A Place At The Table: Hospitality At Our Christian School

I have a childhood memory of Sunday visits between two church services. For about half the day between and morning and afternoon worship services on a Sunday, I would have the chance to “swap families” and be a guest in different home. I recall that as being a time that I was not only visiting with a friend, but actually being welcomed as a guest of the entire family since it involved two car rides, a meal or two, and being included in the family’s devotion patterns. It was a chance to be a guest of honor.

Later in life I was also invited into homes as a university student as part of a travelling choir. Usually for a late evening snack after a concert, an overnight sleep, and then a morning breakfast routine – I was invited with no context, no previous relationship, and no understanding on either side of what the experience might feel like to be guest and host. They were almost always very warm and memorable times of being welcomed as strangers, and then leaving as someone known and loved. (Except for the time someone’s basement flooded, but that is a story for another time.)

Teachers will be participating this Thursday in a Edvance Christian School convention for educators. We will focus on hospitality in communities. I’ll share two sentences here the presenter gave us in advance:

Start from the image of God as banquet host, of Jesus as the one declaring the arrival of God’s hospitality, God’s welcome. How might this shape the way you imagine what makes your school or your classroom or your curriculum Christian (Christ-following)?

I’m looking forward to a reflective time of encouragement with the LCES team as we link in virtually to this event. I’m thankful for the chance for our teachers to continue to grow in their beautiful craft of Christian Teaching for two days. Pray we are blessed as we gather.

SJ

Multi-Grade Learing At Our Christian School

“Happiness is not found within us, but rather between us.” 

The last time that an in-person educator convention was held (October 2019) in Ancaster, nearly 1000 Christian educators explored this concept from a British researcher, Rob Loe. (Hard to imagine 1000 maskless people in one auditorium today!) 

Depending only on self-help books, mindfulness to find your inner “you”, and other such activities is not the route to happiness, he proposed. His interesting research of measuring relationships in organizations indicate that people flourish when strong connecting relationships exist. The most vulnerable are taken care of best in communities were connecting relationships are strongest. He presented some “threats” to relationship health in our culture and context. Bees in a bee hive with unique but connected roles was offered as a visual to ponder. The hive thrives when relationships between the bees is healthy. 

At LCES, we believe relationship is the foundation of learning. Jesus showed us this in the way in which he announced a new covenant and the coming kingdom. He lived and taught in an intensely relational setting with his disciples. Can you imagine the talking on long walks, mealtime conversations, and lingering campfire debates?

This is why students and teachers at LCES begin the day with deliberate greetings, listen to each other about silly things and serious things, and spend time restoring relationships when they are struggling. This is why we have reading buddies, bus buddies, and STEM friends (grade 7&8 and kindergarten). We strive to have students who are seen, known, and loved every day they come to school learn of God’s truth.

 It’s great to be in the hive at LCES every day. 

SJ

Technology in a Christian School: One Tool of Many

 

“Technology is only very good if it can help us become the persons we were mean to be.” Andy Crouch

I remember the day a Commodore 64 was wheeled into my grade five classroom for the first time, the start of when computer tech was a new ingredient in my education. The teacher didn’t really know what to do with it and it didn’t really become much more than an indoor recess occupier of students for many years. As I watched another filing cabinet leave LCES for good last month, I though about how technology has changed the way we learn.

We know that all of God’s world belongs to him, and all of it can be used in faithfulness or disobedience. Technology doesn’t live outside that truth. Our task is sorting out the difference and being intentional about choosing wisely. It also seems true that technology is challenging us and our children and we don’t have a long history to guide as we wrestle with what a faithful response looks like. The pace of new developments is faster than our understanding of how it is shaping us in many cases. (eg. watch “The Social Dilemma”)

I heard an excellent podcast last week that proposed technology is a possible accelerator of good teaching and learning, but not the author of it. I like that idea. Technology of any kind will never replace the value of excellent teaching and leading by parent or teacher. The presence or absence of technology alone in a classroom or home doesn’t indicate students will learn any better, or becomes wiser as they grow up. The value of a skilled and committed teacher who can match learning methods well with student’s abilities, interests, and development is key here. LCES is very blessed with such exemplary educators.  I’ve often thought that when technology enables us to do something we couldn’t otherwise do, then we’re accessing more of its God-created potential for our benefit.

SJ

Peculiar Peacemakers At Our Christian School

(picture pre-COVID)

“Blessed are the peacemakers… for they will be called children of God.” Matthew 5:9 

I’ve heard someone summarize Christian Education as an unending effort to raise peculiar people. Not peculiar in the sense of being odd, standing out for reasons that are ego-building, or people who “find their own groove” in ways that fill up social media accounts. Instead, peculiar describing people so motivated by their love of God and desire for the Kingdom that they are compelled to serve and love without ceasing. It is their unending commitment to love in determined ways that gives way to the descriptor of “peculiar.” 

