The Care of Sheep

 “Take care of my sheep.” John 21:16 

A shepherd is not a common job in East London, which makes it challenging for us to access the wisdom in God’s word as this occupation is frequently used to help his people connect knowing and loving God with daily life. The personal and individual way in which a shepherd knows and cares for each sheep is guidance for us to do the same for his children, our students. That includes all of their needs. 

Earlier this month we had a day of learning for our teachers. A main topic of the morning was mental health as it relates to students and learning. While this isn’t the first time in the recent past we’ve devoted time and energy to this area of our professional learning, it is important for our school as we look to support student wellness and learning. 

Did you know that:     

• Good mental health is characterized by the ability to learn, feel and express pos/neg emotions, form and maintain good relationships with others, and cope with change and uncertainty

• 1 in 5 children/youth have a diagnosable emotional, behavioral or mental health disorder

• 1 in 10 young people have a mental health challenge that is severe enough to impair how they function at home, school or in the community.

Nearly half Canadians:

• say they have suffered from depression or anxiety have never sought medical attention as part of their response. 
• believe that people use the term mental illness as an excuse for bad behavior 

While we might find connecting crutches with the injured foot as an intuitive way to care for a child, supporting their mental well-being is so much complex as we navigate through potential stigma, perhaps exhaustion, and likely feeling underequipped with a lack of awareness or experience to “take care of [His] sheep.” If that’s the case, consider accessing Shalem Mental Health Network and Canadian Mental Health Association resources as a place to start. 

SJ

Parents Tell Your Children: The "Why" of Our Christian School

As a new father, I recall holding our gift of God only about a month old on the day he was baptized as an infant. It was a busy day in our household that had been turned upside down as we transitioned from a home of two to become three. In a swirl of new parent fatigue, excitement, and “we’re really parents to this child?” we were in church. While family and after church lunch details had been on my mind, singing these words abruptly brought the day in to focus: 

God the Father, God of glory,

miracles, and mystery;

generations all adore him,

God the same through history.

Parents, tell your children, age to age the same.

Glorify the living Lord above,

magnify his holy name,

magnify his holy name.

This is a sweeping picture of all of life, much bigger than the exhaustion of infant care. Guiding our children to recognize, love, and serve the God who claims them as his own is a tremendous task. I’m grateful that Christian Education is one of the ways parents can join generations of those who “tell their children” so that they too may know and serve Christ in all things. 

Are you or others you know compelled to ensure that generations will continue to have the opportunity of Christian Education? We need several new board members this year to replace outgoing members who have served and even extended their service as result of COVID. Please contact Dwayne DeVries (board chair) or myself for more details. 

SJ

The Power of Our Patterns at Our Christian School

It has been a joy this fall to be able to see at-school classrooms active again. I stayed for a classroom prayer recently, during which a long-ago-memory of my toddler nephew came to mind. He was keen to follow the pattern of his older siblings in reciting:

“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 went as follows:

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.

I’ve noticed that patterns and habits fall off easily
in our COVID confusion as we find ourselves in unusual situations and perplexing decision pathways. In the middle of all of this, how do you instruct children to live faithfully? 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

Of COVID and Conflict At Our Christian School

 

Frequently my work as principal involves working with situations where conflict is present.  Sometimes the conflict centers around what is actually the truth, what is best in a given situation, what happened, or what didn’t. Conflict reveals a lot about situations and people.  Jesus challenged his listeners that “…the mouth speaks about what overflows from the heart.” (Matthew 12:34)

Conflict doesn’t sit well with most people. In many ways, we have become a polarized society struggling to love those who we don’t agree with. Conflict makes us uncomfortable, restless, and often drains energy and emotion if it drags on too long in unproductive ways. On the contrary, harmony and synergy enjoyed around God’s love and his purpose for us motivates, energizes, and sustains us. But it is hard to get there.

In several places and by different means I’ve been reminded in the last number of weeks that shalom isn’t simply the absence of conflict. Peace, understood as the absence of conflict, falls short as a complete definition. Shalom is best understood to be the complete fullness of “all things are as they should be, as God created them.” Shalom is the deep satisfaction of understanding and experiencing everything God made as he originally intended it. COVID makes me desire that even more.

