Kable Chapel hosted its final service for the time being yesterday. Chapel choir, faculty, and students all gathered for chapel one last time to say
farewell to Kerns Religious Life Center before it is shut down for deep cleaning and renovation on the first of February.
As of February the first, Capital University will be a Lutheran university without a chapel or religious worship area on campus, besides the small chapel on the first floor of Cotterman Residence Hall.
With the remodeling and de-molding of Kerns that is scheduled to take place over the next couple of years, many students and faculty are left without a building which has served not only religious organizations but also musicians and Greek organizations.
The farewell service was emotional for many people because with the renovations estimated to be finished in late 2013, many students who have many great memories in Kerns may never step foot in it again.
“We’ll be back,” Pastor Amy Oehlschlaeger said. “But for a lot of juniors and seniors this will be their last time in Kerns.”
This service though was less for the building, and more about something a little deeper and spiritual. “We’re attached to the actual building but it’s really all the memories,” Oehlschlaeger said.
There are many people at Capital who have very strong memories of Kerns that felt that this service was immensely meaningful for their experience here at Capital.
“Kable Chapel is kind of where I live so it’s sad to see it go” junior Matthew Hazzard said.
Hazzard spent the service making shortcake in the kitchen for the reception that followed the service“as my way of coping,” he said. “I just associate so much fun with that building. Women’s chorus always used to rehearse in there, and I loved listening to them when I was cleaning after chapel.”
But many of those interviewed agreed that Kerns is just a facilitator of these memories.
Junior William Cross feels that the community Kerns allowed to grow was a main reason the building has had such an impact on so many students at Capital.
“Fellowship was a big part of [Kerns],” Cross said. “Having conversations late into the night and the community that we were allowed to have there…it’s not so much the building itself but the opportunities given to us inside of it. It’s definitely had a good run, not to say it’s done forever.”
Although many were sad to see Kerns have its last service for the foreseeable future, many saw this as an opportunity to grow with the community. With moving services to Trinity, Capital is hoping to strengthen its ties with them and rebuild the religious fellowship that Capital has had with Trinity for decades.
Cru is also finding a new home inside Christ Lutheran which is right across Main Street. Both new locations for worship are trying to bring closer the surrounding community, turning what could have well been a tragic loss of campus’s second oldest building into a wonderful opportunity to break down barriers that exist between Capital and the Bexley Community.
“This transition is a growth,” Cross said, and many others agree that this is an exciting move for both Capital and Trinity.
Some are nervous whether the campus congregation can survive moving across the road. In her sermon, Oehlschlaeger joked about leading the congregation across College Avenue like Moses led the Israelites across the sea, “although I don’t really like that comparison,” she said, “because after they crossed they were lost for 40 years in the desert.”
