Growing and Stretching our Faith

I am writing this at the middle point of two Christian Education Weeks at NACE. Last week we welcomed well over 1000 visitors through our doors and hallways at Covenant to see what Christian Education is all about.  Now we're ready to do the same at John Knox!  Student work is on display, songs and acting practices taking place, our classrooms are a little more 'open', and the regular 'busy' of school life is even busier!!
These weeks place us in contact with all kinds of people.  Some are our dedicated founders - those who worked to establish our schools.  Some are family supporters, excited to see how Christian Schools are working in the lives of their children, nieces, nephews, and grandchildren.  Still others are new to Christian Education - just beginning to see what happens at John Knox and Covenant, and by extension, at Christian Schools rooted in the richness of the gospel woven through every moment of the day.
One of the lessons that I'm continuing to learn is that we are always on stage. Some of the most rewarding conversations that I've had over the past days, weeks, and months are with those who have recently discovered Christian Schools and the unique blessing that we enjoy.  One of those was last week with a grandparent who shared with me that she just wished that she had known about Christian Schools when her own children were school aged.  She is now excited to support the decision that her children have made to become a part of the Christian Education Community, and sharing that with anyone she meets.
I, and I think we, need to remember that there are opportunities every day, and especially in our own Christian Communities.  The good news of God's grace is relevant always, and applicable at all times.  There are always those who are struggling with their faith, those who are new to the message of the gospel, and those who are discovering Christ's work in the world for the first time.
Christian Education doesn't stop at grade 8, at grade 12, at post-secondary studies, or ever.  Our faith is never at a state of completion or arrival.  It is always growing, always stretching, always renewing not only so that we can share the good news, but because we are presented with the opportunity to do so!!
"But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God." - Acts 20:24

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Some of you will have caught our 'Niagara Christian Schools' broadcast that we are undertaking with the help of Scott Street Church in St. Catharines and in partnership with Smithville Christian High, Beacon Christian, and Dunnville Christian Schools.  These programs are broadcasting on WDCX 99.5 FM on Sundays at 12:45 on a show entitled 'Voices of Niagara'.  The first three episodes have highlighted the group of schools, and then Covenant and John Knox individually.  The voices of teachers, parents, and students all attest to how God is working through our schools.  If you missed them, we have downloadable recordings available online at:

Episode #1 (all five schools): https://goo.gl/cqOh6n

Episode #2 (Covenant): https://goo.gl/43x2nH

Episode #3 (John Knox): https://goo.gl/xg8yaz

Episodes #4-6 will highlight the other three schools over the next few weeks.

www.voicesofniagara.ca

www.niagarachristianschools.ca

Walking from Palm Sunday to Good Friday

We are now in Holy Week.  Many of us celebrated Palm Sunday in church yesterday, many with actual palm branches, commemorating the day in which Jesus comes into Jerusalem, knowing full well that it was here that he would meet his 'end', so to speak.  He was greeted with all of the adoration deserving of a king, with shouts of admiration. 

In a very powerful devotional experience years ago when I counselled at a kids camp, we walked up 'cross hill' as it was affectionately known, to the wooden cross erected there, overlooking the camp.  Each child brought forward a slip of paper forward.  Mine said 'Kevin's Sins'... each camper had a personalised card they had made with their name.  We nailed each of the 100 slips of paper to the cross and the kids were allowed to leave once their paper was hung.  I have a photo of that cross up in my house still: cross with sins attached and kids playing on the field below... 'released' as it were from their sins by Christ's sacrifice on the cross.

The next time many of us will be in church will be to celebrate and mark Good Friday.  I've always found this an uneasy transition.  It's kind of like a movie or a bad dream where everything slowly starts to unravel and gets worse and worse. How did we get from the triumphal entry with shouts of 'Hosanna!'  to screams of 'Crucify Him!' less than a week later?  It has underscored for me the fact that Jesus' disciples and his followers, and indeed the world, misunderstood who He really was and what He really was there to do.

I wonder about our own faith walk.  How much of our own view of Christ is made into what we want him to be?  When we approach God in worship, do we really understand fully what and who He is?  I'm inclined to think that we also need to do this Holy Week walk.  Where have we made God into our own object?  Where have we sold him short?  How have we misunderstood and underestimated his power?  In what ways do we need to acknowledge our own sinfulness and take it to him on the cross?

