Growing Deep: The Eternal Friendships Being Forged Under the Castle Steeple

Chairs turned inward. Bibles open. A group of students huddled close, not for a casual study break in chapel, but because something is happening in the pages in front of them. Their heads are bowed over Scripture, their hearts reaching upward, inward, and outward simultaneously. Upward toward the God whose Word they're reading, inward to the grounding they’re resting in, and outward to the souls sitting in the circle with them.

Zach Nersten calls out a passage. "Turn to Malachi 3:6." A group of girls flip the pages of their Bibles. They're all there. Eyes scanning the text. And then, you can see it in their eyes. One of the girls reads something. She looks up. Her gaze moves across the circle to the friend sitting opposite her, and in that glance, something shifts. The silent question passes between them like electricity.

These aren't casual study buddies. These are eternal friendships, forged through intentional time of seeking God together. It happened again today, as students gathered in chapel for a message on "Abiding in Christ," led by Athletic and Activities Director Zach Nersten. But this wasn't a performance through a kind of motivational speech that lands and fades by the time the second bell rings in the next class period. This was an invitation to something that will shape the rest of their lives: the formation of a generation that knows how to stay, how to go deep, and how to build unbreakable bonds with others while building an unshakeable foundation with Christ.

Let's be honest: the world is teaching kids to move fast. Chase the next grade and land the next achievement. Scroll to the next thing. Rinse and repeat. Hillcrest is teaching something completely different, something that cuts against every cultural current: Stay put. Go deep. Build your life on something immovable.

Zach Nersten unpacked the Greek word menō (μένω) with students, and it's worth understanding why this matters. The word doesn't mean passive sitting. It means to stay put, to remain, to continue, to hope. It's the language of commitment. Of showing up. Of refusing to abandon something when it gets difficult. The students heard the teaching, but they found it deeper as they flipped pages in their Bibles together.

One statement from Nersten at the front of the room cut through all the noise: "If you want to grow, you have to stay put. You have to remain connected to the Vine because He is the source of life." Students heard that. And then they discussed it. With their peers holding an actual Bible. This is not theoretical Christianity. This is lived faith that is growing rooted deeper in Christ.

The chapel didn't stop with pretty theology. Nersten pressed deeper, walking students through Malachi 3:6-15, a passage most students haven’t read, and likely many adults avoid. Why? Because it's uncomfortable.

God asks through Malachi: "How have we robbed you? How have we spoken against you?" These aren't rhetorical questions that waft in the ether; they're an indictment. And Hillcrest's students faced them directly. No softening, self-help repackaging. Just the hard truth: shallow faith robs God and robs ourselves.

Zach Nersten pushed students to understand something that's increasingly rare: real growth requires staying put. It requires community. It requires wrestling with hard Scripture together. It requires turning your chairs inward, lifting your eyes from the pages, and seeing the face of a friend who's asking the same questions you are. It requires building bonds so deep and so rooted in God's Word that they will sustain you through every season of life.

The conversations happening under the Castle steeple right now aren't just about understanding Malachi or John 15. They're about forging the kinds of friendships that make it possible to follow Christ when it gets hard. They're about building a network of believers who know your child's heart because they've studied God's heart together. For students at Hillcrest, this time in Scripture in the shadow of the steeple felt normal and important. It’s chapel at the Castle, and it’s the work God is doing in our halls today, and will continue throughout the school year.