Nov 16, 2021 | Teachers Talking
Justice is Love in Public
Author Cornel West commented that we must never forget that justice is what love looks like in public. What a privilege it was to see this embodied in two Christian schools that had been established in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. With a team of senior students, a teacher and I visited the Hope Nursery school and the Hope Primary School, which had been established in a slum area of the city. These students who lived in abject poverty now belonged to a school community that demonstrated the love of Jesus through their teachers and where they experienced the healing of restored relationships, and the provision of material needs through child sponsorship.
As my Australian student team reflected on their service, we discussed issues around the pain and suffering that had been inflicted on the people over many years by corrupt leaders. Uganda had been called “the Pearl of Africa” on a visit by Sir Winston Churchill, but the country had experienced grave injustices. My students were longing to know how they could be peacemakers and make a difference in the lives of these children.
In our culture, we see this yearning in many students who are becoming social activists, because they have a heart to heal injustice, but the narrative that is shaping their understanding is flawed. Anchored in cultural Marxism, fighting for social justice is seen as a powerful force where people are classified as oppressors or the oppressed according to their identity group. The goal is to demolish what exists and plant a new society with a socialist vision. But we tell a better story – seeking to raise students to be wise peacemakers, engaged in their culture, telling an alternative story animated by the vision of the Kingdom of God.
The Bible makes justice a mandate of faith and a fundamental expression of Christian discipleship. Through the lens of Scripture, justice means loving our neighbour as we love ourselves and is rooted in the character of God, as revealed in the law of God and embodied in the Person of Christ, who fulfilled the law and the prophets. As God is just and loving, so we are called to do justice and live a life of love. Human rights are not determined by society (social justice) but by God who made us in His image.
God’s justice can be defined as putting things right as God designed them to be. God’s moral law enables humans to discern between right and wrong, good and evil. Social order, anchored in the Word of God, flows from this moral framework. Without divine law, the implementation of the law is reduced to force. Without personal virtue, social order breaks down, resulting in the loss of freedom.
God’s people are called into His grand story to be a community who embodies the life of Christ. The community, being created in God’s image and bound together in love, are sent into the world to be a visible expression of God’s presence and action in the world. The life of the crucified and risen Christ is most clearly seen where grace and forgiveness, holiness, compassion and justice are practised through His people by the power of His Spirit.
The practice of justice is to be an overflow of our response to the Gospel’s transforming power in our lives. Justice must flow from the transformed hearts and minds of individuals. There is no social sin that does not arise from personal sin.
Our school culture is to demonstrate in attitude, work, action and Gospel proclamation the character and reality of Jesus. In a world where every area of life is affected by the Fall, our community is called to be salt and light. We are to equip our students to be agents of transformation in our culture, rather than being conformed to it.
But often the wounds of the world barely touch our students’ hearts and minds, as we talk abstractly about justice and injustice in the curriculum. The question is, how can we structure, both within and beyond the classroom, life-orientating teaching and learning, that will enable them to serve in ways that reflect the love of Jesus? This is the way of responsive discipleship where students learn what it means “to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)
Back to the story of our students who went to Uganda. On their return to school, they assisted to organise a Ugandan day for the whole school; a fund-raiser to raise money toward a secondary school building for the students coming through the Ugandan HOPE schools.
The whole K-12 school was involved in celebrations and activities to bring the love of Jesus to others. How our hearts were moved to see Kindergarten students bring their jars of 5c pieces they had collected as an offering to the Lord. $20,000 was raised in one day. Truly our students embodied what justice looked like. Their lives became places for divine and human interaction, a vehicle through which God can enter the world.
May the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi be our prayer and the longing of our hearts.
“LORD, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred,
Let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that
I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning
That we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are
Born to eternal life.”
(St. Francis of Assisi)
Grace and Peace
The TEC Team
Nov 16, 2021 | Hope_Tina
In the Glow of Contentment
Don’t you just love a good fire? During winter, setting up the backyard firepit, igniting a roaring fire, and enjoying the warmth of the burning wood, being mesmerised by the allurement of the flames dancing and darting, listening to the crackling, and popping of the wood and did I mention the delight of melting marshmallows, so they are gooey in the centre and charred on the outer? It’s all part of enjoying a good fire. Yet the one thing about a fire is its glow. The glow of a good fire lights the faces of those encamped and there is a noticeable sense of peace and contentment.
As we sit around the campfire of God and contemplate His beauty and brilliance, we can only conclude He is a good and perfect God who will always be faithful and act in our best interest. In the glow of who He is we find contentment. No matter what unfolds in life, the perfect character of God enfolds us in His arms and brings a silent, sustained spirit of hope that rings loudly when we need it most and allows us to remain content.
God’s perfect character is the conduit for Christians to find contentment. The process of transformation happens when we gain greater revelation about who God is. As we continuously fan the flames of truth about God, and our confidence in Him ignites and inflames our trust, contentment comes in the glow of this burning reality.
Ever since the fall of humanity, the glow of God’s redemption has been upon His people. His purpose is to lead us back to the original place of contentment in Him, reflective of His first covenant. God once again enters a covenant with humanity to enable them to be re-orientated to Him and to be restored through salvation. Christian contentment becomes possible in the glow of God’s faithful covenant commitment.