St. Augustine once summarized this tension this way: “Our heart is restless until it finds rest in You.” I’ve always thought that to be a challenging summary of what we do in Christian education. We challenge our students with the world they live in and make them restless and uncomfortable in accepting it as is. We seek to instill in them a hunger for shalom in God’s coming kingdom – the world restored and renewed.  This is what we aspire to do every day at LCES – shaping hearts, souls, and minds.

SJ

A Joyful Start To A Unique Year

JK Adventures on "Lava"

Words don’t really describe how good it feels for us to have students walking the halls again. The building feels more aligned with our school’s core purpose today: educating children, equipping them for a life of faithful, Christian discipleship. While there are all sorts of new things that we need to get used to doing differently, we have started with the assurance this morning that God is our refuge and strength, and that God’s claim on us is so much larger than COVID’s. We are eager to be safe, and at the same time not to have COVID author every part of this year. God’s world is still a place to discover and enjoy. We are still called to love, learn, and growth in wisdom as we serve one another.

“The joy of the Lord is [our] strength.” Nehemiah 8:10 

At the launch of remote learning in March, I mentioned Psalm 137 as a lament of the Jewish people taken away from the land God gave them. Thy were exiled to Babylon against their will. Our theme this year (above) comes from the return of God’s people back to the land God gave them. Nehemiah and Ezra spoke to the people and helped them understand the times. I am sure they were overwhelmed with rebuilding structures, reawakening patterns of faithful living, and adjusting to things that seemed new and overwhelming to them. Nehemiah urges them not grieve their situation or their past sins, but rather to rejoice and delight in the goodness of God’s faithfulness. 

That’s our task too; delight in the unshakable faithfulness of the Lord even as nations are in uproar and our footing gets shaky. (Psalm 46) Even though what was as solid as the mountains in our lives falls into the heart of a sea of what can feel like chaos, we are reminded God tells us to “be still” and know he is God. 

That assurance is the very best back-to-school supply we have this year. 

SJ 

Easter & Resurrection Gardens

Christ is Risen, 
       He is Risen Indeed! 

Our grade ½ students were challenged to create resurrection gardens this week as part of their remote learning. They gathered natural materials such as stones, wood, dirt, and vegetation to create unique and personal depictions of the physical settings of the events of this holy week as we approach Easter. Their busy hands and creativity were evident in the unique end results they shared with their classmates using pictures. What a joy to see them proudly share, even though they haven’t been together in a physical classroom in some time.

There will be stories told about these times for many years. This all feels pretty significant, and for some the story is perhaps starting to feel heavy, hopeless, and unending. Although the last month has led us through things we’ve never seen and had us living with challenges we were not expecting, we desire to remember and celebrate a much bigger, more important story of the gift of a Saviour who made all things new and gave us abundant life. May we marvel at the words of the angel who met the women in the most important resurrection garden, “He is not here, for he has risen, as he said.” (Matthew 28:6) Christ is risen! SJ

Remote learning: Singing The Lord's Song In a Foreign Land

It's surprising how quickly a scene like this one, taken last December, seems to be a time and place that feels odd to us today as our school remains active, but not our building remains closed. Clearly we were socially connected then, and not too physically distant from each other. I can remember the sounds of  this Christmas lunch merriment, with all those students, teachers and parents in the gym. That was a fun day.

In Psalm 137:4, we read “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” The Psalmist was lamenting that he was no longer living in the promised land, but rather struggling in captivity under the Babylonian empire.

While the bricks and mortar of our building have not moved, we do find ourselves taken away to a foreign, new land of remote learning. There has been lament and loss, however we also have seen new beginnings and opportunities this week. God is good. We will return to the land of familiar classrooms, playground adventures, chapels, and in-person conversations and, something I really miss, groups of students laughing and singing.

Meanwhile, we will aim to be faithful “singing the Lord’s song in a "foreign land.”

SJ