Oct 28, 2019 | Care Conversations
Communities are impacted by the realities of life in a fallen world. Yet, at the same time when a community encounters difficulty and laments because there is disruption to shalom, God is always redeeming his people and shaping them to be who he calls them to be.
I would recommend that schools develop a couple of profile statements. The first, a “School Profile” setting out some clarifying statements indicating what the community is committed to be and do. The second would be a “Graduate Student Profile” describing what would be some desirable attributes that we would dearly love to see in our graduating students. These statements should not be used as curriculum outcomes but as helpful reminders as to the purpose and direction of our educational ministry.
In one of the school groups in which I continue to have involvement, one of the School profile statements says: We will “Pray and struggle for shalom, celebrating its presence and mourning its absence, within the school community and beyond.”
Here there is a clear recognition of future hope, tempered by the reality of present brokenness.
Recognising brokenness, sadness and grief is an important part of community life. We need not fall into the trap of sentimental self-indulgence, but we do need to recognise that pain and suffering is part of our present life.
The Scriptures reflect this reality. Around forty-five percent of Psalms focus on lament.
There are two dangers. Firstly, that we will adopt a positive thinking approach; attempting to manufacture happiness despite what we experience. Or secondly, we will indulge in sentimental self-pity and play the present secular game of rejoicing in victimhood.
We must have a culture that includes lament – and by that we mean that we can experience grief without despair; immense sadness with hope. We can hold to a strong faith in God whilst recognising the pain of brokenness and tragedy in our lives and beyond. Lament avoids trite answers and quick solutions, progressively moving us toward deeper worship and trust.
In our school communities let us be careful that we’re not simply singing happy upbeat songs in our chapel times. Rather, let us be sensitive to the experiences of all community members by providing opportunities for open discussion and questioning to take place.
And let us continually see pain and suffering through the Cross of Christ. That way there is always hope.
Oct 28, 2019 | Teachers Talking
At the beginning of a year, when teaching my Year 10 Commerce class, a student commented to me ‘why are you talking about the Bible in Commerce?’ This reflected a dualistic mind-set that God’s Word did not have anything to do with the marketplace. Augustine said, “wherever truth may be found it belongs to the Master”. Even when God is not acknowledged, truth is still truth and its source is God Himself. As image-bearers, all students can explore truth and find meaning for their lives.
Human culture speaks of the divine intention. Cultural experiences, stories and events point to God’s redemptive purposes. The stories of a culture will have dim reflections of the reality of the living God and His redemption. Literature, for example, often dimly echoes God’s salvation story. In the children’s novel, Charlotte’s Web (by EB White), the rescue of the pig by the spider’s sacrifice is a picture of redemption. Our students need to learn to critique television shows, movies and literature by learning to read them, understand the themes and worldviews communicated in the light of God’s revelation.
History reveals the human yearnings for freedom, peace and justice point to an ultimate hope. The Christian teacher leads the students to see the meaning of history as Messianic, His story, as it unfolds in time to eternity.
We invite the students to celebrate the goodness of the created order, to critique what has been distorted, to lament the power that diminishes human life (personal, social, global) and confront pain and suffering with grace that restores true peace and justice.
The Bible is key to understanding the meaning of the divine speech in creation, history and culture. Thus all truth is God’s truth wherever it is spoken and so we don’t divide knowledge into sacred/secular.
Only a teacher illuminated by grace can understand the harmony of creation, history, and human culture. The constant searching of Scripture and its engagement with life enables the Gospel to shape lives of our students as they participate in the truth.
- Consider what happens if we design our teaching and learning not just as banks of knowledge and skills but unfolded through the lens of Biblical truth?
- What happens if we teach our students as image-bearers, not just as those preparing for an exam and a job, but as those who will participate in truth to exercise a responsible stewardship of life?
Helping our students to shape their thinking and desires to the truth leads to true freedom and transformation. Living in truth is freedom because we are engaging our students in reality as it truly is.
