{"id":8382,"date":"2025-04-21T01:07:34","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T06:07:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/?p=8382"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:11:31","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T06:11:31","slug":"folk-of-noke-chaplain-chris-bowen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/?p=8382","title":{"rendered":"Folk of \u2018Noke: Chaplain Chris Bowen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Chris Bowen has earned many names and titles since he joined Roanoke College 12 years ago to serve officially as Dean of the Chapel.\u00a0 He is also known as Chaplain Chris, Reverend Bowen, or simply Chap when he\u2019s called affectionately by many students.\u00a0 Since joining the staff in the summer of 2013, Bowen has overseen all spiritual life on campus, culminating each year in his hosting Baccalaureate for our graduates.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s an interfaith service of blessing that I\u2019m very proud of.\u00a0 I always enjoy the opportunity to share a message with the senior class.\u00a0 It’s turned into an opportunity to bring fictional characters to life over the course of the last couple of years.\u00a0 Like last year, bringing Ted Lasso to life was a particularly fun memory.\u00a0 The Baccalaureate is always the Friday evening before graduation, so this year it\u2019ll be on May 2 at 4:30 pm in the Cregger Center basketball arena.\u00a0 There will also be live music, the choir, and student religious group leaders sharing a blessing for our seniors.\u00a0 We will also remember a student who started with the class of \u201825 but passed away, Colin Newby.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cThe unique relationship with alumni was not something that I understood very well as I became a Chaplain for the first time in 2013.\u00a0 Most of the job, you think about working with students who are here while they’re students, but the ability to continue to stay connected with our alumni is one of the things that I really treasure.\u00a0 The longer I’ve been here, the more opportunities I’ve had to be a part of important life events of alumni.\u00a0 I absolutely treasure those connections.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Chaplain Chris likes to relax with Legos and has enjoyed building them since he was a child.\u00a0 He enjoyed showing the Lego X Wing Fighter in his office along with other Star Wars memorabilia.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cSalem, Virginia, is the longest I\u2019ve lived anywhere in my life, so it\u2019s a pretty special place.\u201d\u00a0 Born in Rock Springs, Wyoming, Bowen spent his early years all over the Upper Midwest and went to middle and high school in Raleigh, North Carolina.\u00a0 He attended Roanoke College\u2019s sister school in Hickory, North Carolina, right off Interstate 40, called Lenoir-Rhyne.\u00a0 Chaplain Bowen then went to graduate school at NC State, where he pursued a PhD in genetics, and even got published with a clear route to becoming a professor.\u00a0 His two years at NC State came to an end when something changed.\u00a0 \u201cThe call to ministry just got super strong for me, so I resigned my position in the genetics department and stepped away from my PhD work and moved on to go to seminary.\u00a0 While I was in seminary, I got to do a full year of internship in Massachusetts, so I got to live there and experience New England life and culture for a year.\u00a0 After seminary, I was assigned to serve a congregation in northern Wisconsin, where I lived before coming here.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cI have a lot of experience [with speeches], unfortunately, and that’s actually one of the great ironies.\u00a0 When I was in college, public speaking was the thing that I struggled with the most, especially with the nerves and the anxiety of speaking in front of a group of people.\u00a0 It’s probably one of the things that, at first, kept me from even considering going into Christian ministry: the thought that I’m going to have to talk in front of people at least once a week.\u00a0 So that’s something I’ve had to work really hard on.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Talking about the origin of Theology On Tap, Chaplain Chris said, \u201cThere was a small group of students when I arrived in 2013 who were meeting, most of them majoring in the religion and philosophy department, and they were curious of how they could get more people involved in what they were experiencing: this small conversation, exploring topics and issues and questions that are really important for young adults.\u00a0 We decided early on, one of the ways we could do that is if we made it a little bit more inclusive, instead of making it one religious perspective, we’d allow for there to be multiple religious perspectives and worldviews.\u00a0 Then the conversation diversified and became so rich and rewarding that everybody appreciated the perspectives that were shared and that’s just grown.\u00a0 We\u2019ve found a way of evolving through the years and hopefully staying relevant and giving students a place to really think and learn.\u00a0 With the campus ministry, I also help organize R Daily Bread, one of the ways we stay connected to our Luther roots.\u00a0 Every Wednesday at 9 pm in the chapel, there’s a prayer and communion service.\u00a0 This year, my student staff and I kind of reimagined it.\u00a0 It was an opportunity to think about the bread of life and how bread is an important part of our daily living.\u00a0 So we’ve added fresh-baked bread and tea as part of how we share fellowship and get to talk with one another after the service.\u00a0 It’s been a delightful way of bringing some of the things that I learned from the [Pacific NorthWest] May Term, which I helped Dr Hartman with, back to campus.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cI absolutely want to thank my family for making this possible. My wife and kids were completely supportive and continue to be of my call to the college.\u00a0 I want to thank the Board of Trustees and the administration for trusting me to be the fourth person ever to be chaplain of Roanoke College, so it’s a huge honor.\u00a0 Also, both my current and first administrative supports, Toni and Kathy, respectively, they\u2019ve been a huge part of my experience here.\u00a0 And the countless faculty, staff, and student leaders whom I’ve worked alongside.\u00a0 Over the last 12 years, we\u2019ve had a really impressive array of students come, and we are always better for the students who come here.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Juniper Rogers<\/p>\n

Folks At Noke Editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Chris Bowen has earned many names and titles since he joined Roanoke College 12 years ago to serve officially as Dean of the Chapel.\u00a0 He is also known as Chaplain Chris, Reverend Bowen, or simply Chap when he\u2019s called affectionately by many students.\u00a0 Since joining the staff in the summer of 2013, Bowen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":8386,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-folks-at-noke"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/profile-pic.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}