Peculiar people build the God’s Kingdom every day: 

When peace and reconciliation overcome conflict, the Kingdom is built. 

When grief and sadness are chased away by faith-nourished hope, the Kingdom is built. 

When loneliness and desperation are washed away by communal joy, the Kingdom is built. 

When apathy and disillusionment are replaced with passionate purpose, the Kingdom is built. 

When division and hatred are replaced by justice and righteousness, the Kingdom is built. 

The world cries out for those who are peculiar. 

SJ

Finding The Most Important Work At Our Christian School

 "Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work."

-CS Lewis-

While the intense tornado of COVID may feel like it is starting to move off, there is no doubt that we are still dealing with the thunderstorms that are lingering far longer than we wish. Many of my conversations in the last month have started with a wondering question about how COVID will have impacted childhood and learning for all students.

There are two ways to answer that question:

There is a diagnostic response, which is important and can focus our efforts and revisions to education in the next years as we resume something closer to our former academic life as a school. I am very convinced that our teachers can adapt this fall, and in the years to come. In part, this is why students in grades five through eight will be taking the Measure of Academic Progress test in the next nine days. We are keen to measure what they have learned and what they are ready to learn next so that we serve them well. We believe that students within this age group can take these tests successfully and the results will be credible.

But there is also a relational response, which starts with the bold declaration that our children belong to God before they belong to anyone else, and that the Lord will sustain them (Psalm 55:22). God asks us to be part of those efforts. A “COVID booster” response of emphasizing to our children that they are known by name by God, and that we know and love them seems more appropriate than ever. They will have a lifetime among other faithful people to figure out grade specific details that may have been delayed due to COVID, but knowing they are loved can’t wait. One of the ways our children come to know that they are loved by God is that they are loved within their family. When we build a shed, read a book, try out a new recipe, or repair a bike – deliberately with them, that is part of God sustaining them.

And in the end we come to realize its good for us as parents too.

SJ

A Post-Easter Walk and Our Christian School

 “What are you discussing as you walk along?” (Luke 24:17)

Jesus joined the two walking along in their despair. They were lost, not on the road way – but entirely lost in thought. The kind of conversation where one isn’t really aware of one’s surroundings. I can picture repeated questions between the two, with no clear answers as they were reviewing harsh words, piercing accusations, and swift actions in Jerusalem. It had all happened so fast that while they knew the sequence of events, they could not make sense of it. So, the resurrected Jesus walked along with them, started over again with Moses and walked through God’s story so that they could understand. It was only after they broke bread together that they realized who was giving them such council – Jesus, the living Lord! 

There is much in this story for us as a community of learning that is also a community of faith. The kind of understanding the two travelers were looking for was found in connection and relationship. Jesus walked with them, and went about a daily pattern of life with them – eating a meal. Meaning came from prolonged period of relational connection. 

LCES staff spend up to 10,000 hours with our students from JK-8, living in a connected way with them. Formal instruction, personal conversations, shared trips and shared meals offer the stage for wise council. Spirit-led moments of discovery are formative as our students make sense of a world that is often harsh, inconsistent, and confusing – but ultimately is loved and redeemed by Christ. May our children also recognize Jesus along their road of life. 

SJ

Teaching and the Timing of Easter at Our Christian School

I heard an intriguing question this weekend: What does it tell us that Jesus lived among his people and taught about the kingdom for more than three years before he bore our sins in the Easter events that we are about to travel through in remembrance next month?

It’s hard to conceive of a timeline of Jesus making his entrance, unannounced, to earth only a few days before Easter, saving us by grace on the cross and then, like a hurried traveler connecting to the next flight, leave abruptly and not be seen again.

There were three years of deliberate conversations, long walks, and seaside lessons of pacing with the Son of God.  The people had lost their way and their hearts had been hardened. Their downtrodden, hopeless, and in some cases legalistic souls were places that needed to hear about the kingdom of God. This kingdom was so upside down from what they expected that they learned that even children who approached could sit on the lap of Son of God and be blessed by him. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. Jesus had to teach us, as one of us.

One of the things I appreciate about a Christian elementary school pathway for a child is that the years of JK through grade eight have so many places of opportunity for this kind of pacing. What joy that there can be lingering conversations about the love of God, deliberate focus on recognizing God at work among his people, and longing for the perfection of that kingdom when it will be fully restored. When a teacher sits on the carpet with the students or pulls up a chair around the circle of students, they are teaching as one of them. It is a beautiful sight.

May God’s kingdom come this week at our Christian School.

SJ