#398. The 5 Types of College Chapel Speakers

If you didn’t go to a Christian college, then you are about to embark on a new and magical journey. If you did, then hopefully you are about to remember how you spent many of your hours during your time on campus.

At Samford University, we had something called “convocation” or “convo” for short. It was a brief chapel time held three times a week that we had to attend. We didn’t have to go to every one, but we needed to attend a 64 convos to graduate. After each one was over, a few students would scan your ID card to make sure you got credit for going.

What was interesting was that my college didn’t have strict requirements for what qualified as a convo credit worthy event. I think at some schools it’s much more of a worship service, but at Samford, the range of speakers varied a little. Here are the five types of speakers I experienced during my four years there.

1. The Serious Guy
The Serious Guy knows that most of the audience is there because they need a convo credit and they’re thinking about some class assignment or getting out for lunch. But he doesn’t care. This is chapel! And regardless of your motivation for being there, he is going to bring some Biblical thunder. His favorite move is calling out people in the audience that are reading the school paper while he’s talking.

2. The “How Am I Getting Convo Credit for this Dude?” Dude.
I hate to end a sentence with a double “dude” but this speaker required it. Every now and then, your college will just throw out some crazy speaker that completely leaves you scratching your head as to how he or she was even allowed on campus never mind given access to an audience. My favorite example of this was the night Samford hosted an alien enthusiast. The place was packed, as we all sat in pews and watched him show slides and evidence of extraterrestrials from outer space. I kept waiting for someone to jump up on stage and say, “Just kidding! You’re not getting convo credit for this, suckers!” But it never happened.

3. The Theater Troupe
Every college, Christian or not, has at least one theater troupe comprised of students that take themselves very, very seriously. If they’re any good, and ours was, you’ll get to see someone pretend to walk down the imaginary stairs behind the pulpit in the middle of the chapel and some sort of skit that challenges your faith. If they’re not any good, there’s going to be some ribbon dancing involved and perhaps a reenactment of a scene from the television show “Touched by an Angel.”

4. The Would Be Minister
Easily my favorite type of convo speaker. At any given time at a Christian college, 82% percent of the student body is being called into the ministry. And a great way to confirm that calling is to give the mic to “The Would Be Minister” during a convo. Although they tended to be a little sweatier and more nervous than the “Serious Guy,” they always seemed honest to me. Even though I day dreamed through most of the convos I attended in college, I will never forget the guy that spoke about being afflicted with a freak facial paralysis during his junior year. It eventually went away, but his rawness and honesty in sharing how that made him feel on campus and where God was in that experience stuck with me.

5. The Kind of Famous Guy
Sometimes, whoever books the convo speaker, hits a minor celebrity home run. I’m not sure if there is a pool of Kind of Famous Guys that wait around for phone calls from colleges or if you have to know somebody that knows somebody. It’s probably a mix of both, but the “Kind of Famous Guy” I remember hearing speak at a convo was Ralph Nader. I don’t recall anything he said except that hot dogs were bad. They have like rat heads or chemicals or rat head chemicals in them. Something like that.

I don’t know if your school was different and the chaplain did most of your chapels. I’m also not sure if Samford is still running their convos the same way. If they are, I hope they’ll give me a call sometime. I’d definitely be a “How Am I Getting Convo Credit for this Dude? Dude,” but as you can imagine, there would be Skittles involved.