Practicing Resurrection at a Christian School

Several years ago our students learned and shared a song for our Christmas program that challenged the community to remember that Christmas is a 365-days-per-year holiday. Likewise, a Saviour not only born for us, but who freely gave his life for us is something that should definitively shape every day. Easter should not be a once-per-year experience limited to some special church services, a few days off, and a large family meal.

So what does it mean for a Christian school to practice resurrection daily? Chapel this morning challenged us to think on this and find ways to move the Easter Sunday “He is Risen” into all the rest of our days as we live in community and learn here at LCES.

We aim to take each day on as new gift. Being present in today is a challenge with the demands on
our time, our focus, and our money. Leaving the past to God’s mercy and the future to God’s discretion allows us to see God’s hand of guidance and blessing in all of our life.

We aim to work gratitude into a daily practice. Recognizing how much we have been given in opportunities and provision for daily life keeps away life-killing things like boredom, greed, jealousy and despair. We are very blessed, dearly loved, and held in the grip of love that knows no bounds.

We pay attention to the renewal of things around us. God sustain and renews His creation in ways
that show such care; spring is the ideal time for us to see that birds return, new life emerges from dead leaves and dormant plants spring back to life.

We give our imagination and creativity wide room to direct our efforts and energy. God made
an amazing world, not only in what we already see around us but in the potential that lies within creation which he asks us to explore. We see the renewal of creation and God’s coming Kingdom when we explore in this way.

We practice forgiveness and pursue healing in our relationships. When we do these things and
see the restoration and renewal they create, we better understand God’s renewal of us through Christ.

I appreciated these words of direction and challenge for our daily life. May God bless our staff and students as we live out the truth of the resurrection every day. SJ

Balancing Spring: Faithfulness in Planning

Snow was flying outside my office window earlier this morning, despite it being the first day of spring. I was at a local hardware store recently and witnessed a very cold truck driver unloading thousands of bags of cedar mulch. The windy day with sub-zero temperatures seemed to make the start up of the outdoor garden center a very optimistic concept. But to guarantee future readiness, preparation for the upcoming surge of purchased mulch, lawnmowers, grass seed, fertilizers, and much more began months ago as factories ramped up production and purchase orders were created in anticipation.

Bringing a new school year from concept to reality is much like that process. Not yet knowing everything about September of 2016, the LCES Board, administration, and Finance Committee have been working intensely on this process of creating a plan for continuing to offer quality, Christian education at LCES this fall.

At the core of these first conversations, budget and otherwise, that set the stage is how to respond to two questions: “What is the most accurate information we can gather to do the diligent work of making a sound plan?” and “Where, how much, and in what ways do we remain hopefully expectant that our faithful God will deliver and abundance of blessing that we can’t fathom from where we stand?”

To answer both calls – to be diligent in our work of planning and be faithful in our stance of trust –
places us in a very vulnerable and humble position as a community. We don’t want to come short on
either aspect; working with dedication and praying with trust becomes our task. Investing in our children’s future is always an exciting time for us because our present actions become linked with a much larger story, that of our children’s future. May God bless us with much wisdom to follow in faithfulness!

SJ

Tell Me a Story: Teaching Toward Wisdom at London Christian

“Knowledge and wisdom are sort of connected, but they are definitely not the same thing.”                          - LCES Grade seven student - 

I heard the above sentence from a student expressing his thoughts while I listened in on a literature lesson underway in grade seven last week. The class had just been reading from a collection of short stories in which characters face challenging situations that leave them with a decision to make. For this particular story, their response to the decision was the focus of a discussion as students wrestled with simply knowing something vs acting on it with wisdom. It was a pleasure to be in the room and hear the group build on fellow classmates’ first reactions and identification of decisions and their wisdom (or lack of wisdom) for characters they seemed to be able to connect with.

I am thankful for teachers who create and sustain a classroom environment that welcomes students to think in these ways. I am also thankful for curriculum that supports both the teacher and the learner well, in this particular case as organized by the Ontario Alliance of Christian Schools.

Here is a short excerpt for the teacher’s guide for the unit being studied that may help you get a sense of the perspective of valuing stories as a way of teaching wisdom:

Rationale: Why Teach Short Stories?

Enjoyment is an important aim for reading short stories. The short story writer’s prime motivation is to take one aspect of human or animal life and by crafting with the tools of the narrative (character, plot, setting, theme and point of view) invoke the emotions and intellect of the reader to laugh, to cry, to look up expectantly to God in the heavens, or to look sadly at the brokenness of our world.

Short stories can expand the mind’s horizon, since some short stories offer new insights as well as fresh ways of viewing things already known.

May the story of our children’s growth include the addition of much wisdom every day. SJ

Guides to move our school forward

It is a constant task of our school to be looking at what we do and how we do it, checking for purpose, relevance, value, and efficiency. One of the most frequently asked questions of people new to our school is how we stay up-to-date on matters like curriculum, best practices of teaching, governance, provincial legislation, human resources, and much more . There was a time in the past when a Christian school was like a boat on its own in a vast sea. That is no longer the case! We are blessed at LCES to have a network of support from many other key players in Christian education in Ontario and beyond that help us greatly in these matters. Short forms of these organizations are used freely by many in our community. In case you are unfamiliar with them or need to be reminded, here are four of the most commonly reference ones:

We also have neighbours: The Prairie Association for Christian Schools and Society for Christian
Schools in British Columbia are very helpful in making our school a great place to be. What a time to be connected to a Christian school with so many tremendous support structures!

We have a bright future ahead. SJ