The NAVSTA Everett Chaplain’s Department has recently overhauled its Christian Praise Service to offer a more contemporary church for all Sailors to worship in.

The modifications, which include contemporary praise songs, a service open to all members of the Armed Forces and non-denominational worship, were started after Aviation Electrician’s Mate Third Class Joshua Mauk, an assistantant in the Chaplain’s office, came to the chaplains and offered his talents to enhance Everett’s worship service.

“We needed a new service to appeal to the younger crowd of Sailors,” said Mauk. “They’ve got a great service at boot camp that’s modernized and not very traditional. But Sailors coming out of boot camp are encountering these very old traditional services on bases and ships, which turns them away from church.”

Command chaplain, Lt. Cmdr. John Hakanson, had been considering making Everett’s service more contemporary for months. He saw his oppurtunity when Mauk approached the chaplain with his ideas to draw more Sailors to worship, an idea he had received from the contemporary civilian church he attends on Sundays

“I came to him with the offering of my talent and my services,” said Mauk. “He decided to take it and run with it and we’ve changed just about everything about the service for the better I think,” said Mauk.

Mauk, who received a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal for leading Protestant worship three times a week during USS Abraham Lincoln’s historic 2002-2003 10-month West Pac deployment and extension, is no stranger to worship services and touts Everett’s new format as a “fresh spin on an old idea.” Mauk himself is featured in the service performing a blend of many different styles of praise music on his guitar.

“We’ve got rock and roll sounding songs, blues and even R&B,” said Mauk. “This more modern worship and more modern sounding music appeals to a younger generation of Sailors.

“We’d like to try and recruit more musicians because right now it’s just me on guitar. We need drummers, keyboardists and other guitarists. We’d like to expand it further and make it even more accessible to all people,” said Mauk.

The attendance records show that changes in the church format have already increased the popularity of the chaplain’s service. The congregation has doubled in size since the new contemporary service made its debut three weeks ago.

Hakanson said that Everett’s new service is modeled after the NRTC Great Lakes worship service. It’s now a Sailor-led praise and worship oriented service with more participation than before.

Servicemembers from every branch are now welcome to attend Everett’s Christian Praise Service, said Hakanson. This is the second such service for Hakanson. He organized and ran a similar one as the senior protestant chaplain at Naval Station Roosevelt Roads that was extremely well attended by Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen.

“We sit here in Everett and we think of ourselves as a Navy town,” said Hakanson. “But the fact remains that we have Army Reserve, National Guard and people from all services that have come back from active duty, living right here in this area. We’re the magnet for religious servicemembers because of the concerns that are unique to military members within the Christian faith.

“This is an effort to reach out to them on behalf of the chaplains,” said Hakanson.

The Chaplain’s Office isn’t stopping with their efforts to appeal to a larger crowd. Coming soon, Hakanson and Mauk will be appearing on 105.3 Spirit FM’s morning show to advertise Everett’s revamped Christian Praise Service and request musicians in the area to audition their musical talents for the Everett service.

The Waterfront Chapel at NAVSTA Everett will begin its service at 9:30 a.m. with transportation provided to and from the Ships. The Smokey Point Chapel service will begin at 11:15 a.m. with transportation provided from NAVSTA Everett, Building 1985. Hakanson and Lt. Timothy Loney, Chaplains of NAVSTA Everett will lead both services. For more details, contact the Chaplain’s Office at (425) 304-3342.