Coast to Coast: The Big Picture of Christian Education in Canada

I had the opportunity last week to travel to Alberta to be part of a Christian Schools Canada conference where two hundred leaders from all over Canada gathered to encourage, challenge, and support one another. It was a significant blessing for me in my position as one of the leaders of LCES, both in recognizing God’s greater story of Christian Education across the country, as well as being challenged to consider new goals and pathways for a school to achieve its mission and vision. I can easily say that the story of Christian Education in Canada is dynamic, exciting, and led by passionate people. 

Here are few of my notes:

Christian schools are becoming increasingly complex. The diversity of families and their needs, the educational realities of pursuing excellent, meaningful learning, and the operational demands of working in a positive and compliant way with the organizations around us push us to complexity and intensity. Clarity of purpose and direction becomes increasingly important as we move into the critical era of the third generation of people carrying the goals of Christian education forward. 

Christian schools are working hard at things like being sustainable in the long term, being correctly understood in the public eye, and inwardly digging deep to examine our core purpose: what should learning look like in 2016? We do this while preserving the best of our past and bringing in new structures, ideas, and most importantly, recognizing that our present parents and future students live in different times than the founders of our schools. Christian schools are aspiring to be a faithful presence at a time where people’s general trust and interest in institutions is dwindling. 

Our keynote speaker, Andy Crouch, painted a picture of people and institutions using God-given power to be a source of immense blessing to those around them. Acting with total authority and simultaneous total vulnerability, allows people and institutions to properly bear God’s image and encourage the kind of flourishing of God’s world that he originally intended. This connects well to our school theme this year of “Build Your Kingdom Here” as we think on ways that God’s plan for a restored and renewed world are visible around us. 

Three paragraphs don’t do three days justice, but I trust this gives you the impression of how rich this time was. Christian Education is tough, but entirely worth the struggle if we think off those who ultimately benefit: children being challenged to know, love, and serve the Lord all their days.   SJ

Faithful Instruction: Patterns and Routines

Classroom teachers have been busy working in classrooms in the last weeks to setup a daily rhythm of school life and learning in their rooms. I often watch our students arrive and greet them in the halls and marvel at how quickly they fall in to routines and patterns specific to their grade.

Many years ago my then two year old nephew, youngest of four in his family, was keen to follow the pattern on his older siblings in reciting a prayer spoken before a family meal:

“God is good, God is great
Let us thank Him for our food.
By his hands, we are fed,
Thank-you Lord, for daily bread. Amen”

Unable to say or understand the words spoken by his siblings, his exuberant version was:

"God is great, God is great!
God is great, God is great!
God is great, God is great!
God is great, God is great! Amen!"

In his mind, he was participating just as equally as his siblings. Perhaps his rhythmically perfect version contained as much meaning and purpose as his siblings well-practiced versions. The repeated prayer became like were well-worn grooves in their minds and hearts, reminding them of the gift of food by God’s provision.

So, how do you instruct children to live faithfully? Reading Old Testament stories at home after supper recently and devoting with school staff over the Psalms (Psalm 78 this morning) make me reflect on this question frequently. It strikes me that one of the loudest “voices” in cultivating faithfulness in young children are structures that gently, but deliberately guide them to recognize that God made them, God loves them, and God knows them “by name.” (Isa. 43:1) What a rich blessing that those “patterns of faithfulness” in even the smallest of things can start at home and continue here at LCES.

Praise God for Christian education; may it bear fruit in the lives of our children! SJ

On Cutting Down Trees

My uncle once started to trim a tree to keep it under control, but was interrupted by a pressing errand and left the scene in a hurry. The saw was hastily left resting against the trunk of the tree. My cousin - wanting to make up for a previous indiscretion - arrived home, saw an opportunity to help, and gave his heart and soul to finishing the job of cutting the entire tree right down to the ground before his dad came home. Excited words and a heated argument ensued over the rationale for the decision. Eventually they found common ground; regardless the tree was down. A year later, the newly landscaped yard was the source of much pleasure as result of new opportunity for design. 

In the last weeks of late summer preparations for the school year I watched through my office window as many tall, stately trees were cut down across the street. A previously empty lot became a construction site. With some sadness I noticed how different and bare things looked. There is something about cutting a tree down that feels so permanent as many years of growth ends so abruptly. 

Perhaps at some point decades ago East London residents had the same observation when the shovel first met the ground to create our original school building in 1961, or with subsequent additions. The trees are gone, but their ending made way for our beginning. 

Some endings hurt, especially so if we don’t see or understand the new beginnings they create. Teachers frequently find themselves trying to encourage students to take risks and move to next steps in their own learning. That may mean making a leap of trust, making a necessary ending,  or creating a new beginning in terms of a mindset they have toward something.

May our students have the wisdom and courage to choose well, and act bravely wherever they are.  SJ

Reaching New Heights

The school was full of happy sounds this morning as we welcomed new and returning students and their families to the 56th year of learning by faith at LCES. We look forward to seeing our JK and SK classes tomorrow on Wednesday when they experience their much anticipated first day of school. Several staff noted how much many of our students had changed and grown throughout the summer. I overheard a student this morning remark “This fountain is lower than it was last year.” May their growth in wisdom and knowledge match pace with the centimeters they add to their height this year.

The height of students isn’t the only thing that has changed around us as we start this new year. Here are some other noticeable changes:

●     Several weeks ago construction efforts started across the street on a housing development for adults with disabilities. I’ve been in contact with the developers about this interesting new project that will extend into next year. Please be aware of extra construction traffic as you arrive and depart each day.

●     We trust that you have already heard about our 3:25pm & 3:28pm dismissal times. (See last week’s e-mail letter)

●     Thanks for those who have submitted vulnerable sector police checks to the office. Please take care of this task soon so we can continue to benefit from the volunteers that support our school.

●     You will notice that a few things will be different because of the reduction in teaching staff compared to previous years. We have carefully reviewed all the things our teachers do in addition to classroom teaching and reduced and made changes in ways we believe will allow us to preserve opportunities for students as much as possible. Chapels will not be as frequent and we will be offering a few less extra-curricular activities.

●     Technology in our school has continued to move along with continued learning by our teachers in how to use it as one of many tools of learning. Chromebooks in the school will allow us to take the possibilities of learning right to where the learning happens - the classroom. Fewer desktop computers in other places has already freed up space for us to work in different ways in those places. Stay tuned for more later this fall on these developments.

As much as things change, we are elated that we serve a God whose faithfulness doesn’t change as we move into the rhythm and routine of a new year. The LCES staff and LCES Board requests prayerful support from your household as we see to the care and nurture of God’s handiwork, your children.  SJ