Nov 24, 2019 | Care Conversations
Serving others showing hospitality and honour
Our world belongs to God. Though sin-stained, it bears the indelible marks of His goodness and grace. He appoints community leaders to maintain harmony, justice and mercy. Our political leaders serve at His will. Our Biblical responsibility is to respect, honour, pray for, encourage and critique with grace.
We need to consider ways of engaging with government and community leaders which both honour the Triune God and our leaders, based on honour and service. Hospitality is one way of building positive relationship with these leaders.
At a school I was previously serving in, our local federal member of parliament was a government minister. After some conversations with our Middle School Students we decided to invite him to lunch. We repeated that invitation to him, and other leaders, regularly. Hospitality, service and honour was being extended to these guests.
Students enthusiastically planned the menu, designed menu cards, the invitation, prepared the meal, created table decorations and enacted their assigned responsibilities. Several students researched the Minister’s roles and responsibilities and planned to congratulate and affirm the good initiatives that they discovered.
Upon his arrival at the school, they welcomed him at the carpark, escorted him to lunch, served the meal and engaged him in encouraging conversation. Two students prayed for him and his responsibilities. At the end the Minister remained seated and quizzically asked “But, what do you want from me?” Our students assured him that there was no other agenda and they would love to offer hospitality again. He returned on numerous occasions and was wonderfully engaging and relaxed with our students.
Two years later he suffered a serious heart attack and was hospitalised for major surgery. Our students spontaneously sent him cards and letters in an outpouring of genuine love and concern. When he was sufficiently recovered, he insisted upon visiting to express his immense gratitude for their concern and prayers. Our students learned that important people can be as vulnerable and broken as any other person.
At the next Federal election, our Minister lost his seat and decided to retire from political life. Two things remain in my memory. That evening, as he announced his departure from politics on national television; he was wearing our school windcheater! Three weeks later he phoned to say that he would miss the relationship with our school community. Naturally we told him that he would always be a welcome guest. He went on to say that he was going through all the papers in his office; most of which would be shredded. He wanted us to know however, that he’d just spent an hour reading all the cards and letters from our students and that he would be keeping them all.
This was not an addition to the curriculum – it was the curriculum with intent and purpose.
Nov 19, 2019 | Teachers Talking
The Gospel, the good news of Jesus is the Word of truth, – it is life-transforming, creation-making, covenant-forming, a faithful & wise servant word that takes on flesh in the Lord Jesus. So truth is no longer neutral detached verifiable facts to be committed to memory and known to pass a test. As teachers, once we comprehend the amazing grace of God in truth and embody it in our lives, then we can unfold it to our students, as God’s storytellers. We can unfold to our students the wisdom of God that traces the way of an infinitely wise and good Creator who orders the world in all its splendour and diversity. We are called to do this in a community of truth where Jesus is the Head.
Parker Palmer says, “To know truth is to become betrothed to engage the known with one’s whole self, an engagement one enters with attentiveness, care and goodwill”. In the community of truth, a subject is to be understood as a living part of God’s creation that finds its meaning in Christ (Colossians 1:17).
The learning occurs in community as teachers and students grapple with a reality of what God has created. Rather than the teacher providing the perspectives for students, the teacher in the role of an unfolder of truth structures the instruction and learning which encourages students to self-author, (in age-appropriate ways) to share their own perspectives and construct meaning under the authority of the Biblical text.
Exploring truth is “a passionate and disciplined process of inquiry and dialogue itself, as the dynamic conversation of a community that tests old conclusions and comes into new ones. This learning can bring the “knowers and knowns, into mutually obedient relationships of truth.” (Parker Palmer)
The role of the teacher is to create a learning space where the truth is practised, that is, where students enact the truth to bring blessing to others. The learning is to form the student’s character and enable them to serve others.
Consider the following example: Digital technology is having an enormous impact on shaping the lives of our students. In the virtual world, friendship has been reduced to have a connection through data sharing. Human flourishing has been reduced to individual satisfaction.
- How can we assist our students to critique and discern the nature of the virtual world which they
inhabit?
- In what ways can we assist our students to reimagine the world of shalom where they are responsible
stewards of technology to bless others in the way God intended.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the renowned Russian writer who was imprisoned by Stalin said: “one word of truth outweighs the world.”
As we are no longer children of the darkness but those who have been redeemed by God’s grace, we have been set free to image the journey to shalom.