“I have chosen the way of truth; I have set my heart on your laws … I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.” (Psalm 119:30,32)
Grace and Peace
The Team
The Excellence Centre
Oct 24, 2019 | TEC Connects
Recently I’ve been falling in love with the Psalms as I have studied them with greater depth. They are rich in poetic form but also rich in their theological reflections of the Biblical story. We see a portrait of God that is glorious and magnificent, loving and intimate in relationship with humanity.
In our wellbeing series we have often focused on the wellbeing of the individual and the communities of our schools. Yet as I read the Psalms I am overwhelmed by the heart of God and His vision for the entirety of his creation to become all God intended it to be. Wellbeing is on the cosmic agenda of God.
God’s original creative purpose included the whole of creation living in a state of wellbeing. This grand vision of wellbeing is showcased throughout the Psalter as it reflects the original creation narrative. The Psalter explains that God values His entire creation as his cherished possession. His redemptive plan is designed to lead all creation back into a state of wellbeing or wholeness. Whilst God loves and sustains all creation, He raises humanity up to a place of distinction as the crown of his creation. Human worth, purpose and calling are all reflected in the Psalter. If we catch the heart of the Psalms we will realise that wellbeing is always in the context of God’s faithfulness and goodness and never in isolation of the whole of creation.
God invites us into this epic body of poetry to feel His heart, hear His voice, see His glory and taste of His goodness. Our experience of wellbeing is in relationship to God, others and to our cosmos. And so, with great delight that fills us with a sense of wellbeing we also feel, hear, see and taste of creation. As we follow God’s creational patterns for life, we engage each other in a community of love and shalom.
The Psalms make it clear that God does not just love his creation from a distance. His benevolence is the fundamental reason we can enter into a God-shaped sense of wellbeing. He shows us how we can find restoration resulting in our wellbeing. The Psalms invite us to look into the pages of “Torah”; God’s word, to see His character reflected and to understand how we live in relationship to Him, with others in community and by fulfilling the creation mandate He entrusted. The Torah is a richly layered gift that leads us to fulfilment and wellbeing. Obedience to God’s word reveals and enables us to find wellbeing as we await the return of Jesus with the promise of a new creation where wellbeing will once again be a state we never need to consider. It’s a powerful hope.
Psalms give us a poetic perspective on wellbeing, communicated by way of imagination and poetic artistry, imparting a rhythm of ideas through a display case of various genres. The intent of God’s all-encompassing wellbeing plan is reflected from different vantage points. If we get our “poetry on” we will discover the irreplaceable treasures, echoing through the pages that bid us to embrace all God has to give us; wellbeing is in Psalmic pages.
As writer NT Wright expresses, “Sing these songs, and they will renew you from head to toe, from heart to mind. Pray these poems, and they will sustain you on the long, hard but exhilarating road of Christian discipleship.” [1]
[1] NT Wright, Finding God in the Psalms: Sing, Pray, Live, (London, UK: SPCK, 2014), 35.
Oct 22, 2019 | Teachers Talking
Equipping our students to participate in truth, by fulfilling their calling to mirror the creative-redemptive God, first requires us to answer the question ‘what is truth’? In the Gospels, there is recorded a conversation between the Lord Jesus and Pilate. Jesus said “Everyone on the side of truth listens to me…”
This means that Jesus embodied in His personhood and the life he lived in the world the nature of ultimate reality. In response, Pilate asked “what is truth?” Jesus told his disciples “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31)
As Christian teachers, our most wonderful privilege is to know Christ and to bring our lives into conformity with His truth that leads to wholeness. “We teach who we are” (P Palmer) and we have the role to lead our students to the Source of all truth. The Bible’s purpose and authority is that it teaches us to understand all aspects of existence ‘Sub Specie Dei (under the sight of God)’ – humanity, creation, history and the future. Holistic learning calls students away from self-determination to the pursuit of their Creator who made them in His image.
