Empowering Connection: to Christ, Community, and Creation
“Abide in me as I abide in you… I am the vine; you are the branches.”
— John 15:4-5
In the 2026–27 academic year, we gather under the theme Empowering Connection: To Christ, Community, and Creation.
Last year, our chapel community gathered under the theme Expect God. Together, we were invited to expect God to form, teach, unite, surprise, and do more than we could ask or imagine. This year, we build on that foundation by asking:
How is God empowering us to abide in Christ, deepen our life together, and bear fruit for the sake of the world God loves?
Our expectation of God is not distant or abstract. It grows from connection to God. In John 15, Jesus teaches that fruitful life begins with abiding: branches bear fruit because they remain connected to the vine. In the same way, chapel invites us to remain rooted in Christ, connected to one another, and attentive to the creation God loves.
At ADC, chapel is where we gather to worship Christ, listen for God’s call, deepen community, and be sent into the world God is renewing.
Abide. Belong. Bear Fruit.
Dean of Chapel
Rev. Dr. Mark Andrew Jefferson
If you would like the link to join Chapel online, email communications@acadiadiv.ca
2026–27 Chapel Journey
Our Chapel program reflects the four pillars of ADC’s strategic vision.
Fall 2026: Abiding in Christ and Community
In the fall semester, chapel will focus on worship, belonging, calling, Scripture, theological imagination, and ministry formation. Services will highlight prayer, student leadership, faculty teaching, stories of vocation, and the practices that form us for faithful ministry.
Together, we will ask:
How is God forming us as a community rooted in Christ and called to bear fruit together?
Winter 2027: Bearing Fruit for Community and Creation
In the winter semester, chapel will turn toward renewal, discernment, justice, public witness, intercultural community, and faithful futures. We will hear diverse voices, engage creative worship, strengthen connection with churches and community partners, and explore how God calls us to participate in the healing, care, and renewal of the world.
Together, we will ask:
What fruit is God calling us to bear for the church, our communities, and creation?
Chapel as a Formation Commons
Chapel is where the whole ADC community becomes visible.
Students do not only attend; they read Scripture, pray, preach, testify, welcome, and lead. Faculty do not only teach in the classroom; they connect scholarship, worship, and spiritual formation. Staff help create hospitality and belonging. Alumni, churches, and community partners join us in worship, prayer, testimony, and mission. Online participants are not an afterthought; they are welcomed as part of the worshipping community.
Chapel is ADC’s Formation Commons — a shared space where worship, learning, prayer, community, and mission come together.
As a Formation Commons, chapel connects us to:
- Christ, through worship, Scripture, prayer, preaching, and the presence of the Spirit;
- Community, through shared leadership, hospitality, testimony, conversation, and common life;
- Creation, through gratitude, justice, stewardship, lament, hope, and care for the world God loves.
In the language of John 15, chapel helps us practice abiding so that our common life may become fruitful.
What’s New for 2026-2027
As chapel grows, we are strengthening several practices that help our community become more deeply connected.
Students will be invited more intentionally into chapel leadership through Scripture reading, prayer, testimony, hospitality, worship leadership, and preaching. Chapel is a place where students practice ministry in community.
Selected chapel services will include opportunities for continued conversation during Community Lunch. Chapel Afterword invites students, faculty, staff, and guests to reflect together on what God may be saying to our community.
Chapel will continue to be available online. This year, we are strengthening digital hospitality so that online students, alumni, churches, and friends of ADC can participate more fully through prayer prompts, follow-up reflection, recordings, and connection opportunities.
Chapel will continue to welcome pastors, denominational leaders, community advocates, alumni, guest scholars, and ministry partners. These voices help us remember that theological education is not isolated from the life of the church and the world. Chapel is one place where ADC’s classrooms, churches, communities, and partners meet in worship.
Our connection to creation reminds us that worship sends us into the world God loves. Through prayer, preaching, testimony, and public witness, chapel will help us attend to creation, community, justice, stewardship, and hope as part of faithful Christian formation.
Empowering connection also prepares us for faithful innovation. As we abide in Christ and strengthen our life together, we become better prepared to respond faithfully to change, technology, cultural disruption, public witness, and the future of the church.
Join Us
Wherever you are on your journey, you are welcome in Chapel.
Whether you join us in person in the Sarah Daley Nickerson Chapel or participate online, we invite you to gather with us as we worship, learn, pray, and grow together.
This year, let’s practice Empowering Connection. Abiding in Christ, deepening our life together, and bearing fruit for the sake of the world God loves.
If you would like the link to join us online, please email communications@acadiadiv.ca.
Fall 2026 Chapel Dates
Start Time: 11:30 am, followed by Community Lunch at 12:30pm
Location: Sarah Daley Nickerson Chapel | Online via Zoom
Date |
Speaker |
Topic |
| September 16 | Rev. Dr. Anna Robbins | President, Acadia Divinity College | Memes, Mobs, and the Messiah |
| September 23 | Rev. Dr. Mark Jefferson | Associate Professor in the John Gladstone Chair of Preaching and WorshipDean of Sarah Daley Nickerson Chapel | The Pain of Fruitfulness |
| September 30 | National Day for Truth & Reconciliation | |
| October 7 | Rev. Dr. Mark Jefferson | Associate Professor in the John Gladstone Chair of Preaching and WorshipDean of Sarah Daley Nickerson Chapel | The Power of Partial Sight |
| October 14 | Reading Week | |
| October 21 | Dr. Lisa Marie Bowens | Associate Professor of New Testament, Princeton Theological Seminary | 2026 Hayward Lecturer | |
| October 28 | ||
| November 4 | ||
| November 11 | Remembrance Day | |
| November 18 | ||
| November 25 | ||
| December 2 | ||
| December 9 |