Whales and Stars:A Singing Creation

Late March and early April in Ontario can be kind of drab. Cooler, damp days are common. However, spring is eventually an amazing time of growth and renewal as creation wakens from a winter slumber.

Chapel on Monday morning challenged our students to see the beautiful natural world around us as more than just pretty pictures that are pleasing to the eye. Creation is much more than screensaver material after all. Every mountain stream, every sunset, the wind in the pine trees, the sea otter swimming in the outer banks, every creature, plant, bush, and tree – all of it sings out in praise to the God who made it. Even the whales and stars.

That’s right. We listened to whales and stars singing in chapel. Pretty amazing stuff, these sounds happening everyday just outside of our ability to hear. But God hears and delights in his singing creation. Here is the video we watched the concluding minutes of.

“All creation is an outstretched finger pointing toward God.”

What a thought to consider! It challenges everything around us and asks us to spend time appreciating creation’s intricacy, beauty, and size. When we do so we quickly realize how small we are and how great our God is. We serve God who make galaxies measured in light years, yet knows us and loves us individually.

Our students repeatedly encounter God’s grand creation on display in their studies throughout all their years at LCES. I’m thankful for Christian education that reminds our students to consider such things, even on a wet March morning.

SJ

The Gift of Hospitality

I wish you could have heard the conversation! A recent guest at our school unfamiliar with our community, our building, and the opportunity of Christian education, asked if they could speak to me for a moment.  I agreed, unsure where this conversation might lead.

 “I want you to know this” was how the ensuing conversation began.  This person told the story of how they had been welcomed by parents and students, of how a staff member had dropped everything to help them,  how great the school looked, and how amazing the people were in this school. “And they didn’t even know who I was” closed out the summary of the observations.

I’m pleased to tell you that I am blessed to hear remarks like these fairly frequently. They testify to the blessings of belonging to a community whose strength is the “the joy of the Lord” (Nehemiah 8:10), a community that enjoys agreement of purpose and daily practice of faith.  We exist so that God may be praised as young children are taught the things of God in an educational setting. There is immense joy for us in hearing that recognized by people in the community. 

What’s your part in continuing that glowing impression of our school? I’m convinced that first impressions and opening conversations are essential to people learning about who and what we are in ways that leave room for us to enfold them in our midst. There is enormous cost for our school when that does not remain a guiding principle and a priority.

Pray for the leadership of our school who are busy looking for ways to guide our community of purpose into an upcoming school year.  Welcome the well known and brand new faces we find among us! 

 SJ

Spreading the Word: A Pattern of Prayer and Work

School tours and conversations with inquiring families significantly increase at this time of year. An out-of-province parent considering a job offer in London recently found us on-line and made contact with me. After spending some time explaining what our school looks like, how it is organized, and why parents send their students to LCES, the parent was clearly amazed. “Wow, you have some very committed people in your community! “ I heartily agreed. God has blessed us richly.

Seeing Christ as the head of our school is integral to how we think and operate each day. It shapes all we do, how we plan toward the future, and how we learn to walk the line between “ora et labora” or “pray and work.” We are to pray daily for the provision and guidance to operate our school, and also work responsibly with the gifts, talents and opportunities the Lord has given each of us at LCES. One side of that statement represents God’s unstoppable grace, the other reminds us that we have a part in working in God’s kingdom.

I’m frequently reminded by many people of their daily inclusion of LCES as part of their prayer life. One of them mentioned the text of Psalm 50 which makes reference to the fact we serve God who “owns the cattle on a thousand hills.” The encouragement was this:  “commit your plans to the Lord, remain unceasing in prayer, and remember afterwards to praise him for his faithfulness.”

Another parent:

“London Christian Elementary School is a great place for kids to be taught to have a heart for Christ.

Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your colleagues at work - you may be their answer to prayer for the right place to school their children. God is great and he answers prayer.  He also wants us to promote his Kingdom. Let’s all work together to fill the hallways of LCES with God's children.”

Amen, may it be so! Pray for our school. SJ

Redefining Fair & The Value Of A Mistake

As we arrive at the end of second term, here are two thoughts about growth and change in our place of learning:

Fairness rarely means sameness. More often, fair means everyone gets what they need, not everyone gets the same thing.

We find ourselves working with this truth often at LCES. A real sign of growth in perception of others for our students is realizing that everyone’s life, their ability to learn and contribute in different ways, and each person’s gifts and talents are unique to them. Each student is dearly loved, uniquely made, and specifically equipped by God for his purposes with them. Great things happen in a community of learners when that is understood.

Mistakes are the keys to a student’s learning.

In learning as in life, things don’t always go the way we wish they would. Especially the first time.

This is true for our students as well; the greatest potential for them to learn may well be to re-visit the places where they did not find success the first time. A helpful analogy I’ve heard is an airline pilot who first perfects the art of a good landing in a flight simulator environment hundreds of times, then moves to real-life situations under the watch full eye of an experienced pilot, all the while learning from mistakes made. Only when those processes are practiced to high level of skill does s/he attempt a landing solo.

A huge potential barrier to student learning is the negative stigmatism of a mistake, or methods of evaluation and assessment that frequently lead students to be quick to compare to others and their results. Never arriving at the reflective spot of looking at their own learning with an eye toward growth is a lost opportunity.

We pray that our students’ lives are full of learning about all of God’s world, including themselves as learners. SJ