In the Old Testament, God miraculously rescued the Israelites. He established His unbreakable covenant with them and accompanied His people as their sovereign deliverer and protector. By night, you will recall the visibility of God was the pillar of fire. Exodus 13:21. The glow of God’s presence allowed the Israelites to be secure. God was expressing to them that He would be to them all they needed Him to be as they stepped into their call to be His holy people. They could be content no matter what battles were going to rage against them. The glow of God’s holy fire or His holiness would then become the glow of God’s light through the Israelites to the Nations as they lived counter-culturally. They would demonstrate God’s plan for all humans to live in contentment as God always intended, as they lived in covenant obedience to Him.
In the New Testament, Jesus was the one to perfectly fulfil God’s covenant. In the miracle of the incarnation, Jesus, came to make it possible to ingraft into humans the contentment that comes from being in relationship with Him and knowing Him. John 15 is a beautiful summary of the intimate, intentional love of Jesus to draw us back into the life we were designed for. The knowledge of God is not just observed from a distance, it is personal as we relate intimately with Jesus. As we “possess” God through Jesus, we find the centre of contentment.[1]
As the world swirls around us, and the busyness of life consumes our time, the glow of contentment can be dimmed by these things that distract us. Entering into contentment must be intentional. We have to gather the wood (open and read God’s Word), strike the match (ask the Holy Spirit to ignite our spirits with truth) and sit by God’s campfire (spend time with Him) until the glow of His truth leads us to contentment.
Friends, as you sit by the fireside of God, huddle in close to your perfect Father and allow the glow of who He is fuse into your spirit and as you bask in His love and faithfulness, He will change your countenance and spark contentment.
Blessings
Tina
[1] Robert Louis Wilken, Origen in The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God, (Virginia, USA: R. R. Donnelley & Sons, 2003), 292-293. Note: Origen, was an early church father of 3rd century.
Nov 16, 2021 | Teachers Talking
Being very interested in historic lighthouses, my husband and I took a holiday, a number of years ago, to explore the lighthouses positioned along the Great Ocean Road. This road covers 130km of Victorian coastline, infamously known as ‘Shipwreck Coast’ because it sent many ships to their watery graves. In the 1800’s, the dangerous waters of the Southern Ocean were a major shipping route for supply ships and those carrying convicts or immigrants to the colonies of Victoria and NSW. Unfortunately, this rugged and inhospitable coast with its thick fogs and rough seas made it difficult to traverse. The strong winds whip up the waters into high swells that pound the high cliffs and submerged rocks.
The famous explorer, Matthew Flinders, was reported to have described it as one of the most fearful sections of coastline he had ever seen. Due to the dangerous weather conditions and together with errors in navigation that took ships too close to the coast, there were close to 700 shipwrecks. As a result, the first lighthouse was built at Cape Otway along with approximately 20 others dotted along the coastline. Their light protected the ships in the treacherous waters as they were able to navigate their journey safely.
It is clear from the evidence and the experience of schools, that many of our students are not navigating life well. Life seems like its heading for a shipwreck. There has been a decline over time in the mental health of our children and adolescents, with increases in both depression and anxiety. These can’t be separated from the unravelling of our culture in the western world.
Jesus told the story of two men – the wise man who built his house on the rock and the foolish man who built his house on the sand (Matthew 7: 24-25). When the storm came, the winds blew and the rivers rose, the quality of their foundations was revealed. In relation to our times, Walsh & Middleton commented “An autumnal chill is in the air; its similarity to the chill in other periods of cultural decline is undeniable.”[1] It is like our house has broken windows, the roof is torn off and the foundation has cracked because our culture has forgotten God and His Word.
Many of the students entering our schools are growing up without a knowledge of God or struggling to embrace what it means to live out their faith in their culture. Professor Cooling, a pre-eminent scholar in Christian education states “unless teachers assist teenagers to wrestle through their existential questions, such as ‘why is there pain and suffering?’, they will graduate with a privatised faith or a strong likelihood 70 – 75% will drop out from Christian faith at tertiary level.”[2] How then, do we, as teachers, assist students right from Kindergarten to Year 12 to build their lives on the Rock? How do we nurture a faith that will bear fruit in both their private and public lives and weather the storms of life?
Throughout history, two strategies have comprised the heart of faith formation – unfolding God’s story and enacting it out. Our story is a breath-taking drama that spans all of eternity. It is a compelling true story of kept promises. In Christ and His Gospel work is a message full of love, forgiveness, freedom and purpose. Therefore, we need clarity around the magnificence of what Christ has done for us and His call to participate in His redemptive work in the world. The Bible provides a vision of history and the place of every human person as a responsible actor in this drama. The consummation of the new heaven and earth are key to interpreting the present with hope because God controls the outcome.
