Duke Chapel Annual Report | 2020–2021

Annual Report

Letter from the Dean

Dear Friends,

When the Chapel established “bridging faith and learning” as the defining motto for our work, we could not have known the distances we would bridge, the strength of faith we would need, nor the kinds of learning we would foster in the last year and a half. To borrow from my friend, the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor, we have learned to walk in the dark. As she puts it: “Learning to walk in the dark is an especially valuable skill in times like these— or maybe I should say remembering how to walk in the dark since people of faith have deep pockets of wisdom about how to live through long nights in the wilderness.”

—Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark

The past year has taught us to remember, and, yes, to reach into deep pockets of wisdom.

At the Chapel, we know the deep wisdom of worship. All our major services of worship continued over the last year. While we relied on a robust archive of Evensong and Vespers recordings to carry us through, the Sunday morning and holiday services continued, at first with an entirely empty sanctuary, and then with limited attendance. We prayed, sang, preached, and gave thanks for the mystery of God’s love even as we welcomed an international online audience into our sanctuary through the wonders of technology. We found new meaning in the saying of Jesus: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” (Matthew 18:20). I hope that you learned with us as we gathered in this virtual space. I am deeply grateful to Rev. Dr. Carol Gregg and the Congregation at Duke Chapel for the ways in which they extended Sunday morning worship into ongoing community life through online pastoral care initiatives and virtual formation classes. In the entire pandemic, there was only one Sunday when our traditional Sunday education program was not offered to this community. We also found the deep wisdom of music. Dr. Zebulon Highben, our director of Chapel Music, and the Chapel Music team, Christopher Jacobson, Dr. Philip Cave, Lauren Scarborough, Joseph Fala, W. Paul Bumbalough, and Tom Gurin helped us realize anew the power of music to comfort and console. Our live-streamed Messiah, virtual organ recitals, and Zoom recordings of anthems and hymns for worship kept us singing, listening, and resting in the power of our longstanding traditions of music.

I want to acknowledge two more pockets of wisdom discovered under the leadership of Rev. Bruce Puckett and the ministry team. Our work in the community continued to bring knowledge, resources, and service into the difficulties faced by our friends in Durham. The PathWays Fellows spent a year serving this community with masks on while also learning how to discern the call of God in their lives. And of course, the wisdom of students. In each of our conversations with Duke’s students, we found inspiration in their resilience and grace in our efforts to support them.

This may be the great lesson of these difficult times: when we remember one another, connect across distances, listen to one another, and share our own stories, we find deep pockets of wisdom. Perhaps whenever we bridge faith and learning, we find and practice compassion, the very heart of the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ.

I know you join me in thanking everyone at Duke for their hard work in the last year, the Chapel staff for their tireless work, and everyone on our National Advisory Board, especially our outgoing leadership, Charlie Berardesco (T ’80, chair) and C.B. Richardson (T ’92, vice chair). Their commitment to the Chapel has been an inspiration to us all.

I am deeply grateful to each of you for the financial support you offered to the Chapel over the last academic year. Because of you, we face the future not only with hope, but with wisdom and compassion. Every day, we remember you. Thank you for remembering us.

Yours in hope,

The Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery, Dean of Duke University Chapel

Student Engagement

While the Chapel continued its online ministry to the broader community, students engaged in outdoor Bible studies, gatherings, and times of prayer offered by the chaplains of Religious Life at Duke in compliance with the Covid guidelines of Duke United. In Chapel worship, students assisted in the services by reading scriptures, leading prayers, and singing in the virtual choirs.

The tradition of the annual Student Preacher also continued in 2021 with Duke senior Tatayana Richardson (see photo at right). A Chapel Scholar and member of the campus Wesley Fellowship, Richardson looked down to her manuscript and then out to see Chapel Assistant Dean Rev. Bruce Puckett, Director of Religious Life Rev. Kathryn Lester-Bacon, and

Duke Wesley Pastor David Allen seated in the pews. While Richardson was a religious studies major who wrote a column for the Duke Chronicle about faith and current events during her time at Duke, these three ministers offered her guidance and coaching as she prepared for this moment.

For the next sixteen minutes, Richardson preached her sermon, Surrendering in the Chaos, to an online audience that reached 2,000 views within two weeks, in addition to those listening on the radio and watching on the Duke Hospital TV system. She concluded saying, “We may take to God all that pain, loose and unadulterated, … trusting that the One who shows us how to bear the burdens of this world, will also bear us through our own chaos. Amen.”

