Aug 31, 2021 | Care Conversations
7. To ‘LOVE and to be LOVED’ – A Story
What might loving and being loved look like through those three lenses of 1. forgiveness, 2. justice and goodness as well as 3. sacrifice.
Some years ago, Maureen, my wife, was the Year 12 Coordinator at a school in which we both served.
The time came for our annual Year 12 retreat, which was a three-day residential event which helped us to focus on faith development and understanding the call that God has on our lives.
Three year 12 students had not completed the community service requirements of our year 12 course. Some teachers suggested that these three students should not be allowed to attend the retreat.
Maureen devised an alternative plan.
The recalcitrant three would attend. They needed faith development and to wrestle with significant faith issues along with everyone else.
At the retreat, they would be required to complete the “service hours” that had not yet been fulfilled.
This would be achieved by them waking at 5am each morning and spending three hours each day, prior to breakfast, cleaning the beach areas near to the retreat centre.
There was no “punishment” for their shortcomings in community service responsibility; there was forgiveness with discipline. Punishment is a penalty for wrongdoing; discipline seeks to remedy the wrong-doing and encourage better future actions.
So, there we have forgiveness, but also justice and goodness – the tasks had to be completed.
Where was the sacrifice? There was minor sacrifice by the students, but that was part of the appropriate justice of discipline. The real sacrifice was that Maureen was working alongside those students each day from 5am.
A process and outcome that showed that they were loved; and guess what – they loved and appreciated their teacher,
Blessings
Brian
Aug 31, 2021 | Teachers Talking
Working Together
In the Middle Ages, young men were apprenticed to a master to learn an art or a trade. In our culture we think of an apprenticeship as a time for learning knowledge and skills. But in the past, having an art or trade was part of one’s identity. “In the master/apprentice relationship, the master passes on a way of being in the world, a sacred outlook and a toolbox stocked with stories, habits and virtues intended to help the apprentice carry the master’s work forward.” (Dean, 2010, p. 150) The master stone-carver, for example, carved stone because he was a stone carver, that is, he was fulfilling the calling for which he was made. He passed on to his apprentice the dispositions, knowledge and skills needed to create something from the stone that reflected the apprentice’s own gifting. Imitating the master carver didn’t mean carving exact replicas of his own but trusting the learning he received to create something new.
Relationally teachers are to express their unity in Christ through their love for one another. There is also diversity where unique image-bearers work together as interconnected parts of Christ’s Body to bring glory to God. Schools are made up of teachers of different ages and levels of maturity, different levels of teaching experience and different gifts. Everyone can grow both personally and professionally as the Holy Spirit empowers each one to fulfil their God-given calling. The teaching team can flourish when each one has a commitment to serve the Lord using their gifts to build up their colleagues. Teachers model the shalom learning community when they collaborate in pairs, teams or groups, mentor one another, sharing their vision and a common task, their gifts and resources. This can build the capacity of each teacher, enhancing their initiative and creativity. It supports strengths and differences, allows for weaknesses and brings a richness to learning for students which is beyond the ability of the individual teacher. In this context, teachers are more readily able to critically reflect and evaluate each other’s contribution to a common task.
Donovan Graham reminds us in his book Teaching Redemptively that it “takes a community of like-minded people who are willing to both support and challenge one another in healthy, redemptive ways” (p. x) for the school to be a Christ-centred learning community where students can flourish. The questions that each one of us needs to consider are:
- How can I use my gifts to contribute to the personal and professional life of my colleague/s in my school?
- In what ways can my colleagues build into my life and teaching practice? How can I facilitate this?
Working together as brothers and sisters in Christ is God’s way of carrying out our mission.
May the Lord richly bless you as each one uses their God-given gifts to build up one another in your school so that together you may fulfil your calling to raise responsive disciples of Jesus who will be like their teachers.
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. (Ephesians 4:16)
Grace and Peace
TEC Team
Reference
- Graham, D. (2007) Teaching Redemptively. Purposeful Design Publications
- Dean, K.C. (2010) Almost Christian. Oxford
Aug 31, 2021 | Wens Pen
Hello Everyone
Jesus didn’t fit the mould. When I was a kid, my Grandmother had expectations that I would be the typical little girl who would sit and play with dolls, quietly brushing their hair, making them look pretty and getting them ready for the dainty little tea party to be hosted on the rolling lawns in our resplendent garden. Boring! All things “pink”, just wasn’t that appealing. I was very much a little girl, made in God’s image, but that didn’t mean I had to live in the typical, pre-written script for girls. For me, exploring our local bush, playing by the creek, paddling in the billabongs, riding our bikes on the bush tracks, constructing our three-story cubby house up in the tree, or playing dress-ups as Batman and Robin and saving the world was living the dream. My Grandmother finally gave up when the life-sized doll she gave me suffered numerous crashes after I turned her pram into a speed racer so she could enjoy the thrill-seeking rides up and down the driveway which became her speedway. I gave that doll a much more adventurous life that was expected. I was a little girl with a heart for adventure and I just didn’t fit my Grandmother’s mould.
