The Principal Page

Reflections from Teaching After 9/11

2011-09-19T14:08:00.001-04:00

We are now a week removed from the ten year anniversary of 9/11. Like most people, I also have a memory of where I was when I heard the news. It was already a sad day at CHCA because many of us were leaving late morning to attend the funeral of a beloved parent. The juxtaposition of mourning at a funeral mixed with pockets of discussion and concern over the day's events created a surreal mood. The weeks after were somber and anxious at the high school, as they were most places around the country.

The week before the anniversary, I was talking to a class of seniors about what I perceived as a level of cynicism higher than I would expect in a group of high school students. When I asked them where their youthful idealism was, they answered rather matter-of-factly that they had been raised in the shadow of 9/11 and they did not perceive the world as a place where idealism matched their reality. I don't know if that attitude was a reflection on the psyche of their generation or was the outcome of the media build-up to the anniversary. But without a doubt, we all have anecdotal, every day evidences of how our world has changed since that day.

One of the most concrete changes that I have seen has been the shift to a new Other. Let me explain. Sociologists describe how cultures/groups define themselves to some degree by who they are not, or who is the "other" or outsider. As someone who grew up in the 70's and 80's, the other was the U.S.S.R. They became the foil to what it meant to be a freedom- and God-loving American. They were the enemy. They were evil. But with the fall of the "Evil Empire," beginning with the wall in Berlin and the crumbling of the former Soviet empire, we went nearly a decade without a clearly defined, one-size-fits-all enemy. All that changed on September 11, 2001.

I heard Jonathon Z. Smith, the great religionist and scholar of education at the University of Chicago say that it is the job of the educator to take the thing that is close to the student and move it far away and take what is far removed and bring it close. Only then do we begin to see our topics of study (and our world for that matter) in clearer focus. In a popular culture that easily propagandizes our views of Arabs generally and Muslims specifically, our educating students in history, politics, religion, and theology becomes all the more important. In the teaching that I've done here, I haven't seen a greater shift in students' thinking on a topic than when I've taught a four week unit on Islam. Our students' cultural influences have so strongly shaped them in their understanding of who is "not us" and why, that they struggle to understand what Islam actually stands for and how all religions have complex histories and diverse cultural manifestations (even our own). So who is the other and what should my attitude and response be to them? That is an extremely relevant question in post-9/11 America, both as a citizen in a democratic country that is founded on freedom of religion and as a Christian who follows a Master who calls us to love our enemies and pray for those who curse us. In fact one could argue that Jesus calls us to reject the entire reality of keeping an outsider as other. The religious authorities of his day were troubled by the fact that He had no such boundaries.

I will never forget in September 2001 when a colleague who was teaching the World Religions class at the time, still took the class to the Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati off of Tylersville Road. Our Muslim neighbors were shocked. With the continual threats they received via phone and mail and the constant harrassment of many Muslims and Arabs across the country, they expected us to cancel the visit like all of the other pre-arranged tours. But when our group arrived with flowers and a letter of support, they were moved beyond words. And our students learned something very important that day that transcended media images and cultural rhetoric. I'm happy to say our Western World Religions class still visits the Islamic Center. And sometimes our hosts still make mention of that visit in 2001. And I hope as our students learn about cultures, religions and differences, they also learn about how God calls us to be in the world.

An Electronic Recommendation

2011-09-07T21:47:00.002-04:00

The social media phenomenon has changed the way we communicate and connect with people. Blogs such as this one is a case in point. Facebook, Twitter, Linkdin all connect us with people around the world. I find myself reading the thoughts, insights, and quips of all kinds of people from celebrities to former classmates and local friends, to friends of friends who comment on wall posts of people I know. So with that said, I pass on to you a blog of the Asbury Seminary president, Timothy Tennent, passed on to me from the email of a colleague and friend. I've been ruminating on his words for the past week. And rather than rehash it via my own thoughts and perspectives, I pass it on as is. Enjoy!

Ordinary Time?

Labor Day

2011-09-05T17:02:00.001-04:00

While there is something to be said for the school year schedule of my childhood, where school officially started the day after Labor Day, I have come to enjoy the long holiday weekend after a couple weeks under the belt. The rigor of a school day is a shock to the system after a summer away for teachers and students alike. So after nine days of school, a three day weekend comes at a nice time!

We have had a spectacular first two weeks of school! This past week--our first five day week of the year--we celebrated our Opening Convocation on Sunday and had our first chapel on Wednesday. Our record enrollment was obvious when I looked up at the crowd in the theater during chapel. With students, faculty, and parents in attendance, there was barely an empty seat. We had a great time of worship and Mr. Salkil began the first series of the year, speaking on being a follower of Jesus and not just a fan. Thursday afternoon Encore sang the National Anthem at the Reds game.

Friday began with Picture Day which always adds a certain level of chaos. But overall it was another smooth day. After we talked at our opening assembly about students owning the culture, the students have risen to a new level of excellence. I've been observing students picking up after themselves, taking care of each other, and seniors helping out freshmen. Amazingly, we are two weeks into the school year and there has not been a single detention!

After school we had the Hall of Excellence dinner where Kevin Nead and Casey Carpenter were inducted into the Hall. I remember both of them not only as outstanding swimmers but as special students and human beings as well. I taught both of them multiple years in the Christian Studies department and we were able to share a lot of great memories at the event. Leaving the near 100 degree weather at the dinner, I got to spend a little time at the New Family Tailgate inside the school before the game (enjoying a little AC as well). We have so many new families this year, tables were set up in the Theater Commons, Cafeteria, and the Miracle Commons! It was great to catch up with so many of the new high school families.

It might have been the beginning of September, but the early evening air felt like the dead of summer. We had been monitoring the temperature of the field all day to make sure that it was safe for the game. And while it reached 160 degrees (!) during the afternoon, the combination of hosing down the field and the setting sun reduced the temperature to 89-103 degrees before game time. Then with a packed stadium, we all watched as the Leap Frogs, a special unit of the Navy Seals, parachuted into the stadium with the game ball. It was a moment to remember. And with an early lead, all was right with the world! The second half didn't go quite how we would have liked, but it was still a very special evening for the entire community.

If this past week is any indication, this looks to be a very special year. But as much as I'm enjoying the start of the year, I still appreciate a nice Labor Day respite.

Opening Convocation

2011-09-01T00:15:00.000-04:00

We had a wonderful time of celebration and worship, commemorating our new school year and the installation of the Class of 2012 as the seniors who will move our community forward this school year.This was the fourth year of our tradition of beginning our school year with a service and I think it was by far our best. Watching our seniors march into the beautiful sacred space at St. Margaret of York dressed in their gowns was a moving experience. I had the privilege of offering a charge to our student body and especially to our seniors. Below are my remarks.

Put on Christ

Galatians 3:23-29

I actually want to begin with an apology. To the good number of parents who have approached me over the past week about the emotional shock and anxiety caused by seeing your daughter or son in a Graduation gown the first week of school, creating panic over the year ahead, college visits, selecting a college, and leaving your home to enter the great wide world—I am deeply sorry. That was not at all my intent. To be honest, I didn’t see that coming. Next year, we will send out that email in June to order gowns with something like a surgeon general’s warning about how this email and its consequences may be damaging to your short term emotional health.

To be honest, I did want the effect—just not on parents. I wanted it for you, the seniors of the class of 2012. I wanted in this opening ceremony of our year for you to see vividly where it will all end up. Our year will come full circle with you marching with us the faculty, in our medieval regalia, entering your Commencement ceremony. Because in a strange way, even though you wait for it all year long, it somehow sneaks up on you. You will wonder where the year went. So I hope this moment dressed as what you are becoming, gives you pause and a sense of recognition for what this year is about. You are dressed for what you will be!

Since childhood, getting dressed has been a big deal. You probably do not remember the sense of pride you had when you were first allowed to pick out your own clothes and dress yourself. As a parent, depending on how much control you need, that can be a humorous or difficult transition. One of my kids always wanted to wear shorts and bathing suits in winter, while wool sweaters and stocking caps were typical summer fare. And that’s without mentioning the god-awful color and pattern combinations. But over time, children figure out how to dress appropriately and can do it themselves. That is the reason why in Elementary School and Middle School, we give you a uniform but in high school we assume you can pick out something appropriate to wear. Of course that doesn’t always work out either…

Another important aspect of dress related to childhood is the game or activity of “dress up.” This is basically make-believe with props. Fireman, vet, doctor, sports figures, law enforcement officers, soldiers, ballerinas—through a simple game of dress up, we were actually exploring the future, trying on for size the roles and professions as we understood them. That is why “play” is such important work for children. It is the beginning of becoming, So seniors, what if all of the emotion and sentiments that come out in the last days of your senior year, the maturity and the perspective that you will have gained or at least appropriated, what if tonight became the beginning, as you dressed up as who you will be?

We talked together on Tuesday about students taking a lead, owning our school culture, and demonstrating a level of responsibility to each other that will make CHCA a school like we’ve never seen before. Basically, we are asking you to be the kind of people who leave here as graduates, but begin by dressing up now. You’ve put on your robes. Seniors, this is your year. This is our school. I want to see each day the pride and legacy that you all make as you move this community forward.

In the third chapter of Galatians, Paul speaks of the role of law and how it is like a disciplinarian or a tutor that makes sure we do the right thing, the thing we do not actually like to do. In our passage read this evening, he makes a transition to life in Christ through faith. Rather than thinking about righteousness as a series of rules to follow, Paul reports that as we are baptized into Christ, we “put on Christ.” We are “clothed” in Christ. We are dressing up again!