Connecting Creatively

Richardson’s sermon was just one way that Chapel ministers connected with students, during a time of significant isolation for many, to offer and receive a word of hope. Forty students

served in leadership roles in worship services, most of which were available only online. Two student Christian music groups offered recorded songs for Chapel services. Chapel ministers met regularly via Zoom with students for pastoral support and book study, including reading groups for this year’s Duke Chapel Reads book, Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman.

In a year like no other, the Chapel convened Religious Life leaders and empowered the Chapel ministry staff to employ new and innovative approaches to student engagement, rooted in faith and compassion.

Interfaith Understanding

Another group of students who explored

ABOVE: Students with the Duke Episcopal Center hold a worship service in front of the Chapel. Photo courtesy of the Duke Episcopal Center. LEFT: Students pray the Lord’s Prayer during a Duke Catholic Center Ash Wednesday service in the Science Drive parking garage. Photo courtesy of the Duke Catholic Center.

While this cohort couldn’t all live together on campus as they normally would, they did meet Rev. Lester-Bacon for interfaith conversation. In the fall, a member of the group, senior Renata Starostka, led her peers in a half-credit online house course on Religion Across Boundaries: Interfaith Living and Learning at Duke with guest speakers from Duke’s Department of Religion, Divinity School, and Student Affairs.

Serving the Entire Campus

Addressing the student body and campus community broadly, Chapel Dean Luke Powery wrote a biweekly column in the Chronicle on topics such as “The value of gratitude,” “Just be,” and “Tears of hope.” The columns received an estimated 2,000 views online in total in addition to their readership in the newspaper’s print editions.

The Chapel building itself was a sanctuary for students. Beginning in the fall semester, students could sign up online to spend time in the Chapel during available weekday hours. More than 220 students signed up for more than 300 time slots in the fall. With approval from university leaders, the program was expanded to Duke employees and later to the general public.

Raines, Duke senior, Chapel Scholar, and Chapel Choir member

THIS PAGE: Students from the Wesley Fellowship participate in a worship service next to the Chapel. LEFT: The Rev. Kathryn Lester-Bacon (left) with students handing out buttons outside the Chapel on the last day of classes. BOTTOM LEFT: Rabbi Elana Friedman (left) and students with Duke Jewish Life play music during a Shabbat service. Photo courtesy of Jewish Life at Duke.

“The people of Duke Chapel were there for me this semester and that was really important.”

—Andrew

Christian Worship

Working closely with university leadership on public health protocols, the Chapel took the hopeful and celebratory step on Pentecost Day (May 23, 2021) of holding a worship service with congregants in-person for the first time in more than a year. Children waved orange-and-red banners during the opening procession. Members of the Chapel’s choirs, masked and spread out, sang, “Spirit of holiness, on us descend!” from the hymn “Come, Thou Almighty King.” When he stepped into the pulpit to preach, Chapel Dean Luke Powery began by quoting from the Psalms, saying, “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Following the sermon, two children were baptized and three others confirmed in the faith.

After a long season of physical separation, the Chapel community was beginning to re-assemble.

Shepherding an Online Flock

Throughout most of the year, Sunday morning worship services were held entirely online and via broadcast on radio and TV. While weekly Vespers and Evensong services were suspended, Chapel ministers and musicians continued many of the special services, including All Hallows’ Eve, Ash Wednesday, Jazz Vespers, Christmas Eve (with two statewide broadcasts), and a new Service of Lament and Healing to mark the anniversary of the onset of the coronavirus. A new role of online minister emerged to respond to questions and prayer

requests on YouTube and Facebook. Graphics in the service livestream encouraged people to sing along and make the congregational responses from home.

People near and far responded. Online viewership of Sunday morning services approximately doubled. Eighteen people joined the Congregation at Duke Chapel, including two people who had never been inside the Chapel. For the Easter service, some people posted their locations in the chat section, including Antwerp, Belgium; Kilaro, Uganda; Porto Alegre, Brazil; and Toronto, Canada, as well as U. S. cities, such as Pittsburgh, Raleigh, and Salisbury. Some of their comments were:

“I appreciate seeing the wonderful Easter service. My father and mother met at Duke in 1956.” “Thanks to all who take part in this. What a blessing to be able to hear this quality of service three states away!” “Simply but powerfully proclaimed! Thanks be to God for the new life always out before us.”