This week, may you experience the heaviness of your own sins, may we as a group of people acknowledge our own shortcomings and the ways in which we have often made God into something of our own crafting, and may we all end up at the cross - the only thing that can release us into Joy.  May we be ready to release our sins to the healing power of Jesus' death and resurrection.  

May your week, in this way, be truly Holy.

Leadership Wisdom and Faith

I don't often write about leadership in this column, but it is a topic on which I dwell, think, and pray about a great deal.  A friend shared a very poignant article with me the other day entitled "How To Know Whether You’re Trusting God…Or Just Being Stupid"  (if you're interested in the entire post, you can find it here: https://goo.gl/D2Wn7K )  Initially, I laughed out loud because I have this conversation with other leaders in Christian organisations often.  It seems to be a very delicate balancing act to figure out just how bold to be in one's vision and decision-making while remaining appropriately cautious and careful.

The author Carey Nieuwof breaks down the decision between trust and wisdom in a great way and one that is helpful for anyone running any organisation, and for distinctively Christian organisations in particular.

1) "Is ‘wisdom’ killing my trust in God?" and 2) "Does my ‘trust’ in God disregard all wisdom?"

The second question here is much easier for me.  It's safer, it seems more calculated, and we can all think of examples in which perhaps someone was misguided in their conviction to move forward in faith and watched as it felt apart. Unfortunately, our faith is always an imperfect faith and we are also blessed with wisdom, discernment, and people on whom we can rely for sober second thought.

The first question is unsettling for me, but lurks as a constant reminder that I am part of something much bigger than the individual parts.  God is working through NACE in amazing ways, and I find that He surprises me weekly by showing me ways in which my vision was limited.  I often do more harm to my faith and trust in God by being calculated and careful in my response.  

So, how can we grow in our balance of wisdom and faith?  James 1 has some advice (which I need to turn to often!)  "If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.  But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver..." (NLT)

Do we need to have wisdom, or faith?   Both!  Please pray for the leadership of NACE that we will seek wisdom, boldly asking God with a faith in Him alone!!  This prayer is also for our students who watch us keenly each minute, hour, and day.  Modelling our faith and a desire for wisdom is one of the best gifts we can give them to prepare for a life of service.

Who is your 'Woman at the Well'?

I am encouraged to know that there are so many preachers in a variety of congregations and denominations that rely on the Lectionary as their source for direction on what to preach on any given Sunday.  For those unfamiliar, the Lectionary is a series of readings from the Bible for use in Christian worship, taking into account the liturgical year with its pattern of seasons.  As a commonly used guide, one can expect that on a given Sunday, the same text could likely be the focus of teaching in hundreds of different churches.  Pastor friends of mine tell me that this is one way that they are forced to preach on texts that make them feel uncomfortable and that they are held accountable to preach God's word, not just what they feel like teaching about.

Over the past few weeks, I started to see a buzz on my social media channels focussing on the Samaritan woman at the well and saw that the Lectionary contained, for the third Sunday of Lent, the passage in John 4 with the story where Jesus meets the Samaritan woman.  When we dig down into this story, as many churches did, we are confronted with the fact that Jesus met again, with someone who others regularly overlooked, shunned, and especially expected Him to do the same.  He did not take the opportunity to judge her or 'set her straight' as she may have expected; he does not ignore, critique, or pity her, but became vulnerable.... He 'saw' her.  Jesus saw her value, her potential, and her humanity.... and loved her enough to ask her for water.... something so many others would not, especially from the pious religious figures of the day. 

Jesus' actions of hospitality and relationship demonstrated to that woman and all in her village that he came for them and that the Living Water he had to offer was not restricted to a specific class of people who did things right.

One of our local pastors ended his sermon on this passage charging that congregation to think carefully of who they could begin a relationship with... where they could become vulnerable and take a risk to really 'see' someone outside of their own community.  That challenge struck a chord with me (albeit not a comfortable challenge, as challenges go....) It was his prayer, and it is my prayer as well this week: that your/our friends and community will be surprised when they find out who we having been visiting with, talking to, being vulnerable with, and inviting to know the Savior of the world.  In the course of your/our living, learning, and serving, who are you/we engaging in a real relationship?  Who is your/our 'Woman at the well?'  Do we trust God enough to work through us.. to allow ourselves to be vulnerable on His behalf?

Redefining Fair and the Value of a Mistake

(today's ED-you-cate comes courtesy of my colleague Stephen Janssen, principal at London Christian Elementary School) http://lcesprincipal.blogspot.ca/

As we arrive at the end of second term, here are two thoughts about growth and change in our place of learning:

Fairness rarely means sameness. More often, fair means everyone gets what they need, not everyone gets the same thing.

