Caring for the sick...

It's our Peach Bud School Challenge Week!  Students have been busy raising funds for the West Lincoln Memorial Hospital Foundation.  I hear excitement from students as they get off the bus in the morning to tell of how their neighbour sponsored them, or their aunt/uncle, grandparent, or friend.

Events like this benefit our local community, and are important in and of themselves.  So much of God's law and Christ's example focus on caring for those who are in need - the poor, the orphaned, the widows, the foreigners.... God cares about physical need, and charges us to care for them.

Further, though, the habit and action of our students 'pounding the pavement' and 'drumming up support' for others is an important educational development in their lives.  I recall as a child going door to door in my small town gathering money for the annual 'Right to Life' walkathon each year.  There were those who did not want to support, but so many others thanked us for our efforts and for giving them the opportunity to help out.  Teaching our kids to become comfortable with bringing attention to the rights and needs of others, giving them a real outlet to make a difference, and to show them that a community is capable of doing great things through small efforts.....  that's when school can become education for a life of service.  

Let's take hold of this good work that God has prepared for us!!!

Interested in helping out?  We could use a few extra parent spectators to supervise the younger ones as they complete their challenge.  Call the office if you are able to hang around this Friday from 9:00-10:30 to participate in the fun!!

It's almost Field Day!

I've been watching our field day teams come together - groups of older and younger kids working to practice and prepare for our big day on Wednesday.  We are ready for the challenge!  As a matter of habit and practice, teachers have been working hard on the culture of these teams as well, and I'm pleased to say that it is bearing fruit!  The amount of encouragement and praise on each team is wonderful to watch.

Ephesians 4:29  "Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them."

Historically, Track and Field day has been for student either the best day ever, or for some, the worst day ever.  In the spirit of friendly competition, of building one another up, of encouraging each other, and of offering up our best efforts ever, I am praying that each of our Covenant students can walk away from Wednesday saying "I am valued, I did my best, and I was encouraged!"  

Continue this conversation on at home.  If every student takes ownership of encouraging others, we will have lived in to one of our theme verses, and will be taking hold of God's story: Ephesians 2:10:  "For each of us is God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago."

Encouragement

May has arrived and so has a frenzy of activity!!  There are so many things going on, and along with each comes opportunity to be a light and and example to others.  This will be a focus of chapel on Wednesday as we look to take hold of God's story in ways of encouragement.  Sometimes encouragement comes in the form of words.  We try to use those often.  Many other times, it comes through actions.  Paul encourages the Thessalonians in his first letter to them, not because they needed to be corrected, but because they needed to be reminded to continue....:  "Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when he returns, we can live with him forever. So encourage each otherand build each other up, just as you are already doing." 1 Thess. 5:10-11

A favourite quote of mine that embodies this notion has always been: 

"Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words."

As we look to do this in our school, in our communities, and in our region through our actions this month, keep this in front of you as we take hold of God's story.

Christian Education Week 2015

It's Christian Education Week at Covenant!! We are excited to invite you into our school and classrooms to see 'Christian Education' in action! Our pastors will be coming in on Wednesday morning to connect with our students, and Wednesday afternoon from 2:30-3:20, we are inviting parents and supporters to come through an 'Open House'.

Our Theme this year is 'Taking Hold of God's Story', and as a school we are being intentional about identifying and telling stories of God's faithfulness.  These stories take two forms:  looking back and looking forward.

Psalm 139 reminds us that God's story for us began even before we were born.  Ephesians 10:2 reminds us that our story involves works that God has prepared for us to do.  Grace and action.  Providence and response.  As beloved and redeemed of Christ, we are charged to 'Take Hold' of God's story and to own it!

Will you help us 'Take Hold' of God's story by sharing yours?

Around CCS, you will see around the school evidences of God's story.  We would love for you to add your 'stepping stones' on your journey through and experience of Christian Education.  

What does Christian Education mean for you and/or for your family?