A Resource for the Wider Church

Chapel worship services continued a long tradition of potent and faithful preaching that reaches beyond the Chapel’s pews to encourage and build up the wider church. To further extend that reach, in December 2020 the Chapel launched the Living Tradition online preaching

ABOVE: Dean Luke A. Powery preaches on Pentecost Sunday with congregants in the pews for the first time since the pandemic began. Photo by Joni Harris.

resource that explores the rich and deep tradition of preaching at the Chapel through the expertise of Duke Divinity School faculty, research by Duke students, and the reflections of renowned preachers. The site serves as an introduction to, and a pedagogical tool for, the Duke Chapel Recordings digital archive, hosted on the Duke Libraries website, which contains more than 3,000 videos, audio recordings and manuscripts of sermons given at Duke Chapel from 1946 to 2002. Living Tradition is being regularly updated with video interviews, student projects, and faculty commentary.

Beyond the Chapel’s services and programs, Dean Powery contributed to the scholarship of preaching through his teaching, publications, and public lectures. This year, he gave two major lectures: the 2020 Howard Thurman Lecture for Candler School of Theology and the

Ruben L. Speaks

Endowed Memorial Lecture Series for Hood Theological Seminary. He was a contributor to two new books Anchored in the Current: Discovering Howard Thurman as Educator, Activist, Guide, and Prophet (pictured here) and What’s Right with Preaching Today? The Enduring Influence of Fred B. Craddock. He also taught two courses at Duke Divinity School, Introduction to Christian Preaching and Deep River: Howard Thurman, Spirituality, and the Prophetic Life.

“The online preaching and worship leadership of Chapel ministers and staff during the past year witnessed to the Light, to a God who is steadfast and faithful, even while we endure a long, lonely, and dark period of waiting and distress. They kept the light on for us. And now, returning to Duke Chapel in person, I see that Light in every face in the congregation.”

—Deborah Hackney, member of the Congregation at Duke Chapel, senior director of academic programs and registrar at Duke Divinity School

ABOVE:

LEFT/BELOW:

Chapel Assistant Dean Rev. Bruce Puckett preaching during an online service.

A procession and baptism during the Pentecost Day worship service. Photos by Joni Harris.

Sacred Music & the Arts

The carillon bells in the Chapel tower rang out on January 19, 2021, as they usually do on weekdays; only this time, Chapel Carillonneur Joseph Fala (see photo at right) played an extended recital including beloved songs “Amazing Grace” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” The somber occasion was part of a national initiative to mark the loss of 400,000 Americans who had died from COVID-19. An online presentation of the recital received more than 4,500 views.

“The music selected for this memorial speaks to our collective grief, and the need to pause and remember,” Dr. Zebulon Highben, director of Chapel Music, said at the time. “It also testifies to the hope that perseveres, even through hardship.” The carillon would ring again in memorial one month later as the university

community mourned the death of longtime University Carillonneur J. Samuel Hammond.

Streaming Music of Hope

The steady sound of the carillon was celebrated in local and national news outlets, but

it was not the only way music from the Chapel spoke to people’s hearts during the pandemic. Working with university leaders and campus colleagues, Chapel Music presented a hybrid, live-streamed version of Handel’s Messiah. The online concert was viewed live by 2,400 people and watched another 13,000 times in the two weeks that followed. The Chapel Choir’s spring oratorio creatively wove together recordings of choral and organ music with poetry readings. Livestreams of recitals by Chapel Organist Christopher Jacobson and University Organist Dr. Robert Parkins were also popular, garnering more than 22,000 views across three concerts.

“Having lived in Durham, worked at Duke, and attended live recitals in Duke Chapel,” one viewer commented, “it is a balm in these

overwhelming times to be present in spirit and hear Bach so beautifully played on the Flentrop.”

The Chapel Choir became adept at meeting online for Wednesday evening rehearsals and creating “virtual anthem” recordings that were incorporated in online worship services. While virtual singing has its limits, the choir took advantage of the online format by adding thirty new members, including seventeen people who do not live in the Raleigh-Durham area but could participate remotely in the choir. A special hymn recorded for Easter Day incorporated more than eighty voices from the choir and wider Chapel community. In total, the Chapel Choir, Vespers Ensemble, Evensong Singers, and Staff Singers made video recordings of twenty-five songs, which received a combined 25,000+ views. The online

Chapel Music Director Zebulon Highben conducts the Chapel Choir and Amalgam Brass during a Sunday morning worship service.

format also lent itself to providing commentary. Two series from Chapel Music—“Sounds of Faith” and “Sacred on Saturday”—offered viewers background on, and insights into, selected pieces of sacred music played at the Chapel.

