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. 

David Loewen - The Gospel & Christian Education

Following the Lamb in the formation of our schools

Keynote speaker David Loewen, Doctor of Education with 20+ years' experience in instructional design, delivered a compelling talk about transformation, culture and education. It could be summarised like this:

Education + the Gospel = Transformation.

However, I took notes! Here they are. Please read them as they relate to the diagram above, which was created live by an artist as David spoke.

A New Day

What would a new day look like? A fresh start, without the division and acrimony that happens, yes, even in Christian schools? We want our students to know the Gospel deeply, and this requires transparency and the removal of hurdles.

What would a new day look like in Christian education?

The Gospel

Questions we can be asking so that we are on the same page in our view of the gospel are:

• What is Gospel formation and what is 24th Century Christianity?
• What are we doing to make students want to engage in Hope and life?
• What is the true story we want to draw our students into, and how does culture impact how we see the gospel?

As a starting point it is vital that we understand our formation as people of faith. We are formed by our story, our culture and our theology. We bring this to the Gospel. Our cultural experiences shape us too, and often we need to understand our culture more as it impacts how we see the gospel.

We run the risk of losing the central part of the Bible when we focus on beliefs and not the Gospel. If we reduce the Gospel to a set of beliefs and check lists, we lose the heart of it. 

Our Theology

Our theological view of the world is shaped by our culture, the text we read, and our view of ourselves. We need to remain curious and ask:

• Does the text still bring disruption? 
• We often read the Bible as ‘the good guy’… how does that influence our theology and view of the world?  
• Do we read the text with wonder and joy? Does it capture my imagination?

We need a humbler and more gracious, kind, sympathetic approach to those who have come to different conclusions.

Paul said the Gospel is the main thing. A rich understanding of the Jesus story can heal our divisions, decrease our acrimony and in doing so make students interested. We do this by looking at: 

The Incarnation 

This is the co-humanity that God experienced with us. God came to earth in an intersection of the infinite and finite. 

God became human: Jesus is not an idea but a particularity. 

Place and time matters: We are to be with others, fully present with our enemies and the socially dysfunctional. 

All we do matters as it is a gift from God. It is worship. Our students will be impacted by this. We must be WITH each other

The Crucifixion

God is fundamentally for us. The start of the new kingdom is through sacrifice. We are to image God in a cruciform way – with unconditional love, going into the world as people called to die for self. When we love those around us, people are drawn to it. Cruciform love is more important that winning. It’s a posture of humility that might just capture the imagination of our students.

Being with them, leads to being for them. 

The Resurrection 

We are not called to die for the sins of the world. We can dance in the challenging situations because of the resurrection. Jesus is moving us toward something beautiful. We live in the era of the victory of a slain lamb. Might this speak loudly to our students? IT IS TOWARDS something beautiful, transformational even. This model demonstrates that learning is for something beyond success, and Jesus as our Logi redefines us.