It is important then that we prepare ourselves to share our true story in the context of the shifting sands of culture. As teachers, we need to provide learning opportunities for them to think deeply about issues of life and equip them with a strong Biblical apologetic. Raising students who live faithfully to God’s call also requires models of those who live out the sacrificial life of Jesus according to His truth. Our lives are to witness to the reality that Christ provides the deepest meaning for our lives and involves us in His purpose of recreation, to build a new and better world. Let us be storytellers of stories about men and women who embodied what it meant to love and serve the Lord and made a difference in the world. Like the ancient story of Daniel, it is an affirmation that remaining faithful to God’s plan will bear fruit and bless others. Like Daniel, our students will not bow to the idols of the age, and they will stand strong in the promise that God’s Kingdom will never be shaken.
May the words of this blessing be our prayer for our students as we hold out the sure hope that their true home is to be built on the Rock, living in the presence of a loving, gracious and forgiving God.
“May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the light surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong” [3]
“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” (Matthew 7: 24)
Grace and Peace
The TEC Team
[1] J Richard Middleton & B J Walsh, Truth is Stranger Than it Used to Be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age, (Westmont, USA: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 25.
[2] John Collier, The Excellence Centre Pacific Seminar, August 2012.
[3] Partial lyrics from Bob Dylan “Forever Young”, Planet Waves (Sony 1974).
Nov 16, 2021 | Care Conversations
Planned outcomes to align with practices
The Future of Education Annual Reports are published by McCrindle Research. They show significant trends in responses by parents, students, and teachers.
In 2018 – problem solving, critical thinking, creativity and communication skills were seen to be increasingly important
In 2019 – “… schools provide a place to instil a love of learning to a generation. To help build positive schools there is a need for shared values, building relationships for belonging, a grassroots approach and making space for positive risk.
In 2021 – Students would also like to see more collaborative classrooms and inquiry-based learning.
This research is helpful to us as we are part of Biblical Christian Educational communities.
If these highlighted areas are part of our expectations, how do our pedagogical practices enhance these hopes.
David Smith reflects on an email received from one of his former students, now attending seminary:
“We recently received our first paper back, and I was surprised to find that almost all of the “best” students (those who had taken real interest, who had asked the most insightful questions, and whom I would sit down and have long talks with about the material) got rather crummy grades . . . Out of five students who are much brighter than me, and I would willingly learn from, only one scored well while others scored miserably.
I suspect that these students were not prepared to simply regurgitate information. What the professor looked for was a boatload of citations in answer to relatively simple questions.
It appears that the last are first, and the first are last; normally C students received A’s, while normally A students got C’s. What is scary is that the path to an A is intellectual mediocrity and apathy. By the end of the course, I doubt whether I will have a shred of intellectual rigor left in me.” (Smith, 2018, p. 7-8)
It is doubtful that the professor set out to destroy intellectual rigor. It was probably an unintended outcome.
Simple question: If we’re looking for students who can relate all learning to the glory of God and redemptive actions, who can problem solve, be courageously curious, who can take positive risks, who enhance a collaborative sense of belonging – how do our practices cause this to happen?
Blessings
Brian
Reference: Smith, D. (2018). On Christian Teaching. Eerdmans Publishing.
Nov 16, 2021 | Wens Pen
Don’t you just love Jesus? One of the most exciting things in our childhood was the visit of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in the seventies when she came to Newcastle (yes, Newcastle). Our family perched on one of the best vantage spots in outer Newcastle just to get a glimpse of the Queen. Excitement mounted and the crowd went wild when her black, royal Rolls Royce car was approaching. As she whizzed past, she waved at us and in a few seconds, she was gone like a phantom in the night. Five seconds of a royal encounter, at a distance and it was all over.
The visit of Jesus to the world was the most defining royal visit in human history. Jesus didn’t just whizz past humanity, giving us all a royal wave from a royal chariot on His way to making a speech about the Kingdom of God on earth. There were no protective barriers between Jesus and people and no royal protocols that banned people from touching Jesus and there certainly was no crowd control. Jesus, the highest, royal, majestic King in the universe stepped into a broken world bathed in the stench of sin and full of kingdom outcasts; a place which offended His perfection, put on His cloak of love and grace, and welcomed everyone as the crowds pressed in on Him. Luke 9:11. Don’t you just love Jesus? Jesus crossed every boundary and validated every displaced, sick, disabled, possessed, marginalised, and oppressed person He encountered. He dignified every human. He touched the lepers. How many of us would do that? He protected the vulnerable. He dined with the rogues of society. How many of us would be seen in the house of society’s greatest offenders? And then our Royal King died for His undeserving subjects; us! Don’t you just love Jesus? Luke 19:10.
Jesus sent us a powerful message that rang loudly in the first century and still rings loudly in the 21st century, that He had come to save us at our worst and love us unconditionally, knowing He would pay a price of unprecedented pain, body, mind, and spirit for every human soul. And we end up blameless thanks to Jesus. Only love so immeasurable and extravagant could love us, the unlovable offenders as Jesus did. The more I grow in my understanding of Jesus, the more I find myself exclaiming “don’t you just love Jesus”? Everything about Jesus fires every part of my being. I find my place in Him, my purpose in Him and my passion in Him. I don’t deserve it, but that’s the nature of this royal King. Don’t you just love Jesus?
So, friends, get your “love for Jesus” on today.
Best days to come.
Wen