We find ourselves working with this truth often at school. A real sign of growth in perception of others for our students is realizing that everyone’s life, their ability to learn and contribute in different ways, and each person’s gifts and talents are unique to them. Each student is dearly loved, uniquely made, and specifically equipped by God for his purposes with them. Great things happen in a community of learners when that is understood.

Mistakes are the keys to a student’s learning.

In learning as in life, things don’t always go the way we wish they would. Especially the first time.

This is true for our students as well; the greatest potential for them to learn may well be to re-visit the places where they did not find success the first time. A helpful analogy I’ve heard is an airline pilot who first perfects the art of a good landing in a flight simulator environment hundreds of times, then moves to real-life situations under the watch full eye of an experienced pilot, all the while learning from mistakes made. Only when those processes are practiced to high level of skill does s/he attempt a landing solo.

A huge potential barrier to student learning is the negative stigmatism of a mistake, or methods of evaluation and assessment that frequently lead students to be quick to compare to others and their results. Never arriving at the reflective spot of looking at their own learning with an eye toward growth is a lost opportunity.

We pray that our students’ lives are full of learning about all of God’s world, including themselves as learners. SJ

It's all about the learning

Report cards come home very soon.  Our principals are reading through each one, and teachers have spent long hours compiling evidence of your child(ren)'s learning over the past couple of months.   At our recent workshop on using our new standardised tests, we were again reminded of 'triangulation'.  We take multiple data points - work in class, quizzes, projects, tests, and performance exercises to come up with a professional opinion on how students are learning. No one single item should define how a child is doing.  Once we have a number of different indicators, then we can come to a clearer picture.  Alongside our data from the first report card, we now hopefully have a sense of growth and progression as well!

In the end, the report card is to help the student, teacher, and parent to collectively strategize how to learn moving forward.  What is working, what is not, and how we can continue to uncover the wonders of God's world. What goals can we set for the remainder of the year to finish well?  It is not a judgement of who your child is or is not.  It is not a communication of how 'good' a child is.  It is not a stick or a carrot that we use to entice behaviour.  It is a communication to you and your child about how they are handling the material for their grade level, and of course, you have the opportunity to respond!

Use this report card and interview cycle as an opportunity to continue our dialogue, to identify how best to work with the gifts and talents God has given your child(ren), and to encourage one another to live for Jesus, learn for life, and serve with gladness!

So what do the teachers learn anyway?

Two weeks with a PD day.  So I'm guessing that a few of you are wondering what the teachers are doing during that time.  First of all, I am thankful to be working with a staff that is committed to professional learning not just on PD days.  Many of our teachers use weeks in the summer to take courses and workshops.  Outside of PD days, our bi-weekly staff meetings often have a PD component, and specific events throughout the year push our PD along....  From the past and coming weeks, a little update:

Last Wednesday, we assembled as an entire NACE staff after school from 4pm to 8pm to do two things:  

a) Learn more about how to use the results of our new standardized testing (MAP - Measures of Academic Performance tests - www.nwea.org).  With the expertise of Justin Cook, the Director of Learning at the Ontario Alliance of Christian Schools, we dug deep into what is possible with our test results, and most importantly, how they foster a culture of growth and progress with our students and our classes.  

b) After dinner served by and shared with the NACE board, we continued work that was begun in August on developing a code of character and habits of a Christian School student to specifically define and teach in years to come.  We began with the reality that our parent survey of last year pointed to the need to teach and expect a 'lived Christian life' in our students rather than just head knowledge.  We also know from research that character is the other side of the academic coin.... good character brings about good learning.  Expect to hear more about this as we follow this project through this spring and into the fall.

This past Friday, we joined 120 other educators from area Christian Schools to learn more about responsive classroom techniques and how we can better develop relationships and encourage positive learning cultures in our classrooms.  Our teachers walked away with specific and immediate things they intend to introduce in their classrooms this week to start that journey.

And this Friday?  It's report card writing time.  A lot of learning has happened since our last report card, so it's time to get that concisely down on paper to communicate to students/parents and set goals for the remainder of the year.

Teaching at NACE is not an easy task.  We demand a lot of one another and there is always room to learn and grow and improve.  Together, we're committed to refining our craft of Christian Teaching so that the students at NACE receive the best education we can deliver!