Christ prayed for you!!

It's Passion week - the time after Palm Sunday where Jesus is welcomed into Jerusalem to cheering, and before his crucifixion just days later. 

Just before his arrest, Jesus is distraught and retreats to the Garden to spend time with his disciples and alone in prayer.  The gospel of John records Jesus' prayers for them, and one of my favourite passages:  a prayer for all believers:

John 17: 20b-23 "I pray also for those who will believe in me through [my disciples'] message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—  I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

At CCS, we believe that Christ was praying for us!  As we celebrate this unifying event for all Christians, we pray for increased unity going forward - that we may show the world God's love and good news!!!

Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again!

Grace and Justice

During staff devotions this morning, we reflected for a few moments on the paradoxical intersection of justice and grace at the cross.  As we work through the daily difficult work of finding restoration and reconciliation in community when hurt occurs, this continues to strike a chord.  In a world that is hungry for 'justice' in the form of punishment, we find ourselves at the foot of the cross baffled that we do not bear the weight of our sin, but that Christ bore it for us.

Often I hear in Christian prayers "Lord, help us to be Christ to one another....".  This is a calling that none of us is able to fulfill, but to which we must continue to strive each day.  It's important that grace and forgiveness and reconciliation and restoration become a habit of our mind, heart, and body.  If we choose otherwise, we become a community of 'un-grace' - (a term I first encountered in Philip Yancey's "What's so Amazing about Grace").  

Yancey writes:  "That, at least, is the vision of the church in the New Testament: a colony of heaven in a hostile world. Dwight L. Moody said, "Of one hundred men, one will read the Bible; the ninety-nine will read the Christian." 

When the world encounters Covenant Christian School, what story will it read? Will it encounter a colony of heaven?  Thank God that we have the cross, where justice is intersected with grace to give us the strength to forgive and to restore!!!

Finish Well

Progress reports

Philippians 1:6-7a:  And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace....

Our term two reports are coming home this week.  It's been a time of reflection for the teachers to look at what has happened in their learning communities over the past few months, and to look forward to finishing well.  For our grade 8 class, this is the second to last report of their elementary school career!

It is in a community of grace and encouragement that we look forward to finishing well.  A community of grace shares struggle together, and celebrates accomplishments together.  As you reflect with your child(ren) on their progress, keep in mind that the central purpose of the report card is to encourage growth in learning.    Develop a plan forward on how to finish well, how to challenge your kids in their learning, and how to encourage them and praise them for their efforts.  Parents magazine had a short but simple formula for setting goals with kids.  For a quick, but helpful read, have a look here: http://goo.gl/daO9BC (a few copies in the office if you wish)

One of the biggest challenges the spring holds is distraction.  As the weather warms up, new activities begin, and we look forward to all the summer holds. As a familial community of grace, keep celebrating the accomplishments your kids experience and stick to your plan to 'finishing well'.

Lent: road or intersection?

Lent is a difficult road... It is a road that we know ends well, and we live in hope of a risen saviour who pays for our sins.  It begins, though, with the acknowledgement of sin and of needing Christ.  The practice of 'giving up' something has its roots in meditation and focus on purification and enlightenment as we rededicate our lives in very real ways to Christ.

"Making things right" is a focus of reconciliation... "Reconciliation with God and forgiveness for our wrong-doings are major themes of Lent, but the focus during this season needn't be confined to our relationship with the Divine. In our heart of hearts, most of us yearn for a world where all human beings are reconciled to each other. We yearn for a healing of rifts, for lasting, deep-down, unshakeable shalom - Peace."  (taken from: http://goo.gl/iFRhzi)

Can we be productive when we continue to carry our burdens in the form of grudges?  Can we be productive when we continue to carry our burdens in the form of pain?

Taking hold of God's story becomes possible when we take hold of his forgiveness.  Taking hold of God's story becomes possible when we let go and forgive the wrong done to us.  Taking hold of God's story happens at the intersection of who God has made us to be, and the good works he has prepared in advance for us to do.  It's a cross-roads.  Perhaps lent isn't so much a road as an intersection.  

I pray for God's lasting, unshakable peace for you and for this learning community as we journey through the intersection of Lent.

On Display

Much of what we do at school seems to happen behind closed doors... the school day starts, students rush to their classes, and the day begins.  Each class has its own set of expectations and curriculum that it must discover, and often times that happens to the joy of those in the classroom, but not to the eyes of others.