In C.S. Lewis’ famous treatise, Mere Christianity, he discusses this very thing in a chapter entitled “Let’s Pretend.” He argues that as we are “dressing up as Christ,” we are pretending to be something we are not yet, but are becoming. And often times, the more we pretend, the more we realize we are no longer pretending but the action has actually become the natural response. He writes, “Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already.”

Students, faculty: just as the seniors stand as an example, as those who have put on gowns to show us who they will fully be nine months from now, I want us to “put on Christ” as we live and learn together this year. May our lives be so focused on the person of Jesus, may we relate so closely with Him, that He is ever in our minds and on our hearts. Let us put on Christ! I say that very intentionally: I don’t say to you, Let us be careful to pay more attention to all the rules in the handbook about what you should and shouldn’t do. I say, Put on Christ. If we truly do that, handbooks should take care of themselves. As we continually wrestle with what it means to be a Christ-centered institution, I would surmise that we would get a lot further into the discussion if more of us “Put on Christ.” Let us dress up. Let us pretend. Let us act out in faith what we know we are becoming. And the corollary to this is that God who saves us by His grace has begun pretending about us long before we did. God in His mercy, sees us for what we will be one day when God finishes us—not for what we are right now. God sees us for who we will be and treats us accordingly. This year, as we each “Put on Christ,” let us also see the dressing up in each other, even when we fail miserably. Students, Teachers, Parents—we are all becoming. Let us try this year to see each other as God sees us. Not as we are but as we “dress up” to be. That is why in the end, Paul writes that we are all one in Christ, every barrier and division knocked down—Jew/Greek, slave/free, male/female. Trust me, Paul’s world did not look that way, but he was challenging the believers to dress up and pretend, to accept each other in a unified community. As we put on Christ, let us live out a community that learns and lives together in a faith and unity like we have never experienced here before.

Seniors, you begin tonight your end. And all of us here, let us begin to pretend we are who God is making us to be.

AMEN

On School and Gardens

2011-08-27T23:27:00.002-04:00

It has been a wonderful first week of school. The building is full of excitement! And while many long for summer mornings of sleeping in, the place has the feeling of a big family reunion, with teachers and students all trying to catch up with colleagues, classmates, and friends. The frenetic pace of the first week is always a bit overwhelming. But that first Saturday morning of the school year is like a gift. The slow pace of the morning, a relaxing cup of coffee, letting the bustle of the first four days of the new routine fade into memory. And as I walk into my yard, I remember the other harbinger of a new school year.

Without fail, the first week of school always seems to be the hottest, driest week of the summer. And after carefully tending my garden from early spring into August, it only takes one week of leaving at dusk and returning home in the dark, to turn my small patch of Eden into something that looks like a scene from a documentary on the Dust Bowl. Tomatoes are rotting and molding on the vine, plants are browning, leaves withered, ground cracked. I pick what I can. I salvage some of the produce. I guess I'll be making more baba ganoush with the overripe eggplant. But in an odd way, this is the beauty of a school year. Because when it comes to education, that worn out, used up feeling that reminds me of my garden was my attitude about school life in the spring. As you try to keep order in the end of May, looking for signs of success, you often see more of the parched earth of students yearning for the refreshing waters of Summer. But in education, Autumn is our New Year, the Fall our Spring, where all is green and fresh and hope springs eternal. As a great friend of mine once wrote, he knew he was cut out for education because of the feeling he had when autumn rolled around; he was "renewed by the restorative effects of the Fall."

So when it comes to my garden, I'll hobble along for another couple of months, with my time and energy now devoted elsewhere. As a gardener, I know next spring will give me a new chance to be better than I am right now. But as a principal and a teacher, I look at a building of 453 bright faces, with creative and powerful minds, and I know that I've just entered a beautiful new season of growth! And what started this week will produce wonderful things over the coming nine months that will be only a beginning, because we gardeners are always surprised by where seeds germinate and what harvests will come.

The School Year is Coming!

2011-08-05T23:20:00.001-04:00

I hope everyone is having a relaxing and refreshing summer. The school year is fast approaching! We have been back in the office planning and getting ready for the year ahead. If you check the school website, you can find details and the time schedule for August 23, the first day of school. Students can come in early that morning for their schedules and to find their lockers, but we will begin the day in the Lindner Theater at 8:00 am. In a blink of an eye, our building will be full of students again with the energy of a CHCA school day!

As always I have been doing a lot of traveling this summer. And as is the case most summers, I began my journey in my childhood home in Milwaukee, WI. It was great to reunite with my immediate family and relatives, showing my kids the places where I grew up and spent time. We went to a Brewers game together, ate frozen custard at Gilles where I worked in high school and college, and even walked around the playground of my grade school, recounting stories of kickball games and snowball fights. As a parent, there was something powerful about the intersection of my nostalgia and the insight of what my own children were experiencing in their own lives, including what will be just around the corner for them. The hopes and excitement that I felt for my children in those moments were powerful, because I understand many of the trajectories their lives will take as part of growing older. But at the same time, the details and the uniqueness of their journeys are a mystery to me, how God will shape them through the unique unfolding of their lives. And for that reason, I carry an excitement and anticipation for what lies ahead.

Many of the same emotions surround the start of a school year for me. Seniors are excited for the finish, freshmen for a beginning. Every student has expectations for the year and for themselves. They are all nervous, not knowing what it will really be like. As administrators and teachers in the building, we understand to a degree what each year looks like and how it unfolds—the emotions, the ups and downs, the inherent joys and difficulties—in a way the students can’t begin to grasp. But how the details will play out, the uniqueness of this journey, the things that will make this year truly unique and special are also a mystery in the hand of God. And so I am truly excited for another year with our students.

Please mark your calendar now and plan to join us as we celebrate the beginning of the school year and all that God will do among us at our Opening Convocation service at 6:00 PM on August 28, 2011 at St. Margaret of York. Our faculty and the class of 2012 will be marching in academic regalia and we will have the official installation of our Senior Class. It will be a wonderful time of celebration, music, worship, and prayer. Details and directions will be on the website. And please begin to pray for the year ahead and the work that God will do among us!

A Quote to Dream About

2010-10-21T17:58:00.007-04:00

I've again not been much of a blogger, as we come to the end of a frenetic first quarter. We have formed into a new High School community with new students from here and abroad. The Class of 2014 has had an impressive start and seem at home already. We have encountered difficulty and pain as well. Two of our faculty members have been hospitalized and have had extended absences from school. We also seem to have had more than our normal share of student injuries, with more crutches and boots than I can ever remember at one time in our halls. And recently, we experienced a great loss with the passing of Mr. Doug Willmann, the father of Josh Willmann '11. We continue to mourn this terrible loss.

It is at times like these when the vision of the prophets comes most clearly into focus. Better than any words I could write, I want to share a quote I stumbled upon from Dr. Cornelius Plantinga, the President of Calvin Seminary. (His book Engaging God's World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living is a central piece for how we think about theological integration.) In his work Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary on Sin, he writes:

The prophets knew how many ways human life can go wrong because they knew how many ways human life can go right. (You need the concept of a wall on a plumb to tell when one is off.). These prophets kept dreaming of a time when God would put things right again.

They dreamed of anew age in which human crookedness would be straightened out, rough places made plain. The foolish would be made wise and the wise, humble. They dreamed of a time when the deserts would flower, the mountains would run with wine, weeping would cease and people could go to sleep without weapons on their laps. People would work in peace and work to fruitful effect. Lambs could lie down with lions. All nature would be fruitful, benign, and filled with wonder upon wonder; all humans would be knit together in brotherhood and sisterhood; and all nature and all humans would look to God, walk with God, lean toward God and delight in God. Shouts of joy and recognition would well up from valleys and seas, from women in streets and from men on ships.

The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight is what the Hebrew prophets call shalom. We call it peace but it means far more than mere peace of mind or a cease-fire between enemies. In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness and delight – a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.

We all await that day.

In Christ,

Dean

Opening Convocation

2010-09-05T22:11:00.004-04:00

Last Sunday evening was a wonderful time of community as we celebrated the beginning of another academic year. It was great to have so many of us together as we sang, worshipped, and prayed over our year. Following are my remarks from the "charge" that evening.

A Center that Holds

In the opening lines of William Yeat’s poem, The Second Coming, he sets a bleak picture of a world unmoored.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand.
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

I don’t know if the Second Coming is at hand, I really don’t know that I’m prepared or qualified to make those kinds of statements. I’ll leave that to the Left Behind books and movies. But what I do know is that much of his description fits our modern world. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; ceremony of innocent drowned, lack of conviction and passionate intensity misguided or for ill. I think it is fair to say that in many ways we live in a world without a center. Not to get too philosophical on a Sunday evening, but one of the hallmarks of a postmodern society is that because of the relativity of truth, there are NO unifying principles, no ultimate narratives or stories that can hold our understanding of reality together. It’s not just that the center cannot hold, but society says there isn’t a center to begin with.

Today’s Scripture passage (Colossians 1:15-20) on the other hand, presents us with a very different picture of reality. Paul, speaking of Christ, tells us that He is over all things, all things were created by Him and for Him, that He is before all things, and that all things in Him hold together. While that drum beat from Paul might seem a bit redundant, a little background on the church at Colossae clears things up a little.