Equipping Choirs Worldwide

While continuing to make music week in and week out, Chapel Music also contributed to the wider body of sacred music. The Music from Duke Chapel series, which publishes a range of sacred music compositions in partnership with ECS Publishing Group/MorningStar Music, grew to seven pieces available for choirs to purchase and use. The works include original arrangements of “Words from Two Women” by Jane Marshall, the spiritual “I’ll Fly Away,” and the ancient hymn “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence.” In addition to publishing music, the Chapel is supporting choirs and musicians through a partnership with the Royal School of Church Music in America (RSCMA) that brings the organization’s administrative offices to Duke’s campus. This past summer RSCMA’s

—Harold Lloyd, L ’85, viewer of the

Messiah livestream

LEFT: A soloist rehearses for Handel’s Messiah.

national online course in sacred music featured a virtual hymn festival from the Chapel. At Duke, Dr. Highben taught a course in the Divinity School on the Role and Function of Music in Corporate Worship.

“I’ll remember this abbreviated COVID performance of Handel's Messiah as one of the high points in the history of Duke Chapel.”

2020

“Thank the Workers of the World” and “Life is Beautiful” yard signs at Duke Chapel. These are two of many works of public art that were part of the installation RESIST COVID / TAKE 6! by artist Carrie Mae Weems.

Expanding the Arts

The Chapel continued to enrich its offering in the arts beyond music. This year the Psalms in Dialogue initiative entered its second year. Adapting to the times, dancers, musicians, singers, and the visual artist Makoto Fujimura collaborated to offer videos of their arts for an online program in October. The presentation reflected on Psalms 22, 23, and 24, and included original translations of the psalms by Duke Divinity School Professor Ellen Davis.

The Chapel also participated in a campus- and community-wide public art initiative RESIST COVID / TAKE 6! by Duke Arts and Duke’s Nasher Museum of Art. The campaign featured designs and messages by artist Carrie Mae Weems that emphasized the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on the lives of communities

of color. The annual C. Eric Lincoln Theology and Arts Fellowship went this year to Divinity School student Kaiya Jennings, who presented a collection of photographic portraits of Black women pastors in Virginia.

On display in the Chapel as part of the exhibition On the Shoulders of Our Sisters! photos of Pastor Littycia Clay-Crawley of Richmond, Virginia (left), and Pastor Rose Curry of Lancaster, Virginia (below), by Samia Minnicks.

Community Engagement

Supporting Community Partners

During a time of organizational strain for many nonprofits, the Chapel continued to support its community partners by building relationships and offering financial support (see the insert booklet for a list of nonprofits that received donations collected by the Chapel).

The Chapel’s annual Humanitarian Service Award, which comes with a cash grant, went to two Durham community leaders in 2020: the Rev. Annette Currie Love, founder of the Faith Based Service Network ministry, and Susan McSwain, executive director of Reality Ministries.

Whenever there is a murder reported in Durham, the Chapel’s community partner Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham

typically seeks out family and community members to hold a vigil at the site of the murder. With restrictions on gathering this year that was not possible, so the group enlisted ministers and others in the community to record video clips of themselves holding vigil at the locations of the thirty-eight murders in the city during 2020. The result was a poignant video montage that included Chapel Assistant Dean Rev. Bruce Puckett and Chapel Community Minister Rev. Breana van Velzen. “We offer this Vigil Meditation as a way to (re)unite hearts, minds, and spirits against our collective violence, across all distance,” the group said.

ABOVE: Every year the Chapel collaborates with Duke Health to remember current and former faculty and staff members who died within the last year.

ABOVE: On Duke’s Wellness Day, Muslim chaplain Joshua Salaam (left) participated in one of many offerings across campus. BELOW: Online prayer requests were remembered in virtual weekly midday services and the Chapel ministry team prayed whenever they received a text request.

a grief-filled year, our Coalition's partnership with Duke Chapel helped unite separated neighbors in the poignant truth of who we are together. From the manifold sites of our communal violence to Durham's most iconic house of worship—across every painful distance between—we remain one in a Love that will not let any one of our neighbors go.”

—The Rev. Ben Haas, executive director of the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham

“During

PathWays Fellows

Four recent graduates spent the year as PathWays Fellows living together in Christian community and serving in Durham. Three of the fellows—Grace Feng, T ’20; Karissa Tu, T ’20; and Junette Yu, T ’20—served by coordinating support for people in quarantine with COVID-19 through a program in Duke’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. The fourth fellow, Lily Koning, T ’20, served refugees by working with World Relief Durham.

