Martin Luther King Jr. Day Chapel

A powerful service in Vos Chapel on January 17, the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day, had both an historical context and a personal plea.

Peter DeBoer, Kuyper’s Senior Development Representative, began the gathering by asking attendees to consider the circumstances that led Dr. King to begin his work in the Civil Rights movement. He noted some of the many types of legalized discrimination Black Americans suffered, as well as different approaches to Black liberation that emerged.

With this history in mind, attendees then watched a video of the speech Dr. King gave at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, his well-known “I Have a Dream” oration.

In that famous speech, DeBoer noted that Dr. King called for civil and economic rights for Black Americans and an end to racism in the United States. 

King was clear in his intent, saying: “Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.”

Following the video, Al Moss, Kuyper’s Director of Student Development and Faith Formation, spoke to the gathering about his experience growing up as a young Black man in Southfield, Michigan. He told the story of sharing the Gospel with a former baseball coach – a man who had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan. 

He shared his hope that his example had helped change the man’s heart, saying: “Like with faith, we might not get to see the immediate fruits of our labor, but we have to continue to fight.”

Moss closed the chapel service by leading the attendees in a prayer originally composed by Dr. King, urging them to look for ways to keep Dr. King’s dream of racial justice alive.

The Kuyper College community gathers in the Vos Chapel twice weekly to hear God’s word taught, to sing together of His faithfulness and to pray together.