From the Principal

ITEC 2024

Recently 75 of our staff and board members attended the amazing International Transforming Education Conference (ITEC) in Perth, WA. This was a fantastic event that focussed on Biblical education, spiritual nourishment and practical application. It also provided our LCS attendees an opportunity to talk and share with a wide variety of CEN teachers, leaders and staff from across Australia. I also appreciated the time that our LCS crew were able to spend together in fellowship. Thank you to the LCS board, who generously made funds available for so many of us to attend. It is an investment that will have significant benefits for our students, teachers and the wider LCS community. 

Over previous and upcoming Heralds I am highlighting some of the core messages of the conference, and my hope is that you will be encouraged as we all were by the powerful messages, and the potential impact that this will have on our school community and lives. 

Max Jeganathan - Salt & Light 

Good Christian education and public Christianity understands cultural currents and has the tools to navigate them with values intact.

Keynote speaker Max Jeganathan shared an illuminating session that hinged on this statement: The marketplace of ideas is transforming into a battlefield of ideals.

This strikes deeper to foundational questions being asked in our modern society: WHY are we doing what we're doing? WHAT is missing? ARE WE responsible for bringing it back?

Let's consider the ideals prevalent within our culture today; their definition, their importance and how to navigate them as Christians. I encourage you to look closely at the diagram above as it relates to my notes that follow. This was created live by an artist as each of the speakers presented.

What is TRUTH? 

Traditionally, the world has argued about the nature of truth. Today, the discussion centres around whether truth exists. At its most extreme, our culture says there is no truth.

Post-truth thinking states that truth doesn't matter; your feelings are your truth. This fails us morally as it places each person at the centre of their own universe, creating 8 billion individual moral authorities! Augustine and Luther said that sin is men and women curved in on themselves.

takeaway: When we don't seek absolutes in truth, there is an absence of moral truth.

What is JUSTICE?

In a similar way to Truth, Justice in modern culture is being defined subjectively. Driven by bitterness and vitriol, there are cries for justice because of what I think, and how I feel. We see grumpier and angrier people seeking justice from a position of bitterness - not righteousness.

Biblically, righteousness is proper relationship with God and others. 

takeaway: In its purest form, justice calls for restoration.

What is LOVE?

Most people, irrespective of differences, will agree that love is the supreme ethic. There are many different types of love but the one that dominates human history is desire and affection.

In its purest form, love is not about desire or how we feel. Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends." (John 15:13) Pure love calls for sacrifice.

takeaway: The nucleus of love is sacrifice.

What is SUCCESS?

Most people point to four metrics of success: achievement, accumulation, status and experiences. These are not inherently bad measures, but research shows they are not enough to cultivate a healthy wellbeing and a flourishing life. In fact, research reveals that people who only follow these four metrics for success often self-destruct. 

Purpose needs to be linked to success in order for people to truly flourish. To inspire young people, we need to be more vocal, intentional and focussed on purpose. Why are we here? Matthew 22:36-40 has the answer: love God and love people. This is the Christian model for success.

takeaway: Success calls for purpose.

What is FREEDOM?

You would be forgiven for thinking that freedom is the absence of restraints, and some confuse freedom with autonomy; we are a law unto ourselves, setting our own limits.

But is that really freeing? Is it freeing to have limitless choices?

Freedom is not the absence of constraints but engaging the right constraints to protect us. Consider a train. With no tracks it is free, but completely useless. For a train to operate to full potential, it needs those tracks!

takeaway: Freedom constrains to free us.

The message of Jesus Christ answers all these things. We can be a stream of fresh water back into the current cultural currents.