Dordt Chapel

What do you do with your ordinary, everyday life as you go out into the world? In this chapel service, President Hoekstra charges graduating seniors to take what they've learned - both in academics and in Scripture - and carry it into their daily walk, so that others may be drawn to Jesus through the way we live out our faith.

The Song of Songs does show us a perfect romance, but also longing, absence, and pain. In this message, we explore how love exposes us to vulnerability, disappointment, and even wounding, yet also deepens through trust, friendship, and endurance. Ultimately, the Song points beyond human love to a greater love, the love of Christ, who enters our pain, overcomes death, and proves that love is strong...

The Song of Songs reveals that love is powerful , beautiful, and not to be taken lightly. In this message, we explore why Scripture warns us not to awaken love before its time, how love creates deep vulnerability, and why it must be protected within covenant. In a culture shaped by pressure and confusion around relationships, we are invited into a vision of love that is both passionate and faithfu...

The Song of Songs invites us to see the world through the eyes of love. In this message, we explore how love changes the way we see others, not as objects to use, but as persons of infinite worth, and how it awakens a vision of the world as full of beauty, life, and possibility. Yet human love, as good as it is, cannot ultimately satisfy our deepest longing. The message points us to a greater love...

Ecclesiastes 12 brings Qoheleth’s hard wisdom to its final conclusion: remember your Creator before the days grow dark and your strength fail. In this Holy Week message, we reflect on what is means to face death honestly, to remember our finitude and accountability before God, and to recognize that only the Creator can make something truly new. The questions of this book point us to God’s answer i...

Ecclesiastes 11 reminds us of a simple but unsettling truth: we do not know what the future holds. And yet, the Teacher calls us to boldness. In this message, we explore what it means to live faithfully in the face of uncertainty, to rejoice in God's gifts, to release the burden of control, and to remember that our lives are held by the God who judges and redeems. Because of Jesus Christ, we c...

Ecclesiastes 6 confronts one of life’s most unsettling questions: What is the point? Wealth, success, long life, and even family cannot ultimately satisfy if we cannot truly enjoy them, because every life still ends in death. This message explores the wisdom of contentment in a finite life, learning to receive God’s gifts with gratitude while trusting the God who Sees our lives from beginning to e...

Ecclesiastes 3 reminds us that we are creatures of time, living in seasons we do not choose and rhythms we did not write. There is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to weep and a time to laugh. In this message, we explore what it means to receive life's limits as a gift, to recognize beauty in its season, and to acknowledge the longing for eternity that God has placed in our hearts....

Ecclesiastes begins with a startling diagnosis: life “under the sun” can feel like smoke: fleeting, frustrating, and impossible to hold. In this Ash Wednesday message, we explore the way this book punctures our illusions about control, success, and satisfaction. Yet Ecclesiastes also invites us to look beyond the smokiness of life to the truth about our fragility, and we hold fast to the deeper ho...

Psalm 150 brings the book of Psalms to a climactic close with a call for every living thing to praise the Lord. The message explores why singing and praise are central to the Christian life, not because God needs our praise, but because we need to be reoriented toward Him. As praise lifts our eyes beyond ourselves, we discover again the good news of Jesus Christ, who frees us to join the song alre...

Today we continue our Psalms series, Songs from the Struggle. In this service, we are joined by songwriter and storyteller Andrew Peterson, who will help shed light on our theme through both wisdom and music. 

Psalm 126 is a song for people who remember joy but are living in the middle of tears. It invites us into a costly hope, the kind that keeps planting seeds even when the future feels uncertain. In this message, we explore what it means to trust God's long faithfulness, to sow in faith when we cannot yet see the harvest, and to believe that the God who has brought restoration before will do so...

Psalm 103 calls us to bless the Lord with all that isa within us. In a world shaped by divided attention and partial devotion, this psalm invites us into a fuller, deeper way of life with God. This message explores how remembering God’s benefits, trusting God’s character, and receiving God’s grace in Christ draws our whole selves into Praise.

What do we do with the weight of time, loss, and uncertainty? Psalm 90 is a prayer written for moments when life feels fragile and overwhelming. In this message, we reflect on how God meets us in our grief and invites us to entrust "all our days" to His steadfast love. Through Scripture, lament, and the hope of Christ, we are reminded that even in our weakness, God is our dwelling place.

Psalm 84 is a song of longing: longing for home, for God's presence, and for the household where even the sparrow finds a place to rest. This message explores what it means to belong to God's people, even when the church feels disappointing. During Advent we remember that the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, calling us into a home that cannot be shaken.

Why do the wicked prosper while the faithful suffer? Psalm 73 begins with envy and ends with worship. This message explores what to do when God doesn’t meet our expectations, and how worship reshapes disappointment into trust. When every plan fails, we discover that God Himself is enough.

What is blessing for? Psalm 67 shows us that God blesses his people not as a reward, but as a gift meant to flow outward in praise and service to the nations. This message explores the dangers of blessing without gratitude, the call to global mission, and the grace that makes blessing possible. In Christ, God’s mercy flows as far as the curse is found.

This week, Dordt University’s Chief of Staff, Aaron Bart, continues this semester’s chapel series, “The Way of Wisdom” with a message on Psalm 51. 

What do we do when our souls feel cast down and God feels distant? In Psalm 42, the psalmist describes both thirsting for God and drowning in sorrow, feeling underfed and overwhelmed at once. This message explores what Christians have called “spiritual depression,” and how we can learn to talk about the struggle, talk to God and ourselves, and hear God talk back. However deep our struggle, Christ’...

Deliverance leads to devotion. God does not love us because we are good, but because He is. And yet, experiencing God’s goodness leads us to participate in it. In Psalm 34, David sings from a cave after pretending to be insane, not from a place of strength but from a place of survival. Still, he declares, “Taste and see that the Lord is good,” and we can join him in tasting and trusting, in seeing...

In a world that is not altogether safe, God is near: he goes before us to lead, walks beside us through the valley, and chases behind us with goodness and mercy. In Jesus, the Good Shepherd who laid down his life and rose, we learn to trade control for trust and rest in a love that does no fail. Psalm 23 is not sentimental; it’s sturdy.

When God feels absent and the wait feels endless, Psalm 13 trains us to move from protest to petition to praise. We name our “how long,” ask for the light in the dark, and choose trust before we see the answer. Through Jesus, who entered the long silence of Saturday and rose on Sunday, our waiting is filled with hope.

As we start a new series, “Songs from the Struggle,” we see how worship reorients us when we feel overwhelmed. When the “many” voices and fears pile up, Psalm 3 shows how God is the glory who outweighs them all. In Jesus - the greater Son of David who lay down in death and rose - this prayer becomes a promise, helping us to rise and rest. 

Where can wisdom be found? Proverbs 30 answers: in humble, loving attention to the created world and creative humans, to eagles and ships, ants and lizards, and ultimately to Jesus Christ. Attention becomes worship; study becomes prayer; and small, daily noticing leads to the One who made it all. 

This week Dr. Kyle Dieleman reminds us that wisdom is more than following rules—it’s about living in a way that loves God and loves our neighbors. True wisdom is found in Jesus, whose life and Spirit guide us to embody love, justice, and mercy in community.