A common heresy circulated in the early church called Gnosticism. Gnosticism believed that there was secret knowledge that was available to insiders that gave them understanding into reality. One key understanding was that the spiritual was good but all matter, the physical world was bad. While Jesus was part of a divine plan, he could not be both physical AND divine. So Gnostics understood Jesus and His humanity quite differently. Secondly, if the spiritual side of things is what ultimately mattered, Gnostics often took one of two views of the physical world. Either it was to be avoided at all costs because it was evil—which led to asceticism, or the physical didn’t matter at all, so it didn’t matter what you did. The physical was totally insignificant.

In light of this, let’s look at Paul’s language again. Jesus is the image of God, the Creator (of the physical world), the fullness of God dwells in him, He is in all, and everything holds together by Him. He is Supreme. And even His Death and blood reconcile all things to God, making peace—God’s shalom. If one reads the New Testament, there is a center, and it holds all things together, and restores all to God—both the physical and the spiritual.

So what does that have to do with us in 2010 when to my knowledge, our community doesn't have a whole lot of people in the Gnostic Club? Is there a word for us today?

At Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy, we proudly proclaim that we are Christ-centered, which in light of Scripture, is how it should be for a Christian school. But even though we would most likely all agree with that declaration and have no problem with it being on our brochures and a prominent line on the back of the “CHCA Soaring” t-shirts, at what point does “Christ-centered” come into your thinking patterns? Is it only a nice spiritual mantra, or does it come in contact with the day to day experiences, the physical realities of your life? Loving Jesus in our hearts isn’t enough. It is about living with Jesus in the center that demonstrates God’s Kingdom at work in the world.

Let me give you an example: every day, some sort of problem comes across my desk. A solution is needed and often times it is needed quickly. If I could break down the thought processes, my #1 filter is what is easiest thing to do to make this go away. Next, when this decision happens, will more people be happy or unhappy? How much does it cost? What problems does it create down the line? Will Mr. Brunk be happy? How many phone calls and emails will I have to answer? Will Mr. Brunk be happy? Etc., etc., etc. Sometimes at the end of the day as I’m driving home, reflecting on all the stuff that’s happened, I’ll think back to my original problem, think about my final response, and only then ask myself, Was that a Christ-centered response? Do you see the problem? I don’t think any of us wants to go about not being Christ-centered. I’m not accusing any of us of being an anti-Christ. I’m simply suggesting that for most of us, most of the time, Christ is not the CENTER. To some degree, we are all guilty from the youngest to the oldest. Students: is your first measure of academic success good grades and then ask later, what does it mean to be a Christ-centered student? Do we look to win games first, and then ask, what does it look like to be a Christ-centered athlete? Does getting a part come first, and asking what it means to be Christ-centered on the stage come later? Do we have colleges to get into and scholarships to win and then wonder where Christ fits into our plans? We adults are part of the same dilemma. Do test scores and state standards come first? Do winning percentages drive most decisions? School rank, enrollment, financial stability, public perceptions—do they nudge Christ further down the list in our focus and decision making? Parents: does your child’s success, GPA, ever-growing resume, social standing, happiness, come first in your decision making? Everyone (now glaring at me) please hear this: NONE OF THE THINGS I’VE MENTIONED ARE BAD! That’s the problem—they are all good and have value. And every one of these things might be part of a Christ-centered approach. But we are not Gnostics separating the spiritual from the physical. If they become the Center or higher ranked than Christ in the life of our school, at best, we are not following our values, and at worst, we slip into the sin of idolatry. I challenge us all, let us make Christ our center. The first consideration. The highest rubric. The greatest filter. When the urge to make a compromising decision comes: to cheat on homework or a test, to participate in weekend activities that go against your convictions, to lie, gossip, cause social drama, how will you respond? Could considering Christ before other motivators such as grades, social standing, or fun change the way we act and treat each other? Let us take up this challenge. Seniors, lead our student body. Show us what Christ-centered living could look like.

Let me add one more challenge. If we truly believe that Christ is at the Center, holding all things together, in all and through all, a major function of a Christian education is to find Him there. As we study and learn this school year, as we stretch our minds in all areas, we are studying and learning about a world, which while broken, still has Christ in its very fiber. He is both the Creator and the glue, in all and through all. As we seek to grow in Christ, let us not see our studies as something separate from our own spiritual journeys. For the Christian, all study is like solving a divine mystery. Where might we glimpse the Almighty this year? In a chemical compound or a soaring aria? In a literary text or a grammatical construction? In a historical figure or a mythic archetype? In a mathematical formula or in a biblical passage? In another culture and language or in the person sitting in the desk next to us? In an opponent’s victory or a homeless child’s eyes? That is why the late Dr. Richard Chase, a former President of Wheaton College wrote, “This is God’s world…the scholar wants to understand it; the Christian scholar is compelled to understand it. It is an act of worship.” Students: keep that in your minds when studies become hard or topics complex. When you feel frustrated or tired, wanting to give up and take the easy path, remember: You are carrying out a spiritual task.

Our biblical passage ends with the notions of reconciliation and peace. Could you imagine how those things would feel in our school this year? How would our community be strengthened? How would we grow as people and followers of Christ? And think outside our community. What if schools we came in contact with, people you know outside of CHCA, those we encountered in our Winter Terms, and travels saw a picture of life with a center that holds? What might they think? What might they say? Ironically, they might echo Yeats and declare:

The Second Coming is at Hand!

A New Beginning

2010-09-05T21:17:00.002-04:00

Today I mowed the lawn for the second time since returning from vacation the last week of July. I guess that says a lot for how dry our summer has been in Cincinnati. It also says a lot about what my yard looks like right now. If you like browns and tans, my lawn is the place for you. To be honest, I don't spend a lot of energy worrying about grass, which has this powerful ability to revive in the fall and spring. My time, energy, and water end up in my garden beds, primarily my vegetable beds. While those don't look spectacular either, they have been keeping me somewhat busy and fed. A few varieties of heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, jalepenos and chili peppers, along with lots of Italian and cinnamon basil, parsley, oregeno, rosemary, and tarragon have kept our summer table interesting. Earlier in the spring we could barely keep up with the broccoli, lettuces, radishes, and a few heads of cabbage to boot. I'm hoping to pick another round of my eggplants soon as well as a late planting of green beans. There have been disasters too. If not for the catepillars, I'd have had a lot more cabbage and plenty of cauliflower. I've also made some bad decisions about location, crowding out my eggplant and shading my peppers because of over zealous tomato plants. Timing was my biggest error this year. I got a nice spring garden going but not early enough and I didn't clear it out for summer planting soon enough to get things established before I left on vacation. So too much of my beds remained fallow this year. But I think the reason I like gardening so much is no matter how badly I fail, no matter what experiments do not work, come March and April, or maybe even February if I start from seed, I have a whole new opportunity for success unimagined. Like the beginning of Genesis, where God makes order out of Chaos, tending to even a small plot of land awakenss in me something powerful, maybe even a facet of the Divine image shining through. In the garden, after every failure, hope of new life awaits in even the smallest seed.

I think that same awareness arises in me during the dog days of August. Because even though there is still the kid in me that wants summer vacation to go on forever, the academic side of me knows that with the opening of the school year, a new season has begun. A new school year brings a fresh slate, cleaner than any January 1. All the things I wish I did better, all the ways I'd like to grow, all the opportunities unexplored, all the relationships I'd love to develop, all the students I hope to invest in, all the programs envisioned for the future, sit before me as possibilities when another year begins. Teachers adjust classes from last year's successes and failures. Students who dug themselves holes can often begin again on top. Mistakes are in the past. Bad habits can be broken. New heights can be reached. We can begin new paths that lead to places unimagined.

It's an exciting time to be in a school.

Trail Magic

2010-02-14T16:31:00.004-05:00

As my recent reading probably shows, I've been a bit intrigued by the Appalachian Trail. The Appalachian Trail (AT) is a 2,160 mile, fourteen state hiking trail along the Appalachian mountains through the eastern United States. I've read a couple of accounts of "thru hikers," brave, determined souls who typically begin in the early spring at Springer Mountain, Georgia and hike continuously to Mt. Katahdin, reaching the trail's terminus in Maine around September or October.

A few reasons for my fascination with the AT come to mind. First, I've always loved the outdoors. Getting away from the daily grind, forgetting cell phones and technology, leaving behind noise and pollution, and connecting to the slower, quieter rhythms of forests, lakes, and streams reminds me of the vacations of my childhood. Hiking through the woods, fishing on a quiet lake, watching eagles overhead, and hearing loons in the distance restore my soul. But to be honest, I've typically experienced that escape from civilization for a week or two. Spending six or seven months intricately in touch with the wilderness rain or shine (or snow!)would obviously change the intensity of the experience. What would happen if I extended that ten fold?

Second, thru-hiking the AT takes an amazing level of determination. Hikers who succeed typically average about a hundred miles a week. Sometimes along the way, they take breaks off the trail for a few days. But for the most part, no matter the weather, his/her mood, the terrain, aches and pains, boredom, the hiker goes on. The successful hiker pays attention to the pace, sets small goals, yet keeps Katahdin ever in mind. A small percentage of thru-hikers make it each year. Some hikers try again and again. Those who succeed claim the feat is as much mental as physical. I often wonder when I read such accounts if I could stay the course.

