and Gano are now connected by an attractive plaza. Knowledge, relationships and spiritual life are connected in the Jewell experience. The conversation between knowledge and faith happens in the Library, in the College Union, and especially in Gano.
A weekly chapel service is essential to the mission of a liberal arts college like William Jewell. The promise of the College is to provide students an outstanding liberal arts education with a focus on spiritual growth inspired by intellectual challenges and Christian ideals. The weekly chapel service is part of the living out of our mission—gathering as a community, engaging the mystery of God through music, prayer and word, and humbly listening beyond ourselves for the voice of God. Weekly chapel is not an anachronistic holdover from the past but a vibrant, living, moment at the intersection of intellectual exploration and spiritual maturation. Can students be graduated from William Jewell College with a B.A. or B.S. degree without having attended Chapel? Yes, of course. Chapel participation is voluntary, representing part of what is best in the Baptist tradition, the un-coerced practice of faith. A loving God invites us to faith but does not coerce us. Yet I will say this, a student who does not participate in chapel at William Jewell is not receiving all that may be gained from his or her educational endeavor. For it is when a student comes to see the depth of the relationship between the chapel and the classroom that the journey of mind and faith is engaged.
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