Biblical truth corresponds to and expresses the nature of reality. It is the true story about God and His creation which enables us to know truly but not exhaustively. In Christ all things hold together (Colossians 1:17) and it is only in relation to him that reality can make sense and find its true meaning. The Bible then is foundational for our schools in every generation as its story is the interpretative framework for drawing our students into its plot and locating their lives in God’s great purpose.
Consider the Science teacher who wants her students to consider that reality is more than we can observe and measure. In tracing the wonder of God’s creational design, meaningful scientific conversations can help students to think about the relationship between the non-material and the material world and the rationality embedded in the creative order.
She poses a question “why is the kettle boiling on the stove?” and asks for a scientific reason and a non-scientific reason to explain this phenomena. A student responds by explaining the law of thermodynamics whereby heat applied to water causes it to boil. This is a scientific fact which has been discovered by reason. Another student replies that it is boiling because grandma wants a cup of tea. This speaks to purpose and is revealed truth. Science can never achieve pre-determined purpose. Revelation is necessary if we want a holistic explanation of the physical world. God’s Word enables us to understand the relationship between the material and non-material aspects of our existence. God has designed the laws that govern the way the material world works and these point to His existence. (Romans 1:20)
The goal is that our students’ lives will be characterised ‘not by the accumulation of disembodied, unconnected facts, … but by … interconnected wisdom that traces the wise and loving way that God orders this world in all its rich diversity.” (Brian Walsh)
Consider a unit of work you are currently teaching. What questions can you pose to your students which will enable them to explore the learning through the lens of God’s Story? In the above example, what are the implications for our lives if it is a closed material world?
“… Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2:3)
Grace and Peace
The Team
The Excellence Centre
Oct 17, 2019 | Care Conversations
Progress and achievement are so important to celebrate. They are, however, not ends in themselves. We are to guide our young people in understanding the purpose (WHY) they have been gifted, HOW they have been gifted and the responsibilities they have for the faithful application of their giftings as they honour God and serve others.
So, our celebration of progress and achievement MUST have a context. Let me suggest a Mnemonic.
- Christ Preeminent – The Biblical truth is that Jesus is Preeminent over all; the entire universe including every person. This is not a private truth and is not simply true for believers. It is truth that is the bedrock for every breath, every thought, every action, every piece of knowledge.
We need to have a culture that says: “There IS someone worth following! We Proclaim Christ.
- Hope Focussed – Genuine Hope arises from knowing the preeminent Christ; knowing He is sufficient for all things.
When we are hope-filled, we have cause to be hopeful.
Hope-filled people are not simply positive thinkers. Those who know true hope will know sadness and grief more clearly than others, because they know what life SHOULD be like. So, being hope- filled will help our young people to grieve without sentimentality, and apply their learning in compassionate ways.
We need to have a culture that says:”There IS Hope for now and the future.”
- Redemptive Engagement – From the creation of the universe it was God’s plan to involve His people in His world; it still is.
One of our major tasks is equipping young people to engage in redemptive ways.
Developing our students’ critical and constructive thinking and redemptive action, is for the benefit and flourishing of ALL people and communities.
We need to have a culture that that causes them to see and rejoice in what is good; to share compassion with the suffering and to act redemptively where possible.
- Interdependent – Independence is not God’s design for people. God’s design is for community and interdependence.
Relationships do matter.
We need to have a culture that values and finds meaning in relationship, seeks collaboration and harmony and expresses dignity for every person.
- Servant heart – We were designed to serve It’s in our DNA! This has to be more than simply occasional acts of service.
We need to have a culture that rejoices in servanthood.
- Thankful – “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Thankfulness is the anti-dote to cynicism.
We need to have a culture that is saturated with thankfulness.
A context for celebrating progress and achievement is critical. Leaders must shape the culture in which this might thrive.
Blessings on you as you lead our students to engage purposefully in progress and achievement in their communities as they honour God.