Finally, despite the individual nature of the thru-hike, a sense of community forms on the AT. Most hikers travel in groups. Also thru-hikers write in logs at shelters along the way so in a sense, each hiker gets to know those who go before. As people slow down and speed up, they eventually meet those whom they've been reading about. Hikers look out for each other. But the community of the AT goes beyond the trail itself. Along the way are hostels, restaurants, supply shops, post offices, and other businesses that look out for the thru-hikers. While some locals turn up their noses at the ragged, grimy, seldom-showered lot, others look to give a helping hand, whether a ride to a campground, a hot meal or a shower, a chance to call home. Sometimes when a hiker is down on his/her luck and feels like giving up, someone offers help or retreat at just the right time. Hikers refer to this as "trail magic"--the unexpected hospitality or generosity of someone along the way. Hikers tell of the way "trail magic" lifts their spirits, encouraging them onward in their journey.

This year my church is focusing on the Gospel of Luke, reading through it in this church calendar. And the theme of journey has been a recurrent one. The parallel between my church's theme and my recent reading has gotten me thinking. Day in and day out at school, I am surrounded by people on a long spiritual journey. The AT takes 6-8 months. A year into our Christian journey of faith, we have barely begun. When I think of my own journey, how willing am I to leave behind the "things that so easily ensnare us," to use Paul's language, what we used to talk about as "worldliness" (though that's become quite unpopular). What level of determination do I have to stay the course? How cognizant am I of the community journeying with me? Are there ways I could provide encouragement, strength, and the ability to rejuvinate to those around me, a kind of spiritual "trail magic"? The journey is long. Again, Paul encourages us to "press on toward the mark," "to keep our eyes on the prize." For me, that journey often becomes focused more clearly during the season of Lent, which begins this Wednesday. I encourage you to consider your journey this week and how to focus more clearly on what lies ahead.

I've decided to hike the AT. I'm really not at the right place in my life to consider dropping out of life for three quarters of a year to make the attempt. So I plan to begin hiking sections of the trail with my family. We will start small--maybe a few miles this summer in Virginia. When they are older, maybe we will hike for a few weeks, or one year, maybe for an entire summer. I will hike the entire AT, God willing. It's just going to take me a little longer.

Happy trails.

School Done Differently: Winter Term 2010

2010-02-14T15:52:00.002-05:00

(This post is the lead article in the February 11, 2010 Campus Connection, written with Karen Smeltzer.)

When reflecting back on high school, what is remembered? Does one recall social events? Extracurricular activities? Moments and stories plucked out of time, floating about in one’s memory with no real mooring? Does one actually remember learning? Do any classes stick out? Or is it like trying to remember any specific meal from the past calendar year? Each one may have been important and nourishing but they all fade into an indistinguishable blur. Invariably when I speak with CHCA alumni about their greatest high school memories, they always come back to a Winter Term experience. For in Winter Term, students experience learning in non-traditional, experiential, authentic, and sometimes even exotic ways. If we possess a tool to inspire life-long learners, Winter Term is it.

Winter Term is a two-week period in January between semesters when the MSL High School enriches its curriculum with experiential learning. Students choose from a menu of courses which range from classes in our building to excursions around the globe. Through this intensive two week study, our students engage the world in new ways, carry out CHCA’s vision, mission, and core values, and have educational experiences that they will never forget, all while gaining .25 credits toward graduation. This past January our students experienced the world. And their minds and hearts grew as they engaged through study, service learning, performance, experience, and mission.

If one considers Winter Term 2010 by the numbers, we provided a wide range of opportunities to meet the needs of our students. Twenty-nine percent of our students stayed in town, participating in Serve Cincinnati Hospitals, Serve Cincinnati Schools, Serve Cincinnati Headstart, Serve Cincinnati Elderly, Just Desserts, Career Internships, and Health which also met a graduation requirement. Thirty-three percent were out of country, traveling to Mexico, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Virgin Islands, South Africa, and Turkey. Thirty-eight percent spent part of their Winter Term across the U.S. with trips to Harlan, KY, Chicago, Washington, DC, Charleston, SC, Orlando, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Twenty-six percent participated in service while thirty-eight percent did missions trips.

But more significant than the numbers are the stories and words of our students and teachers. We have heard of lives changed through prayer and relationships in an orphanage in Monterrey, Mexico. One student recounted the power of reading the Book of Acts while following the footsteps of Paul’s journey through Turkey. Budding young scientists readily talked about how biology comes alive when feeding elk in the shadow of the Tetons or snorkeling in the waters of the Caribbean. Another student who built a house for a homeless man in Jamaica said, “This trip will forever alter my future behavior, attitude and decisions.” A young woman shared in chapel about how she learned to appreciate the wisdom of the elderly as she recounted her time in a nursing home. In Costa Rica, a participant noted, “The joy on the faces of the children in spite of their extreme poverty was hard to believe.” And I keep reading emails from people touched by the performances of EJO and Encore in Cincinnati, Charleston, and Orlando.

The course Culinary Arts “went in search of the best way to travel from mindless eating to mindful eating, and found the answer in exciting cuisine.” Students on the Appalachia trip experienced an entirely different culture a few hours away from Cincinnati. A large group of our students recounted how they bonded with young people in schools around our city, with some even returning on their own during a day off of school in January. A senior who traveled to South Africa eloquently shared how humbled he was by a baby in an orphanage.

As I reflect on the things I’ve heard and read since returning to our normal schedule, I was particularly moved by the stories of our students worshipping and fellowshipping with Christian brothers and sisters in churches around the country and the world. Despite culture and language, regional differences and dialects, politics and worldviews, the Spirit of Christ has the power to unite. Love was given and received. We are all different because of it. Students have followed our call to engage God’s world in all its beauty and complexity. They have returned to the classroom changed, seeing new relevance and possessing a new urgency to equip themselves to meet the challenges of the world. When we think about what “learning, leading, and serving” look like lived out, Winter Term is a poignant exemplar.

(For more about Winter Term and why we do it, see my blog from April 22, 2009.)

Dr. Hall's Blog

2010-01-11T19:57:00.003-05:00

If you haven't seen Dr. Hall's new blog, he recently discussed the book Nurture Shock. I just finished the book and was actually reading it at his recommendation. I have been struck by a number of topics in it but probably none more strongly than the "sleep chapter" in its relevance for the lives of our students and for myself. I echo Dr. Hall that the book deserves reading. The following blog is actually a response to a thoughtful parent who questions the dilemma caused when students get too little sleep because of the amount of homework. It is a great question for which I do not have a simple answer. But below are some of my own thoughts and wrestling with the topic.

There are a number of factors that make our situation far from ideal. At this point, how to go about fixing them is a whole other problem. As I see it, here are some of the mitigating factors.

1. American schools have shorter school days and shorter school years than most of the industrialized world. There are a number of reasons for this. The problem is that we competing with those schools around the world now, not just across town!

2. One of the ways we seek to compete in this country is by trying to find ways to get our kids "further faster" which generally results in pushing students to the AP level courses. That way they are getting prerequisite college courses out of the way so that they can do more advanced work more quickly during the undergrad years. Those classes become the capstone courses in each discipline and many of the colleges are wanting to see them on transcripts. So with colleges getting more selective, the pressure to take more college level work at the high school level increases. Mind you, we are already dealing with less time and now we are trying to squeeze in parts of freshmen year of college!

3. The part that exacerbates the problem is that not only are our kids trying to do so much in a compacted academic schedule, we are living in a society that does not place academics as highly on a value scale as some other cultures. For many students and families, sports or the fine arts take a priority that are unheard of in school systems outside of America. So balancing time for athletic teams that practice six days a week and high level fine art productions change the entire dynamic of an American high school. Thinking about student sleep, not only should they be getting eight hours, teens also would benefit from sleeping later in the morning. But while a 9 am start might be much preferred for student learning (which I think studies have clearly shown), the logistical issues it raises for after school practices and contests/matches, not to mention buses and transportation, make it a non-starter for some districts. Maybe it's time for it to be placed on the table for further discussion.

4. Then at CHCA, we have another level of constraint, because while we are doing all these other things to compete, we feel strongly that a Christ-centered education demands some other things. So not only are we adding an hour of chapel per week, but three and a half credits of Christian Studies classes and then one hundred and twenty hours of service on top of that. Again, please hear me in this--I am not bemoaning these features. I think they are central and make us who we are as a school. But it does impact the way student schedules become even more limited for time. I end up thinking about this issue as not just a homework issue but much more broadly as a school culture issue. To what degree are we willing to be counter-cultural as a school when it comes to our children and their time? In a culture that values busy-ness and achievement, can we accept less activities and accomplishments? What things are we willing to sacrifice? I worry if the answer becomes our children's sleep and emotional/psychological/spiritual well being. The ancient, and sadly outdated, principle of Sabbath could go a long way in a world like ours. "Rest" in our culture has become something for the lazy and unmotivated. It needs to be elevated again as a divine principle and mandate. (See Lauren Winner's Mudhouse Sabbath and Wayne Muller's Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives.)

Dr. Hall, thanks for getting the conversation started.

Merry Christmas Day #6: A Semester in Review

2009-12-30T00:23:00.002-05:00

Sitting on the cusp of 2010, the start of our next semester and the beginning of a new decade, I find myself looking back at what has been a memorable Fall Semester. Please allow me the pleasure of reliving some of those moments.