My recent time spent in California and digging deeper into educational research has drawn attention to the fact that this is one of 'the problems' with education. Often, learning and the projects students put their hard work and efforts are 'for the teachers' eyes only'.  This needs to change.  Students need to do more work that has a real audience (and meet a real need... but more on that later).

This week is a time when we see more 'on display' than we do normally, and the results are evident in the student work.  When students know that their work will have an audience, their efforts and engagement increase exponentially.  

• Last Saturday's boys basketball tournament and the coming Saturday's girls basketball tournament are opportunities students get to test their skills in a real situation in front of real opponents, and a real crowd. Excellence results.
  
• This Tuesday is our annual science fair.  Grades 7 and 8 put their work out in front of judges for evaluation, but also to the public for browsing through that evening.  Top notch work is produced.
• This Thursday is the annual Fine Arts Festival.  Students put their best performance forward in front of a new audience to have them delight in spoken word and drama.  Beauty is created.

Be a part of our students' audience as we celebrate their learning. Encourage their efforts to uncover and develop their God-given gifts.  Applaud them for taking the risk to put their learning on display.  Give praise to our Creator who has blessed us with opportunity to image Him, and for the gift of growth and development of talents. Look for more work on display in the future as we transform the traditional educational models that hide our lights under a bushel.....

Good (mental) health in grace-shaped community

This Thursday evening, we will be joined by Andrea Groenewald, a partner counsellor with Shalem Mental Health Network (http://shalemnetwork.org/).  She will speak with us and whomever wants to join us about anxiety in children.  As parents, one of our greatest fears is the peril of our children, whether that be an injury, trauma, or stress.  It is near impossible to shield our kids from these, so our tactics need to focus on prevention and setting them up to meet risk and challenge in life and develop good coping skills for when they do experience hardship.

Dr. Syd Hielema is no stranger to stress in children and families having worked for many years as an educator and chaplain supporting students and families through difficulty.  He believes that Christian educational institutions, as communities shaped by grace, are positioned to develop the needed response to the crisis of increased mental health struggles.  "We need holistic treatment regimens that combine the wisest guidance we have for chemical, psychological, relational, and family history issues.... a touch of heaven arrives on earth when all of the above are enfolded within communities being transformed by grace." (CEJ, Feb 2015, p 4-6)

So what is a grace-shaped community?  He outlines two dimensions:

1) a community with an enhanced capacity for respect.  
This means seeing one another not in their present form, but as works in progress - as new creations in which Christ is at work... confident that He will 'bring it on to completion until the day of our Lord Jesus' (Phil 1:6)

2) a community that practices disciplines that unlock the 'Image of God'.   These practices include being transparent, noticing one another, giving voice to one another (listening well), and encouragement.  These four practices, Hielema says, begin to form a community that 'smells' like the aroma of Christ (2 Cor. 2:14-15)

Pray that Covenant Christian School, in its daily activities, and in the activities of its parents and supporters, may become a grace-shaped community.

How do we 'make it right'?

Since 2010, NACE schools have been on a journey towards being schools of restorative practice.  Those words pack a lot of meaning, especially as the rest of society is beginning to learn more about this movement, and react to it.

"When hurtful behaviour occurs, the restorative mantra of talking about what has happened, looking at who has been affected or harmed and how, and what is needed to make things right, is similar in the Christian context to acknowledging our sin, confession, honest contemplation and reflection on the impact of our actions, reconciliation, and healing." (Bruce Schenk in "Restorative Practice in the Christian Context" - Christian Educators Journal, October, 2010)

This difference of approach is a departure from what many of us have grown up with. I certainly did not have the experience of restoration in my Christian School experience. Offenders were given punishments, the harm would continue quietly, the persons involved (victim and offender) were shamed, victims were silenced, and rarely was the situation 'made right'.

Mark VanderVennen (in the same journal issue of CEJ cited above) points out that "The shift to a restorative paradigm begins by asking this question:  when we are in the midst of conflict, how do we image God?  We are not permissive; we insist on accountability for behaviour and standards of relational practices..... Instead we are restorative; we hold people accountable in the context of nurture and support.  We honour them in their journey towards healing relationships."  Often this requires more work of those involved than a simple punitive approach.  It is work well worth the result, and certainly well worth the result for those affected!!

In community, that is our step toward making things right. 

I have made a number of copies of this issue of the CEJ available for NACE parents who wish to read more about how Restorative Practices align well with our mission as Christian Schools.  Please let me know if you would like to have one.