Spreading Faith: Tonight’s student-led district-wide worship night aims to unite the community

High school student leaders from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes — the world’s largest non-denominational Christian sports ministry, according to the FCA website — are hosting a district-wide worship night tonight, Feb. 23, from 6:45 to 8:15 p.m. in the SM West choir room.

The event is entirely student-led, organized by SM East FCA student leaders, juniors Christian Tippie and Jacob Lien, along with junior Alayna Danbury and senior Felipe Pulgarin. Around 15 other FCA student leaders from across the district also helped plan the event.

“When people see that there are so many others who believe in Jesus, it's really cool,” Tippie said. “[The worship night] promotes community. I get to make friends with someone from SM South, SM West, SM Northwest — it’s just singing together, praising God together.”

During the 90-minute worship service, testimonies — life stories of how Jesus saved them — will be shared. Danbury, Pulgarin and about six other students from other high schools will play and sing worship music.

Tippie and Danbury will also help lead a 30-minute lesson, or “message,” alongside two other students. The lesson will cover life before Christ, how Christ died on the cross and forgives sin and living in response to Christ’s love.

“Our message [centers around] the whole idea of ‘lukewarm,’” Danbury said. “Lukewarm is [when] you know about Christianity, but you don't directly follow it. Our theme is to get out of that. We want people to really know and understand what Christianity is and how to follow it out and live it in our day-to-day lives.”

The night will end with a “call to the altar,” where Tippie and other leaders will stand to the side of the choir room to answer questions and offer prayers. Tippie hopes for 200 to 300 attendees in total, as anyone interested in the worship night is welcome.

Tippie drew inspiration from a Mill Valley FCA worship night held last year. After he and Danbury attended, Tippie contacted Mill Valley FCA student leaders for tips on organizing their own event.

Tippie believed it was time to bring a worship event back to SMSD, as it had been five years since the district had held a “worship anything.” The last event was SM West’s Fields of Faith, which only involved SM West rather than all five high schools.

Connecting students in faith continues through SM East’s FCA. Lien and Tippie meet with members of the 40-person SM East FCA GroupMe every Thursday at 7:50 a.m. in the weights room to discuss who Jesus is and read gospels — accounts of what Jesus said.

Tippie and Danbury run another faith-based club, Club of Christ. While both clubs center around Christianity, Club of Christ, according to Tippie, takes a more in-depth approach, focusing on longer Bible passages. Unlike Club of Christ, which meets after school, FCA gatherings are held in the morning so that student-athletes can participate before their afternoon practices and games.

Both clubs have been working together — and with other district FCA student leaders — on advertising the event through posts on their respective Instagram pages. The group also held worship night planning meetings at restaurants like Strang Hall and Mi Ranchito.

“It's definitely been cool to have someone who shares your faith, and it's really nice that it's not necessarily something that you have to do alone,” Lien said. “There are people to bounce ideas off of and plan what we're going to read.”

Pulgarin, who moved to Kansas from Chicago a month ago, hopes to bond with students from the district at the worship night.

“I want to know a million people,” Pulgarin said. “I love knowing people. I love knowing people so I can help them in the future, and just open doors for them.”

He stresses that the most meaningful aspect of the event is creating a judgment-free space for everyone.

“I don't want anyone to judge anyone at all who's there because there are people who worship differently,” Pulgarin said. “People are quiet, people sit down, people raise their hands, people sing. Even if they can't sing, it doesn't matter. It's still worship, and it's still angelic to the Lord.”