Under our loving care, we can assist our students to have a renewed understanding of wisdom, provide opportunities for them to respond to truth in their hearts and minds and live it out in service to others. We are engaging our students in the language and deeds of the new creation (Mt 5:13)
“When followers of Jesus live out the Gospel in the world, as we are called to, we become an incarnation of the truth of the Gospel and an expression of the character and shape of its truth. It is this living-in-truth that proves culturally powerful.” (Os Guinness)
Grace and Peace
The Team
The Excellence Centre
Nov 19, 2019 | Care Conversations
Christian school communities must be defined by service hearts, reflective of Jesus. So, how do we develop servant hearts and lives so this permeates our whole school curriculum and culture?
One of the first things we need to recognise is the counter cultures that exist alongside the Christ-centred culture. How do we deal with the “push-back” from these surrounding cultures which promote a focus upon self-interest?
Servanthood is not simply performing tasks for needy people. Servanthood commits to look outwards and to do good. This means that:
- We encourage a celebration of goodness and righteousness with joy.
- We develop the ability to critique and confront situations with grace.
- We learn to cry over the hurts of the world and try to heal what is broken.
- We identify injustice and try to bring mercy.
- We discern chaos and try to bring order.
- We lament violence and try to bring peace.
Creating a servant culture is not an “add-on” to our school curriculum. It is essential part of the way we commune together.
We develop a servant heart in every classroom as we become aware of one another and serve one another.
As our young people mature and become responsible, they bring their servant hearts to bear upon the whole school community. This will widen out to the locality within which the school is situated; then to the wider region, then to the nation, then to the world.
Mission and service programs are not separate programs from the rest of the curriculum; they are part of the curriculum. We equip our students for the work of ministry [1] (remember that a minister is a servant).
We change the paradigm from looking to benefit ourselves, to looking out for the needs of others.
[1] Ephesians 4:12
Nov 8, 2019 | Care Conversations
Servanthood is one of the major goals of all of our teaching and learning in our school communities.
Developing our own servant hearts and that of our students must be progressive and purposeful. Everything we do must make a positive impact on our servant hearts.
Notice that we’re not just referring to “Acts of Service” – but to servanthood. Acts of service can be switched on and off. We can serve for an hour and then stop serving.
Being a servant means having the heart of a servant 24/7. It means we are willing to be a servant rather than being negatively compelled.
The call of Jesus is to be a servant. “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all”. [1]
Paul tells us that being “a servant of Christ Jesus” is part of his redeemed identity in Christ. [2]
This flows on to being a servant to others: “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” [3]
Our goal is not to just to “do service” but to develop servants. As such, we need to be careful that we don’t develop a “behaviourist” understanding of servanthood. We should not be simply saying, “Jesus served, so must we”. We need to be developing a culture where being a servant is the norm, where we are constantly thinking about why that should be so and what will cause us to be willing servants.
So, our first understanding, as with all things, is theological. We ask the question “what characterises the relationships of the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit?”. We see a dynamic of love and of other-person-centredness.
“The relationships of the Trinity are relationships of love. They are marked by devotion to each other.” [4]
Being made in the image of God, this love and disposition of serving others is part of our DNA as created beings. This is how we are made to live. When our students discover love in serving, we can point to why this is so.
Every blessing as you engage your relationships shaped by love and service.
[1] Mark 9:35
[2] Romans 1:1
[3] 2 Corinthians 4:5
[4] Connected – Sam Allberry
Nov 6, 2019 | Care Conversations
Last week we finished by saying that in our Biblical Christian learning communities we should develop a culture of appropriate lament.
Tragedies occur around the world every day. Some occur in our own country, some in our own neighbourhood and some in our school community.
Often, we educational leaders don’t know how to process these heartbreaks and are unsure how we best assist the community to respond.
Frequently we may have no words of comfort and we can only be present in love and silence. Our comfort may be to share tears together.
The worst thing we can do is ignore the pain of brokenness. When we do that, we are indicating that God has nothing to say in our sorrow. We will be implying that either God has no defence against evil or He has no concern for the pain of His Creation.
“The biggest hindrance to young people’s faith isn’t doubt; it’s silence” [1]
The Cross is the place where tragedy and triumph are seen. It is the place where the most unfair and painful, yet most loving and merciful act took place.
We are those who live beyond the Cross. We are able to see that God, the Father, lovingly governed the crucifixion of Christ, the Son.
We are able to see, in the pain and tragedy of the Cross, the love and mercy which annihilated sin’s judgement. We can see the great glory of God and see the forgiveness that flows to us.
That’s as far as our understanding can take us. We cannot explain the reason or purpose of the suffering we see in the world, or the pain of someone in our community. Nor should we attempt to give our reasoning.
We trust God because we see in the cross of Christ the greatest suffering and the greatest good.
[1]“Growing With” (2019) based on Research by National Study of Youth and Religion.