Learning Online

As in other areas of the Chapel, community engagement turned to online platforms to hold events. In the fall, Rev. van Velzen organized a biweekly online book study of The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race by the Rev. Dr. Willie Jennings. In the spring, the Chapel presented a series of four online workshops on “Leaning into Justice Together” in partnership with the Duke Center for Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation.

Jane Fellows, a member of the Congregation at Duke Chapel, gleans sweet potatoes with the Society of St. Andrew. Photo courtesy of the Congregation at Duke Chapel.

New Initiatives

During the year, the Chapel deepened its relationship with community partner DurhamCares, which runs the Durham Pilgrimage of Pain and Hope. The pilgrimage is a three-day guided journey in the city of Durham that includes sites important to the African American and Native American communities. Under a new arrangement, Chapel and Religious Life groups will schedule pilgrimages for students and staff members.

Another new initiative is an exploration of the stories of Black alumni from Duke and three other universities in North and South Carolina that have received funding from the Duke Endowment. For the project, called “Counting It All Joy!,” the Rev. Dr. Keith Daniel, a special programs instructor at Duke, will lead a research team in conducting interviews with Black alumni from the schools in order to compile edited narratives for publication in advance of Duke’s centennial commemorations in 2024.

The PathWays Fellows (left to right): Grace Feng, T ’20; Junette Yu, T ’20; Karissa Tu, T ’20; and Lily Koning, T ’20.

A new homeowner, Joann, celebrates her home built through Habitat for Humanity of Durham with sponsorship by the Chapel and other campus partners. Photo courtesy of Habitat for Humanity of Durham.

We give

THANKS

OFFICE OF THE DEAN

Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery Dean of Duke Chapel Ava West Assistant to the Dean

MINISTRY

Rev. Bruce Puckett Assistant Dean

Rev. Kathryn Lester-Bacon Director of Religious Life Rev. Breana van Velzen Community Minister

MUSIC

Dr. Zebulon Highben Director of Chapel Music

Dr. Philip Cave Associate Conductor for Chapel Music

Dr. Robert Parkins University Organist

Christopher Jacobson, FRCO Chapel Organist

John Santoianni

Ethel Sieck Carrabina Curator of Organs and Harpsichords

Lauren Scarborough Program Coordinator for Chapel Music

W. Paul Bumbalough Chapel Carillonneur

Joseph Fala Chapel Carillonneur

Tom Gurin Chapel Carillonneur

ADMINISTRATION

Amanda Millay Hughes

Director of Development and Strategy

Joni Harris Director of Business and Facilities

James Todd Communications Manager

Kevin Goldfarb Communications Specialist

Lisa Moore Accounting Specialist and Office Coordinator

Caroline Horton Staff Assistant for Development

HOSPITALITY

Mark King Hospitality Coordinator

David-Michael Kenney Wedding Coordinator and Visitor Relations Assistant Blanche Williams Wedding Director

Nancy Freeman Wedding Director Ann Hall Visitor Relations Assistant

Jane Kelly Visitor Relations Assistant

Keshia Perry Visitor Relations Assistant

Shawn Proffitt

Visitor Relations Assistant

Oscar Dantzler University Housekeeper

Beverly Jordan University Housekeeper

CHAPEL ADVISORY BOARD

Charles Berardesco, T ’80 Chair

C. B. Richardson III, T ’92 Vice Chair

Dr. Zoila Airall

Robin Barefoot

D. Michael Bennett, T ’77

John A. Bussian III, T ’76

Rev. Dr. Keith Daniel, T ’90, D ’05, D ’16

Dr. Ellen F. Davis

Thomas Felgner, T ’94, B ’95

Rev. Dr. Cathy S. Gilliard, D ’97 Elizabeth Grantland, T ’20 Zachary Heater, T ’17

Sara Elizabeth H. Jones, T ’89 Grace Lee, T ’79 and Kenneth Lee, T ’74 Jeffrey Nelson, D ’13

Dr. Thomas Walker Robinson, T ’00, G ’01, M ’09

Hananiel Setiawan, G ’24 Max Sirenko, T ’11

Valerie Sirenko, T ’11

Amanda Wright Smoot, WC ’63 Kathryn Lynn Watkins, T ’19

Dr. William E. King, T ’61, G ’63, G ’70 Emeritus Member

Chapel staff and National Advisory Board members during the 2020–2021 fiscal year. All photos taken by Chapel or University Communications, unless otherwise noted.

respond to God’s all-inclusive love at Duke, in Durham, and in the world. Rooted in the love of God in Jesus Christ, Duke Chapel bridges faith and learning by nurturing and embodying the intellectual, ethical, and spiritual life.