The year officially began for some students on August 19, as our new freshmen class arrived for Freshmen Orientation. We were particularly excited to have nine Armleder students join their North Campus classmates, our largest Armleder contingent yet. While the class of 2013 was smaller than the previous year, the percentage of new faces to CHCA was higher, with nearly a third of the class coming from the outside. Not only did students join us from middle schools across the Tri-State area, but Hee Woo Choi and Da Sol Kim arrived from Korea, while Che Li joined the class from China. I spoke with the students about the history and tradition they were joining at the MSL High School and we took a tour of the campus. They were then oriented to high school life, participated in a session on study skills, did team building exercises with Student Ambassadors, and finished with a “Schedule Scavenger Hunt” that ended with students trying out their locker combinations. Everyone who successfully opened his/her locker (everyone to my knowledge), found a neon green freshmen class t-shirt. Thanks to this day, freshmen seemed more at ease on the first day of school.

We began our year as a community with our Opening Convocation at Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church on August 20th. It was a beautiful time for all of us to open our year with prayer and worship. Unfortunately our attendance was much lower than expected for the event but it was a meaningful time for all who participated.

Our first week ended with a celebration. Despite the early hour, a rowdy student body packed into the gym bleachers to root on the Eagles in a 7 AM pep rally on live television. The Fox 19 crew did live news spots and weather broadcasts from campus with performances by the pep band, Encore, and the cheerleaders. Players, coach, and AD were all interviewed as well. The network crew commented on our spirit. They said we’d be a hard act to follow and that we’d set the bar high for all schools to come.

In chapel Mr. Salkil kicked off the year with a series entitled “My School.” He focused each week on a different aspect that makes us unique: our identity in Christ, service, and worship. He highlighted how we are a community that shares life together and that we are to challenge each other to grow in our faith in Christ.

As we moved into the second quarter, we celebrated Spirit Week and our school’s twentieth year anniversary. Students showed their spirit, dressing for Nerd Day, Western Day, Twin Day, College Teams, and Class Colors. The highlight of the Spirit Competition was our first ever Homecoming Float Competition and halftime parade. Keeping wih the theme “There’s No Place Like Home,” the freshmen pulled the unexpected upset. A blow out for the football team and a beautiful Homecoming Dance at the Phoenix capped off a memorable week.

A memorable moment for me was at the 20th Year Anniversary program when alumni from each graduating class introduced themselves and told where they are now. It was humbling to see the outcome of the teaching and learning and growing we do here together. Then current students, from high school all the way down to pre-school , introduced themselves as future graduates. Our future is bright!

A number of other moments stick out so far this year. The Three Musketeers received rave reviews. The Eagles win against North Hardin on a game ending field goal was historic. Encore made us proud in their many performances, from the National Anthem at the Reds game to opening for the Lindner Great American Financial Christmas party. We were well represented at the Girls State Tennis meet, with a singles and a doubles representative. The MSL High School was listed in the Cincinnati Magazine issue on high schools as one of five schools named in the General Excellence category. Mr. Baker’s homeroom of freshmen guys, Baker’s Dozen, beat all odds and won the Homeroom Dodge Ball Tournament in front of a wild student body. The AP Art Exhibit "Drawn" awed all in attendance. And at the end of the semester, we were led into the Christmas season at the Sacred Music concert at St. Xavier church, where all of our musical groups and ensembles shared their musical gifts as an offering of worship.

The list of all the wonderful moments so far this year could go on and on. But much is still ahead. What will happen next? May we at CHCA have a Happy and Prosperous New Year!

Merry Christmas--Day #3

2009-12-27T09:15:00.006-05:00

I hope each of you has experienced the power and beauty of Christmas. My moment came at a Christmas Eve service. My wife and I commented that this might be the first Christmas Eve service that we’ve enjoyed since having kids. The past few years I’ve felt less like a worshipper coming to the manger and more like a warden arriving at maximum security. In the past, the goal was finding a way not to ruin the experience for everyone else in attendance and somewhere around the third outburst, I would be questioning why I didn’t keep our three “Christmas angels” under lock and key at home and guarantee a successful outcome for the rest of the church. This year was different. Abe was a “greeter” with me, welcoming those arriving in the sanctuary. Pete and Jake each played a Christmas carol on the piano with their piano teacher/mother as part of the prelude. And I watched as each one was engaged in his own way throughout the service. And as the service closed with a candle lit “Silent Night,” I was moved to tears and not because one of my children burned down the church. But as the pastor lit his candle from the Christ Candle, which we’ve been waiting for all of Advent, I saw the wonder shining on each child’s face as they watched the Light of Christ spread among the darkness of the congregation.

Silent night, holy night,

Son of God, Love’s pure light

Radiant Streams from Thy holy face,

with the dawn of redeeming grace

Jesus, Lord at thy birth! Jesus Lord at thy birth!

A good friend of mine encouraged me to actually read Dicken’s A Christmas Carol instead of just watching another version on television. And after reading it, the most poignant part that no movie I’ve seen fully captures is the sense of rapture in Ebenezer post ghostly epiphany. William James discusses in his Varieties of Religious Experience how for converts, the world is radically changed. It is as if they are seeing the world for the first time, or put another way, are actually living in a different world altogether. Once Ebenezer Scrooge understands what power, joy, and hope the birth of Christ can bring to the world generally and his life specifically, he enters a world of wonder and opportunity.

We often bemoan the commercialization of the Christmas holiday and the busy-ness and bustle. We often burn out before the day actually arrives. In America, we in the church have in many ways lost Christmas to the malls. A perfect example of this is the post-Christmas let down. On December 26th, we have the sense that it is over for another year. Nothing could be further from the truth! In the West, Christmas proper has historically been a 12-day feast, beginning on the 25th and running until Epiphany on January 5. In the Church calendar, there are five Sundays of Christmas. How long is too long to celebrate the Incarnation?! But in a consumer driven culture that runs on how much we spend and what we buy, Christmas begins the day after Thanksgiving and stops when the stores close on Christmas day. Sadly, once the stores have nothing left to market, we Christians fall into the same trap, as if we have nothing left to celebrate!

So let me encourage and challenge you. Today is Christmas Day 3—celebrate it accordingly! You have nothing left to buy, no holiday tasks left to do. Just celebrate! Christ’s birth has changed all reality. A personal God became human to engage us in a relationship that caused even angels to sing! How do we celebrate accordingly? I don’t truly know. Everything seems understated in comparison to an event so significant. Find the power, joy, and hope that Ebenezer found all around him. Where can I see the Light of Christ today? Create traditions in your family that continue your celebration of the Savior’s birth. For the next twelve days, every dinner together around our table, we light the Christ Candle in the middle of our advent wreath. We also try to spend time with friends and family that sadly we don’t always find time for during the year. May the Festival of Christmas restore our body, mind, and spirit! May it restore our relationships! May it restore our churches and our communities! May it restore our world!

Joy to the world, the Lord is Come

Let earth receive her King

Let every heart prepare Him room

Let Heaven and Nature sing!

Let Heaven and Nature sing!

A Christmas Confession

2009-12-22T09:15:00.003-05:00

Merry Christmas! As I sit in a house with three wired kids only three days from Christmas, with snow gently falling outside and a cup of coffee in hand, all seems perfect with the world. It has been a wonderful semester with many highlights over the past months. But I must confess the obvious: I have been a blogging failure! While it has been a successful semester, it was also an extremely busy one. And I had the pleasure of teaching sixteen thoughtful, intelligent, creative seniors in my "Israel in the World" course, but the fifteen hundred pages of reading I assigned kept me "engaged" as well! I have four "Peace Plans" left to read and then the course will be complete.

Over the next couple weeks of vacation, I will try to catch everyone up on what's been happening on campus as I try out my New Year's resolution early of being a better blogger. So hit on the blog every few days and check on my progress. In the mean time, I need to get out and finish the last of the Christmas shopping.

I hope you and your family are having a beautiful time together in the midst of this Christmas season. May you experience the love of Christ among you and may you make memories together!

Homeroom: Making a Small School Smaller

2009-09-12T11:00:00.002-04:00

This is the second year that we have had homerooms at the high school. Homeroom period is ten minutes every day (except during block days) between 3rd and 4th bell, and immediately after Chapel on Wednesdays. Homeroom replaces the old advisory groups which met quarterly. Each group consists of ten to thirteen students of the same grade and gender and one faculty member or administrator. We have been able to create this period without taking away from instructional time because our expanded cafeteria has allowed us to go from three lunches down to two.

Homeroom has a few basic purposes. First, it is a place to give announcements, hand out forms and paperwork, and generally take care of school business. In the past, this happened at the beginning of 2nd Bell. But this wasn't always the most ideal way to communicate information. While 2nd Bell was slightly longer, occasionally announcements and business could bleed over into class time. This system had the effect of shortening the same class with every overage. We work hard to restrict classroom interruptions as much as possible. Another benefit to disseminateing information in homerooms is that, generally speaking, the smaller the group hearing announcements, the more effective the communication. Homerooms are generally much smaller than a typical class.

Second, and more importantly, homerooms form communities within the greater school community. Even though our school is small by some standards, some students still feel isolated. Because of homeroom, every student connects with the same group of classmates and an adult every day. Many churches create this community within a community with "small groups" or "home fellowships groups." Homeroom is ultimately relational time. Our homerooms foster relationships that help students navigate the school year socially, emotionally, and spiritually. It is a safe place for discussion, sharing, and praying together. Because it is immediately after Chapel, it creates a great place for chapel debrief as well. Mr. Salkil even creates potential discussion questions for his chapel talks.

Of my twelve students in homeroom, I had only worked with five of them before in a class or Winter Term. Over the past three weeks, I have had the distinct pleasure of getting to know a group of talented, considerate, thoughtful, and fun(ny) senior men. I look forward to sharing this year with them! I hope they can receive from me all of the energy, hope, and insight I gain from them.

