Built Right In: Words Etched in Stone

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” Psalm 111:10

I showed a potential new family through our school this morning. The joyful discovery of this text above by the parent just outside of my office started a significant discussion. Engraved in hard black granite, it was built right into our building in 1962 in the form of a keystone just outside the former front doors. That “home” of LCES has expanded over the years, now placing this keystone inside our beautiful facility that the Lord has blessed us with, where we work to sustain our vision statement: “To educate children, equipping them for a life of faithful, Christian discipleship.”

“Wonderful! What a statement!” was the reaction of a different parent earlier this spring after seeing
most of the school, watching teachers and students interact, and seeing how we teach, and most importantly how a student is viewed by everyone participating in his/her education. “Knowing, loving, and serving God is built right in here, just like that stone is built right into this school.”

“I want my child to be seen as I see them, a gift from God, a precious person, someone God watches
over. My child is God’s child before they are anything else. That’s missing in their education right
now.” I’m unsure how those words affect you, but I found them to be encouraging, humbling, and invigorating.

We have important work underway in this place - the care of God’s children. Young minds and hearts
being nurtured in the Lord in the habits of faith are growing in wisdom in an encouraging community.
How many students and parents have walked past that keystone through its many years of prominent
position? Thousands, I’m sure. I appreciate its message every time my eyes are drawn to it in my hallway travels.

SJ

A “Good News” Day

As principal, I have many opportunities to talk with students, staff, and parents on any given day. It is actually one of my favourite parts of the job. Sometimes it amazes me how comments made in separate conversations about different aspects of LCES life actually sound remarkably alike.  

Here is a set of three comments shared with me in the last week:

“It doesn’t matter what happens, I’m going to have a good day!”

“It is going to work out perfectly. I just know it. It’s not even a question in my mind.”

“I’m glad I get to come to my school today. We're doing awesome stuff.”

While I suppose one could state that we have an overabundance of excessively optimistic people, I would propose that this is evidence of people in our community deliberately deciding to have a “good news” day. I was introduced to this term years ago by an author who reminds readers that the word “gospel” comes from the Greek for “good news. The gospel does not promise a worry-free life. Instead, it urges a stance toward life that sees patterns of faithfulness before needs, opportunities before problems, and hope over despair.

Put another way, “…a good news day is a day when the gospel shapes my beliefs, my hopes, my plans, my actions, my interactions, and how I deal with sins and failures” (both my own sins and those of others that impact me.”

What does it mean for our school to have a “good news day?” I would suggest that it means that our problems and challenges do not define us, God’s love does. It means that we live out the gospel of good news each day, not leaving room for doubt that God is, and will be, faithful.

Have a “good news” week!

SJ

Worms and Puddles and All Things New

There they were. Two lone students staring intently at a puddle having an animated discussion this morning before school. The subject of their attention? Some squirming worms at the edge of the receding “lake” we’ve been contending with for the last week. As I walked past them I overheard them discussing if all the worms of the world were destroyed in the flood. I love it that our students have such questions on their minds as they connect God’s story they hear daily in class with the world they, quite literally, play in.

While spring in an elementary school pushes the family washing machines into overtime, I’m inclined to believe we should try to look past that. After winter, the sound of chirping birds stood out to me this morning as something to notice. The grass, greening up from a week of rain, and the daffodils showing themselves are also proof that God is awakening life from the slumber of many winter months.

I was challenged several years ago by a speaker at a teacher’s conference to view every aspect of creation as responding to God in praise. Choosing to notice that truth helps us, he proposed, to realize our call to respond in the same way. Trees that blossom, birds that sing, grass that grows (even in the sidewalk cracks he reminded us), worms that squirm, and fish that jump - all do so in response to their creator. We can and should be part of that chorus of response.

Against the backdrop of Passion Week that we marked this morning in chapel, what a rich blessing for our students to start this spring day praising the Lord of life at LCES!  May your week be filled with praise-filled moments of recognizing God’s creation and treasuring the gift of new life – in our world and in our hearts.

SJ

Bus Stops and Waiting: Lenten Expectation at a Christian School

About two months ago I waited with a group of students for a city bus to whisk us away to an off-site learning opportunity.  The moments ticking by after the scheduled time of arrival started to confirm the realization that was becoming clear: we were at the wrong bus stop. It is hard to have your needs met when you are in the wrong line, no matter how long you wait.

So where do we wait? During this season of Lent we find ourselves waiting in a time of sober reflection as we anticipate the joy of the resurrection of Easter Sunday. We know it’s coming, and yet we believe the waiting has value. Waiting forces us to watch, listen, and meditate on God’s Word. It challenges us to look forward and backward in our lives to see patterns of disobedience or faithfulness.

What does it mean to “wait expectantly“ in an organizational setting like LCES? Spring in a Christian school setting is, after all, a busy time of planning, budgeting, and preparing. It seems to call for action more than waiting. Perhaps expectant waiting is the type of waiting infused with hope; we know that the desired end result will come, that it will be of God’s choosing, and is for our good.  Waiting with hope allows us to lift our heads and work in the assurance that everything is in His hands. God’s provision for us will be a reflection of his original plan for us as he “makes all things new”. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

SJ