As we read the Gospel stories, we see that Jesus didn’t fit the mould (have a read through one of the Gospels). The Israelites had waited 400 years for the coming Messiah and during that time they had scripted a role for this coming King and formed expectations about His rule. They were expecting a Davidic king who would restore Israel by launching a military campaign that would annihilate the grip the Romans had on these displaced people. They expected the Kingdom of God would belong exclusively to them as part of their inheritance. But Jesus didn’t fit the mould. He did not conform to their script. His miracles, His claim to be God and the Kingdom, which was inaugurated in Him as all inclusive, confirmed to the Jewish leaders that Jesus didn’t fit the mould. Rather, Jesus lived out of the Kingdom script as He re-established God’s authority on earth, casting a new net of salvation that would include all of humanity. Jesus could not afford to fit their mould, for to do so would have diminished His mission and destroyed the redemptive plans of God for the entire world (you and I included).
Today, there is also a cultural script; a script that seeks to redefine God and reframe our humanity. Just like Jesus didn’t fit the mould, we too are called to live counter-culturally; to live out of the Kingdom script. Just like Jesus, we must not compromise our mission as God’s representatives by being comfortable with the script of the world or a mould that invites us to fit into the shape of an existence devoid of the one true King. As we live out of the Kingdom script and embody the Kingdom values, we tell a different story, a story of hope and truth. As Jesus showed the world what God was like, we too must show the world who Jesus is and what He is like.
So, friends, get into your “Jesus mould” today.
Best days to come.
Wen
Aug 24, 2021 | Wens Pen
Hello Everyone
The passage of pain. For us humans, pain is a dirty word. It’s unwanted, but it’s unavoidable. Pain and suffering were never part of God’s original design. The moment humanity chose to redefine life independent of God, the passage of pain became part of the life we live. It is natural for us, of course, that our preference is to stay on easy street and avoid colliding with pain. Sometime, however in the journey of life, we will all encounter the thick brush strokes of pain painting its colours of grey across our lives as we enter the passage of pain.
But who is it we meet in the passage of pain? Look in. Who do you see? It is Jesus. He awaits us with His merciful, loving arms, wide open to gather us up, to comfort, strengthen and protect us when we are black and blue from the assaults of difficulty, be it physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. Jesus both bears our pain and bears with us in and through it. Our suffering matters to Jesus. He weeps with us, catches our tears, dresses our deep wounds, and reminds us He knows; He knows what is like to endure in the passage of pain and to suffer. Before we enter any season of difficulty, we can be sure His footprints are already in the passage of pain and we can walk the path with Jesus who will accompany and comfort us through the passage of pain.
In the passage of pain, our faith is shaped in ways it could never be in the pastures of pleasure. We develop increased intimacy with Jesus, a deepening of our faith, a shaping of our person to reflect Jesus, and an authentic sense of empathy for others we meet along the way in the passage of pain. We feel the pain, but we know His peace. We are in the crushing but not crushed (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). As we wrestle with difficulty in the passage of pain, it is here we can echo the words of Job, “my ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you” (Job 42:5). When we come through the passage of pain, we are never the same again, but we are strangely grateful, for the same passage has led us closer to Jesus.
So, friends, get through your “passage of pain” in Jesus today.
Best days to come.
Wen
Aug 24, 2021 | Care Conversations
6. To ‘LOVE and to be LOVED’
How might this become a major foundation of a school community?
Loving our community, including our students, is not simply going to be about how we express care and kindness, although, it does include that. Almost universally Christian Schools are seen to have a high level of care for students.
When we understand and recognize that the love God is not only an emotion, but a conscious and deliberate choice solely determined by His will, we are challenged to re-evaluate how we love others. There is nothing in us that makes us deserving of God’s love. If we recognise that God’s love is not determined by our worthiness and is not conditional upon having that love returned – our view of others changes radically. There are no unlovable people.
Donovan Graham, (2003) mentions three ways that our love will be expressed.
Firstly. Through offering forgiveness. This is not just teachers offering forgiveness for misbehaviour by students. Rather it is cultivating a classroom culture that has a readiness to forgive each other. This is NOT to overlook wrongs. There needs to be a recognition of our common sinfulness and tendency to wrong thinking and action. But we are called to “Forgive as we have been forgiven.”(Eph 4:32)
Secondly, God demonstrates His love for us by doing what is just and good. The basis of our “doing good” is to live in a way that demonstrates our love for God and our love for others.
So, doing good, is not just “not doing bad”!
How are we going to develop a school and classroom culture that rejoices in doing good to all people?
Graham suggests that the third way that God shows His love is through sacrifice. Sacrifice is a giving of self for the benefit of others.
Teachers have always known that their vocation involves sacrifice. No-one becomes a teacher because it’s easy or comfortable.
But sacrifice that arises from love means that we want a classroom and school community where students and teachers will sacrificially give for the benefit of each other.
All these things are counter to the prevailing climate of entitlement and individual comfort. The school and classroom that is based upon loving and being loved will be a blessed place.
Blessings
Brian
Reference:
- Graham, D. (2003). Teaching Redemptively. Purposeful Design Publications.