My School

2009-09-06T08:20:00.004-04:00

I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend after a very busy first two weeks. It is nice to stop and breath for a minute after a non-stop, action packed start to the school year. I cannot remember a better beginning! Here are some of the highlights.

We began with a wonderful Opening Convocation service. The evening began with a processional of faculty and administration in full academic regalia. Students, faculty, administrators, and even a parent welcomed, prayed, spoke, and shared musical gifts. The highlight of the evening was Ben Lapps sharing his musical piece "Reveille" on the guitar. If you have not experienced an Opening Convocation yet, you must be sure to attend next year!

The first day of school is always a special time here. The Miracle Commons has the feel of a family reunion as students and teachers reconnect after two and a half months away. This year Student Council added a nice touch by bringing bagels for everyone! Thursday was Meet the Teacher night as each class gave a glimpse into the year. In much the same way that students reunited with each other on the first day, the parents did the same on Thursday evening, catching up with each other and asking what each other's students were taking, involved in, playing, etc. I had so many great comments and emails about how impressed our parents are with what is happening around here!

Friday morning of the first week was a Spirit Day. Because we were part of the Fox 19 Game of the Week, the Fox 19 Morning Show did their weather spots live from the MSL gymnasium from 7-9 am. So at 7 am on the first Friday of the school year, we had an optional pep rally in the gym. The pep band, cheerleaders, Encore, the football team, and over a hundred students showed some Eagle spirit for the cameras. The Cincinnati area watched as we played, cheered, sang, and gave interviews. If you missed the broadcast, click on the link under News on the website to watch video clips of the event. We had a fun morning and the entire Tri-State area got to watch!

This past week we had our first block schedule of the year on Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday we had our first chapel. "My School" is the theme of Mr. Salkil's first chapel series. He spoke about the way a sense of Christian community shapes our environment but how selfishness, fear, and elitism can break down what God can do among us. He challenged the students to consider what true Christian community could look like at CHCA and how God could use each of them to make it a reality. He pointed out how it was our responsibility to pull in all the new people so that they too could call this "my school."

Friday night was another one of those wonderful CHCA community times. Whether you are a football fan or not, Friday night football games are an important part of community here. Students from every building, parents and grandparents, alumni, teachers and staff all come together to share a wonderful evening. Watching and cheering over a football game only scratches the surface of what happens on a Friday night. Young and old catch up and rehearse old memories. Little kids play football in the grass, dreaming of the day they will be center stage out on the field. The pep band creates a festive atmosphere. People share food, whether tailgating or from the concession stand. High school students display their school spirit in all kinds of ways. New friends and aquaintances are made. And as a bonus to the evening, the Eagles won easily 21-0. (We also got a nice wrap up article in the Enquirer the next day!)

What a great beginning. This is our school! I've been moved the past two weeks watching our students engaging, learning, and growing in a school they proudly consider their own. But this is only a beginning. What will next week bring? I'm not sure, but I'll let you know.

Opening Convocation

2009-08-16T21:28:00.004-04:00

The year is fast approaching! New Family Orientation is Tuesday and Freshmen Orientation is Wednesday. All teachers and staff report on Thursday and then Monday morning at 7:50, the 2009-10 school year will officially begin. Where has the summer gone?

If you are like me, summer typically ends with a list of tasks undone and a series of goals unfulfilled. No matter how much I do, I somehow always planned on more. I saw almost all of my family, traveled to wonderful places, made numerous memories with my boys, read many of the books on my "to read" list. Still I wonder, what if I only had another week? But no amount of wishing can change the inevitable.

Throughout all of human history, people have marked transitions--shifts in time, change of seasons, rites of passage. In education, we often fall into the rut of marking endings but glossing over the power of beginnings. We close each school year with Commencement, an ending which is also a beginning. But the start of school often hits us in a bustle of meetings, syllabi, and school supplies. The next thing you know, we are talking about mid-terms. We have attempted to break that cycle at the MSL High School with our Opening Convocation.

This year marks our third Opening Convocation. Two years ago it was held the first hour of the first school day on campus. Last year it was moved off campus to both raise its stature and make it more accessible to the parent community. This year we have moved it back a few days because for some, it was difficult on the night before the first day of school, especially with younger children at home. So our Convocation will be on Thursday August 20, 2009 at Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church at 7:00 PM. (Please see the CHCA website for directions.)

Please come and join us as we open our year in worship, song, and prayer to the Lord! It will be a special time as we reconvene from the summer and celebrate what God will do among us this year. All are welcome. I look forward to seeing each of you!

Lots of Reading, But Not a Lot of Writing

2009-07-13T19:33:00.002-04:00

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. I've meant to post regularly throughout July, but as you may have noticed, it hasn't happened. I also promised an overview of Plantinga's Engaging God's World. That is still on the horizon. The only thing I've been updating with some frequency is the "What I'm Reading" list. Thank you all who have given me books over the past month or two. I'm catching up and enjoying the discovery of new authors and ideas. Malcom Gladwell's Outliers was a pleasant surprise that I find myself thinking and talking about at least once a day!

As the Nicholas family has been driving across the country, we've all been listening to the Chronicles of Narnia. It is fun to watch my boys encounter these stories for the first time. To add to the "Narnian adventure," we stopped at Wheaton College to see the Marion E. Wade Center (http://www.wheaton.edu/wadecenter/welcome/welcome.html). Among the great academic resources they have housed there, C.S. Lewis' writing desk and the wardrobe from his study--the inspiration for The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe--were the ones of most interest to my children. If you ever get to Wheaton College, make sure you visit it, as well as the Billy Graham Center Museum (http://www.billygrahamcenter.com/museum/).

I'll be back for more blogging later. Boys are calling, fish are biting, and books are waiting. Check back in a few days.

Summer Reading

2009-06-19T00:40:00.003-04:00

Summer and books have always gone together in my mind. From my earliest school days, reading was a part of the summer. As the final bell of the final day of the school year rang, “freedom” was the first thought in all our minds! School work was done. Projects were finished. Endless hours of riding bikes, playing baseball, swimming, fishing, cookouts, and festivals lay ahead. But then the first morning of summer vacation, Mom woke us up extra early, loaded us into the car, and took us to the neighborhood library. Like it or not, we were signing up for the Summer Reading Program.

The Summer Reading Program was a way to keep kids’ minds active. Each summer had a theme and the library was decorated accordingly. Around the library walls was a construction paper track that had a marker for each reader. Everyone received a form to fill in the titles read throughout the summer. And with each book read, one’s marker moved along the track. Therein was the hook. Reading was school work. But the Summer Reading Program was a competition! The masses would read their two or three books over the next ten weeks. But for the overly competitive (i.e., my sister and me), we would schlep a sack of books home each week, looking to leave the competition in the dust by the Fourth of July. We’d look to lap them by the beginning of the State Fair in August. My mother started monitoring our selections when we were scolded by the librarian for checking out picture books in the fifth grade. So we may have been reading for all the wrong reasons, but an important habit formed in us. To this day, summer is the time when I begin to read all the books I’ve piled up but never got to during the school year. If you are looking for a few good reads, let me suggest a few things I’ve read this past school year.

This past fall I finally read Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time, by Greg Mortenson (http://www.threecupsoftea.com/). This is the true story of a man who almost died attempting to climb K2 in Pakistan. After being nursed back to health in a small village, he decides to come back to build them a school. This began Mortenson's quest to build schools for the remotest areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mortenson gives a complex view inside a part of the world we fear. And his solution to fighting Islamic extremism challenges us to consider again whether the Way of Jesus might actually triumph in ways bombs and war cannot.

I reread a book this past year on a Winter Term flight to Israel. Elias Chacour’s Blood Brothers is a simple book that can be read very quickly. But the power of its story is life changing. Chacour’s autobiographical work tells how his Palestinian Christian family lost their home, possessions, and village with the formation of the State of Israel. And despite the pain of his loss, his Christian father always told him that Palestinian Christians are “blood brothers” with the Jews and therefore must not fight them but make peace with them. And Chacour spends his life doing that very thing. In one of the highlight moments for me in this school year, Archbishop Elias Chacour spent two hours with our group in Haifa in January telling us his story. He challenged us to take Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount seriously because He is calling on us to “get our hands dirty”! This book is a must read.

Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded will affect the way you look at the world around you. The sequel to his past best seller, The World is Flat, this work looks at globalization, the rapid rise in population, and climate issues and considers their potential consequences on America’s future standing in the world. This book seems to be a primer on many of the central news stories of the day.

One of the books a number of high school faculty are reading this summer is John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. This book has haunted me from the first time I read it. The story opens with the narrator crediting Owen for his belief in God. The character of Owen intrigues and baffles the reader throughout as he brazenly proclaims that he is an “instrument of God.” Every time I read this novel, I am again left wrestling with how Providence works in our world and I am challenged to think whether I am an actor or an observer/critic in the story unfolding all around me.

Another book I would like to strongly recommend that you read is Cornelius Plantinga’s Engaging God’s World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living. This book is the theological map of how we understand a Christian education and how we shape our curriculum at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy K-12. I will write more about this work in my next blog because it deserves a more complete treatment. But if you are a part of CHCA and want to understand the way we think about what we do here, you must read this book!

So enjoy your summer. Begin finding the books you will read during your time away. Make some authors your new friends! I’ve already fallen head over heels for Anne Rice (check out the sidebar for what I’ve read of hers recently). And we’ll talk in August over a cup of coffee!

