ACU Today Winter/Spring 2017

Alumni magazine for Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas

Some traditions at Abilene Christian University begin quite intentionally but others have inauspicious roots. The Candlelight Devotional at ACU is a little of both, and this fall celebrates its 25th anniversary on the Hill.
Devotionals – devo for short – are no strangers to our landscape. A Tuesday night one for decades was held on the steps of the Hardin Administration Building. But candles were not introduced until Amy (Nichols ’92) Boone and Chris Seidman (’92) were tasked in 1991 with the spiritual life component to Welcome Week (now known as Wildcat Week), the multi-day event introducing freshmen to ACU each August.
Boone recounts the backstory of their adventure in the Second Glance essay of our new Winter-Spring 2017 issue (click on the reader above).

Candle-lit devotionals like it have since been started at Homecoming for alumni to enjoy. Tonight, a “send-off” version for graduating seniors takes place at 8:30 p.m. in the same Beauchamp Amphitheatre where Boone and Seidman’s idea first bloomed into what has since become a signature experience for tens of thousands of students.
Members of the Golden Anniversary Reunion Class of 1967 are in town this week and will be invited to participate. Other faculty, staff and alumni also are welcome to help send off another class of Wildcats into the next stage of their lives with a worshipful blessing.
As it did when they were freshmen a few short years ago, a small candle lights the way.