If you come in on Wednesday, you will have an opportunity to write it down and add it to our supporters of Christian Education wall not unlike Joshua was commanded to do:

"When your children ask their fathers in times to come, 'What do these stones mean?'  then you shall let your children know,...so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever." - Joshua 4: 21, 22a, 24

If you are not able to come in, we would love for you to share your story anyway! By clicking on the link below, you will be able to share your story with us and encourage our staff and students with that witness! http://goo.gl/TUcw3i (If you plan to be here for the open house and want to do this as well, please do!!)

Mercy is Falling

The buds are coming, the grass is greening, the earth is waking up.  

I remember clearly from years ago the early (cold) spring rain pouring down on me as I stood laden down with spruce trees planting my way through a swamp in Northern Ontario.  On that day, about to feel grumpy and sorry for myself, my planting partner bellowed out in song across the clear cut:  "Mercy is falling, is falling, is falling. Mercy is falling like a sweet, spring rain,...."  Since that day, it is hard for me not to smile at the rain, to enjoy feeling it fall down and permeate everything, just as God's mercy does on us, his world, on everything.

As parents and educators, we are reminded that God provides for us goodness and mercy: for us, for our children, and growth and flourishing occurs! God does not wish it, he commands it:  Isaiah 45:8: Open up, heavens, and rain. Clouds, pour out buckets of my goodness!  Loosen up, earth, and bloom salvation; sprout right living.  I, God, generate all this."

Greet the rain this spring as it welcomes new growth, but just as importantly, greet the ever present mercy offered us in Christ.  Pray that together as a school community we welcome and receive his grace as we awaken to growth and becoming what God has intended us to be!!  It's God's story, for us to take hold of!!

Growing together in Christ

Maybe it's the spring weather.  Maybe it's the time spent playing outside.

Maybe it's seeing projects come together and seeing students proud.

Whatever it is, I'm feeling a distinct sense of growth around here at Covenant. 

School is such a wonderful place to be because you get to witness growth all of the time.  Sure, there are set-backs, there is hardship, there is struggle, there is conflict.  All of these things are part and parcel of a growing and learning experience.  When we can step back for a few moments and ask "What has happened over the past months to bring us to this point", we are so often amazed at the work that God is doing here in the lives of our students.

When we can support one another in that journey of academic, spiritual, emotional, and social growth, we all grow.  I think Paul was speaking to this very community effort in his letter to the Ephesians (4:15-16):

"Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work."

I love how Paul acknowledges that the whole body grows and builds itself up.  We aren't just watching students grow and learn, but are growing and learning as parents, teachers, and support community as well.

I want to invite you to come in and see some of this in action.  Our open house during Christian Education week is scheduled for 2:15-3:15 on Wednesday, April 29.  Come, be a 'fly on the wall' in our classrooms.  Watch as we grow and build one another up in love, taking hold of God's story.

When you practice something enough, it becomes a part of you.

In his book 'Outliers', Malcolm Gladwell puts forward that to truly master something, it takes 10,000 hours of practice.  People who spend that much time practicing not only love it, but end up 'doing' their task effortlessly; without even thinking about it.  As I walked through the front doors of Covenant this morning, I was greeted again with the theme for the year "Taking Hold of God's Story". Coming off of Easter celebrations, listening once again to the story which is the climax of our faith, I was struck at how that story is so infused in all we do.  The Easter story is the core of our faith, the core of our school, the core of our lives. Christ died for us so that we do not have to bear the consequences of sin, but can live in right relationship with God once again.  

Living as 'Easter People', how many hours have we practiced?  Do our lives bear the hallmarks of practice, or is our time spent on other things that detract from that story?  If we practice harsh language, pride, deceitfulness, ill-will, ungrace, they will become a part of us.  If we practice, practice, practice taking hold of God's story, it will become a part of us.

We are Easter People.  Pray that the Easter story may be practiced at Covenant every minute of every hour of every day.  By the time our students graduate, they will have practiced 10,000 hours, and they will have 'Taken Hold of God's Story', and can rejoice as Paul does in his letter to the Galatians (2: 20):

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.