By the way, my kids are already signed up for the Summer Reading Program. The race is on.

Greater Things

2009-06-06T00:26:00.006-04:00

Driving into school the morning after graduation, I was exhausted. Our speaker, Paul Young, flew out at 6:10 so we'd arranged a 4 am pick-up time. As I neared school, the rosy sun rising on a late spring morning, the lyrics from a song we sang in chapel ran through my head:

Greater things have yet to come,

Greater things are still to be done here

This has been a remarkable year. It has gone so fast, yet so much has happened. When the year began, we still had a muddy mess in our parking lot without enough parking. Now we have a great new addition, with a new science lab, a computer lab, larger foreign language rooms, a beautiful artroom, larger instrumental music space, and a dance room. Our library has been enhanced as well. Alumni are awed when they see how we've grown!

This year we welcomed and celebrated students who are citizens of thirteen nations around the world. Their flags were represented in the Miracle Commons. The International Club began this year and the lunch they hosted in May was a highlight! At Commencement on Sunday, we had graduates from China, France, Germany, Korea, Mexico, and the UK.

We had our largest freshmen class in the history of the school. And they weren't just a large class. They were remarkable. Freshmen made their mark in the classroom, on the stage, in the field, on the court, out in the community, and in our chapels. Our future is bright.

Our senior class led with distinction this year. Lena Tome led as class president. Darris and Emilee set the tone in chapel. Hannah Frank was a fixture in SOS. Dana Hartsig has brought recycling to CHCA. Elizabeth Mangels spearheaded the NHS Leadership Lunches, kicked off by Dr. Nancy Zimpher. And the entire class set an example for how to form community. If the classes that follow can find ways to imitate the unity and comraderie of the Class of '09, our school will be a better place.

Again tragedy has touched our community this academic year. We continue to remember in our prayers the Corrados, Bains, Everharts, and Heaths. May God's peace and comfort come to them as they grieve.

You're the strength in our weakness

You're the love to the broken

You're the joy in the sadness

You Are

I sensed God doing something unique among us this year. Our chapels had a sense of reverence that I cannot recall in my time here. Worship was often contagious. Messages were challenging. Students were respectful. Visitors always commented on the music. We had many wonderful guests this year but we will always remember our time with Paul Young. In three days, he became part of our community. And many of our lives were changed. We prayed with each other. We confessed to each other. We began to care about each other in ways we always knew we should. We all know our school is far from perfect. But something has begun.

The perfect memory for me of this year happened on Thursday evening at the end of Diaspeiro. Following a memorable message by Mr. Salkil to the seniors, the Class of '09 stood together on the theater stairs as Darris sang "Friend of God" one last time. A wave of emotion came over me as I thought about all of these wonderful, talented, beautiful lives leaving to be scattered as seeds into the world.

What would come next? How will our rising Seniors lead? What will be the remarkable moments next year? What memories will shape us? What stories will be written about what is to come? What will God do among us in 2009-10? What role will you play?

Greater things have yet to come,
Greater things are still to be done here

The Last Things

2009-05-09T08:37:00.002-04:00

The end is upon us. And it has come more quickly this year than I have ever remembered. We are entering into the last week of school for our seniors. For freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, everything is now the "last time" this year. For our seniors, it is forever. We've now had our last Winter Term, our last Spring Break, our last Spiritual Life Emphasis Week, our last Sacred Music concert, and our last beginning of AP Testing. This week we will have our last AP tests, our last full day, and our last chapel. The week after, seniors will have their last exams and last Academic Awards night. Then there will be Diaspeiro and Graduation practices and then the actual events. On May 31st, the CHCA experience will end at a ceremony rightly called Commencement. And in the joy of completion and "freedom," hints of sadness will be just beneath the surface as a community of students and teachers is scattered out of our school and into the world.

Many seniors who have longed to escape our "hallowed halls" for the past four years begin to exhibit melancholy and nostalgia at the thought of leaving friends and familiarity. Difficult classes and assignments, tech week, and two-a-days are now fondly relished as communal rites of passage that made us stronger and closer to each other. The end is near.

The Bible often talks about the End. The Greek word is eschaton, literally meaning "last." (So the word eschatology is really the study of "last things.") The biblical writers, when confronted with difficulty and struggle, always look forward with Hope toward the Eschaton. Whether it was the Hebrew prophets describing the establishment of God's shalom throughout not just Israel but the entire cosmos or New Testament writers longing for the "blessed Hope" of Christ's return, the End was always in sight. Apocalyptic literature, like parts of Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, and Revelation, explain the catastrophic turmoil of the present as the harbinger of God's closing of history itself, bringing about His perfect End.

The CHCA experience might parallel that apocalyptic pattern. If one considers a 12 or 13 year experience (which some of our graduates have here!), the last two years could easily be see as the cataclysmic beginning of the end! The strenuous and stressful nature of the junior year, ushering in the senior college search and decision making process, punctuated by final papers and the AP exams, the End is now in sight. When Friday comes and we sing and worship together for the last time as an entire community, we will be at the doorstep of an academic Eschaton.

Let us finish strong! Let us push to the end! The End is near!

We are in the days of Last Things.

Winter Term

2009-04-22T01:00:00.001-04:00

One of the harbingers of spring around the MSL High School is the beginning of enrollment for Winter Term. Winter Term is one of the signature programs of Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy which distinguishes us from other schools in the area. Since January 2001 we have been creating a two week interim period between semesters for intensive experiencial learning. In order to accomodate the program, we moved first semester exams from January to December, immediately before the Christmas Break. It takes an incredible amount of time, energy, and effort, not to mention resources to make the experience successful. And while teachers are energized by the experience in the long run, the effort needed to plan and then execute a great Winter Term is taxing. So why do we do it?

Our misson at CHCA charges us "to unleash a passion in students to learn, lead, and serve." We also endeavor to make "life long learners." But sometimes sitting in seven different desks for seven different 50 minute periods in the same building week after week starts to feel a bit artificial. Students often have difficulty seeing how day in day out school connects to the world they live in and why they'd want to do this "life long." But then comes Winter Term.

By breaking the normal schedule and rhythms of the school year, students pick a subject to study in depth for a two week period. When freed from the fifty minute bell, students and teachers begin to plumb depths and discuss nuances, following where interest and curiousity leads. The type of processing and deep thinking about a topic that can come over a two week in depth study cannot be mirrored in the regular school bell schedule. In a society like ours that loves sound bytes, 30-minute newscasts, internet surfing, and text messaging, we are not conditioned to slow down and study a thing thoroughly from every angle and perspective. We expect quick answers. But what might happen if we let a problem remain in our mind's eye for an extended period? What if we let ourselves ruminate on difficulties, allowing our subconscious minds to work a problem through? I believe people who develop such patterns will one day solve the big problems and find ways to change the world. Winter Term teaches our students new ways of thinking and learning.

Winter Term allows students to get out of the building and explore the world. That might mean exploring the history of the Queen City, serving in Chesterwood Village, viewing murals around town, or seeing the Taj Mahal, a Costa Rican jungle, or the Church of the Holy Seplechure. When our students travel down the street or around the world, they begin to develop a sense of adventure and often a feeling of awe. The world is filled with beauty, power, mystery, and wonder. The books we read and the lectures we give are actually about real things out there! To talk about World War II or Ancient Rome is one thing, but standing on location, so to speak, makes the classroom come alive. I love when a student finds a hidden treasure in her own city. I will always cherish the look on a student's face when we stand together at a place that was pictured in a textbook. I will never forget this January taking communion with my students at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem. When a person appreciates the fact that learning is about encountering and understanding a world that ever surprises and contains mystery upon mystery, how could one ever intend to stop?

Winter Term also fosters community on many different levels. First, one of the biggest barrier breakers in our school is Winter Term. Each course creates a learning community that transcends grade, gender, and social grouping. New social connections are always created in January! Like summer camp or a sports team, the shared time and commeraderie form bonds that last in our school. On another level, teachers and students connect in new ways as well. Interacting with each other outside of the normal classroom setting changes the nature of the relationship. Our teachers become mentors and friends to their students and Winter Term plays no small part in his phenomenon. Another level of community forms over Winter Term as well. Relationships form, even if temporarily, across every kind of boundary outside of our school. Through travel, cultural immersion, and service, our students encounter all kinds of people and relationships form. Our students get to know the elderly, young children, the homeless, the physically challenged, orphans, people of different ethnicities and religions, people of other cultures both nationally and internationally. We have a core value which talks about the value of each person. In Winter Term our students encounter those who are other, and we come to see how much they are like us.

Finally, we are a school that teaches our students to view the world in a Christ-centered way. We are called, each of us, to engage God's world. In Winter Term we do this first hand. All the world is God's! Everyone we meet, everywhere we go, everything we do--it is all part of God's world. We are called to live in this world and to bring the mind of Christ to every situation, every problem, and every question. This is not a theoretical situation. We want to live out this practice with our students. We do not want to tell them what it is like and then wait until they graduate and go out on their own. Every year we go out with them, for two weeks at a time. We walk along side them and help them think and question and engage. This is God's world!

So when someone asks me, why do we take off school for four weeks at Christmas? Why do we waste two weeks of class time? Why do we just give our kids extended vacation? I am saddened. We either failed at our task or we didn't do a good enough job talking about what we're doing. If it is the latter, hopefully this is a start toward correcting it. In the meantime, please go to the front of the website and explore all of the amazing opportunities to engage God's world next January!

The Power of Easter: A View From the High School

2009-04-10T11:09:00.003-04:00

(The following appeared in the Campus Connection last year. But being Good Friday, it seemed appropriate to post on the blog today. May this be a blessed Easter weekend for each of you!)

After thirteen years of working with high school students, I have come to realize that my life revolves around Easter. In the school calendar, Easter often signifies warmer weather, Spring Break, and in many students’ minds, the “beginning of the end” of the academic year. But my focus is different. As we move from the darkness and gloom of winter, into the newness of spring, Easter reminds us that the weight of despair, the heaviness of failure, the brokenness of sin are all overwhelmed by the power and light of the Resurrection. It is the great paradox of our faith that the redemptive death of Christ produces the triumph of New Life and the possibility of a New Creation.

As I spend time across our CHCA community, the view is unique in each locale. If I were to continue my comparison with the Church calendar, when I am in our elementary schools, I often think of Christmas. Life and faith are fresh and new. One is reminded of the beauty and innocence of the Babe in a manger. Children bring gifts to the King, if not gold, frankincense, and myrrh, maybe art projects and narratives from a Writer’s Workshop. Christ admonishes us to have faith like a child and we can sense what that might look like when we walk down these halls. One cannot imagine from here the horror of the cross.

Something happens when those pure children make their way to the high school. Somehow, things do not seem so simple anymore. The happy child who liked to smile and sing “Jesus Loves Me” has somehow turned cynical and listens to disturbing music. Boundaries were made to be broken; everything is questioned. What has happened to our children? They are figuring out how to become adults. And to be honest, they begin to look a lot more like us than we would like to admit.

If you are going to live in the world of high school, Easter must become your paradigm. One of my favorite biblical characters is Peter. As the Passion narrative unfolds, Peter denies three times even knowing Jesus. He is distraught by his failure. But after the news of Jesus’ resurrection, Peter runs to the tomb! And when he first encounters the Lord again in the Galilee, He gives him a chance at redemption. Three times Jesus asks Peter if he loves Him. Three times Peter answers in the affirmative. Easter brings a second chance! And when we read the Book of Acts, a transformed Peter preaches to thousands and then gives a defense of his message before the authorities (Acts 3, 4). Because of Easter, Peter is a New Creation.

Every day I walk through our halls, I see grown up elementary school kids. And sadly for some, Christmas has turned into Good Friday. The darkness is not just a passing storm but rather the shadow of Death. Lives are broken. Mistakes are made. But of all the valuable things our school can provide, I believe the greatest is a loving guide from the cross to an empty tomb. When the world tells us there is no hope, the failure is too severe, the mistake is too great, the power of the resurrection tells us there is new life! I like to think at the high school we celebrate Easter every day.

May the power of His Resurrection strengthen you and give you hope this Easter season!

High School Chapel

2009-04-03T14:04:00.004-04:00

In light of our life changing Spiritual Life Emphasis week, a number of people have been talking about High School chapels in general. And a couple comments have surfaced that surprised me. So I will share our view of chapel and then address some misconceptions.

The typical chapel at the high school is on Wednesdays from 10 am to 11 am in the Lindner Theater. When we have block schedule, the time shifts to 9:30 to 10:30. Occasionally the day will shift to accommodate a guest speaker or some other anomoly in our schedule. Parents are welcome to visit and we ask that guests use the top two rows of the theater.

Chapel is community time. It is the one time each week we are all together. Usually we open with a few announcements. Occasionally we have short videos (typically student created) to highlight an upcoming event, show the topic of the day, or provide a lighter moment. We then have a time of corporate worship through song, and then a message to challenge our students to grow in Christ. Mr. Salkil, our chaplain, does a large portion of the speaking but other faculty also share. Outside guests make up the rest of the speakers.

It is our desire that chapel is a time when all of our students, no matter their background, can be challenged to think about Scripture and what following Christ in today's world could look like. We deal with the issues of the day. Students appreciate authenticity and the last thing we want to do is present them with a Gospel message that seems canned or cliche. At the high school, we often talk about how we want to present the Christian life to our students in a way that engages the head, heart, and hands. Chapel is the center of the "heart" piece of that equation. Chapel is a time to encounter God in meaningful ways, through worship in song and the Word.

Something that I hear occasionally is that high school chapel is optional. I want to be clear--that is not and has never been the case! Last year we tried something new. For some time we have struggled with the musical worship portion of our chapel. A number of reasons exist for this. 1) While some denominations use music extensively for worship, in some traditions the singing of praise music is very foreign. Other traditions might sing for 30 minutes to an hour to prepare the worshipper for the preaching of the Word. Our community has students from both ends of this spectrum. 2) Some churches use music more for performance than participation. People listen to those singing but do not join in. We are no longer a culture that regularly sings. If you do not attend a singing church,when was the last time you sang? A birthday party? Christmas carols?

So we had a community where many got little out of the musical part of worship but for others it was a significant way to connect with God. Those who were disinterested, would use it as community time, talk with neighbors, and distract those who were wanting to worship. To find a way to meet the needs of all our students, we divided the chapel time. We divided it into two parts. During the normal chapel period, we had one song and the message. Then at the end of the day, we had options: musical worship, prayer, chapel discussion, or studyhall for those who were not at a place where worship was something they were interested in or able to engage. We used that schedule for most of the fourth quarter last year. We created a schedule to use that option occasionally this year, but due to a new level of engagement, we have not had the need. I could speculate reasons for this. But I won't.

Another comment I hear occasionally that troubles me is when a parent or student mentions that they do not go to church because chapel is "their church." Chapel is a great opportunity to find spiritual nourishment during the week and a way to hear from God. A Christian school like ours--with its Bible classes, Spirit-filled teachers looking to integrate a Christian worldview into every discipline, and a "vibrant senes of community"--can be a powerful environment for a Christian. But we must never confuse ourselves into thinking we are a church. Our work as a Chrisian academy supplements the work of the Church. We can educate and develop young people which will make them more dynamic church members. But the Church has a function and a role in the Divine economy that CHCA will never have. Therefore, our students need to know the life of participating and serving in church. When students graduate and leave for college, if this school is their only faith community, it is much less likely that they will find a church while in college. And if they do not find time to connect with a body of believers in college to share life with, life post-college will only get busier and more hectic, making such a commitment even less likely. God calls us to live a life of faith in community. Our school gives us glimpses of what that life looks like. But that does not replace the important role of the local church.

As our year comes to a close, I relish the few chapel times we still have together before we send our seniors out into the world! See you Wednesday!

Spiritual Life Emphasis Week Spring 2009

2009-03-29T18:47:00.012-04:00

This has been an amazing week with our guest author and SLEW speaker, Mr. Paul Young, author of The Shack. When I read his book this summer, I appreciated it and thought he'd make an interesting speaker. I never imagined the way this week would unfold.

As the week wrapped up in Friday's chapel, the Spirit moved among us in a way I have never seen in my thirteen years at CHCA. Others who have been here longer than me reported nothing similar in their memories either. As long as I can remember, students, teachers, administrators, and parents have been praying for Jesus to work powerfully in this community. We were fortunate to be present in a powerful and memorable moment.

Many questions were being asked Friday afternoon--what happened, why, what does it all mean? For what purpose? My most honest answer to each of those questions is: I'm not sure. God ever surprises. Who can know the Lord's ways or purposes? One thing I do know is that Jesus does not follow simple formulas. Authentic moments like Friday morning cannot be conjured up or duplicated by human efforts or planning. For some reason, the Spirit chose to move among us. But spiritual highs are not an end in themselves. How do we continue what God has begun?

Here are a few observations that I found significant. Each of you will have others from your experience and vantage points. There is nothing authoritative about the following. This is only what struck me as I've lived the experience, heard many other accounts, and reflected over the weekend.

Paul Young's authenticity, humility, compassion, and loving interest in everyone he meets are contagious.
Our facades limit our connections with each other and limit the level of true community we can have among us.
When we draw close to God and the Spirit moves among us, we seem to draw closer to each other as well.
Praying for each other has the potential of unspeakable power.
Many in our community are hurting.
Many referred to this as the most spiritually dynamic moment of their lives.
The underclassmen are willing to listen to God and step out in faith.
Seniors want the end of their years here to matter for something more.
While the date for Young was booked in August, the timing for our community seemed perfect...God is involved in the details of our lives!
Performance does not make God love us more.
Love, forgiveness, and relationship can change the future of our lives and of our school.

This list could go on and on. I have been emotional all week as I've seen God at work in my life and in the lives of those around me. Jesus is healing hearts and lives. He is mending broken relationships. The Spirit is opening our eyes to the messes in each of our shacks. My prayer is that this is only a beginning. May each of us listen for the voice of God. May we see Him at work in our lives. May we love each other.

I've never looked forward to a week at school more than I do right now. I can't wait to see what God will do next!

Welcome to the Blog!

2009-03-29T17:18:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my newest blog. If you are wondering why I'm taking on this venture, it is to combat one of my greatest frustrations in the transition from classroom teacher to principal. As a teacher, I was constantly communicating with students--about a hundred a day in class. Through teaching, discussion, conversation, and written comments on papers, I was constantly sharing ideas and thoughts with students. Misconceptions were quickly fixed, dialogue was on-going. In this position, students and parents alike are often left to guess about what's going on or why things happen. I chat briefly with students passing in the hall, a parent in a meeting or a phonecall. But rarely do I get to speak broadly about matters of importance, cast vision for the future, or share what I see happening around here from my point of view. So this will be an attempt to connect and share in a new way.