Educational Faithfulness

But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:31 (NIV)

It seemed appropriate, on our first curriculum day for 2024, to reflect on how, within the staff – all of whom are devoted Jesus-followers – we show our discipleship through faith-filled obedience in the areas of curriculum development and lesson preparation.

We are part of a larger group of schools – the Christian Education National (CEN) network – who, like us, are committed to Christian education in full expression, in all we do, as an authentic expression of the faith we, as workers in the school, and you, as Christian parents sending your children to the school, would have it be.

We have, beyond the foundation that the biblical narrative provides, engaged in the curriculum design plans that CEN (and, more latterly, sister organisations in Canada and the United States) have developed.  It was, in fact, DCC’s own Harry Burggraaf (our first Director of Christian Foundations) who led a team of CEN teachers and leaders as they collaborated so that transformational learning and teaching could be articulated, documented and practiced in our schools.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Hebrews 12:1-3 (NIV)

We are three or four iterations on from that initial endeavour – but one thing has prevailed – the desire to “thread” through a student’s entire learning experience as many biblical perspectives as possible. Here’s the current list, as it stands, of those perspectives being used widely across Christian schools like ours in Australia and North America.

• Loving God: God is love. We respond to God's love by loving God in return and our neighbours as ourselves.
• Building Community: God is building His kingdom, his community.  We are active contributors and encouragers of others as the community is built up.
• Caretaking Earth: The earth belongs to God and it has been declared by Him to be very good.  We actively respond to God's call to carefully manage all of creation.
• Celebrating Life: God breathed life into a man and woman - His extra special creation - and He spread out before them the full array of the rest of his creation. We embrace the full suite of God's provisions in life and live in such a way that all may flourish.
• Challenging Distortions: Our world bears the marks of sin and suffers under its burden. We identify and critique areas impacted by sin and then discern God's purpose.
• Discovering Patterns: Embedded throughout God's created order are patterns, structures, and systems. We explore, discover, and delight in the patterns and designs that God has woven into His world.
• Embracing Diversity: Every person on the planet is made in the image of God – there are no exceptions. We respect and celebrate the built-in differences between cultures and peoples given for the enhancement of all.
• Expressing Words: Written and spoken words may carry infinite significance. Jesus, our ultimate example, used His words to speak life and truth to others. We use words to build up, make choices, and express life.
• Getting Wisdom: True wisdom, which belongs to God, extends beyond understanding and knowledge and provides direction and a way of living.  We can go deeper than understanding and knowledge to seek the insight of God.
• Imagining Innovations: God is a designer; our chief designer. We innovate and renew for good purposes and thereby praise the master designer.
• Imitating Humility: Humility is a key characteristic of the kingdom and a reflection of our relationship with God. We commit ourselves to humbly serving as we imitate Jesus - the ultimate example of humility. We gratefully accept God's grace and respond by humbly serving Him.
• Overcoming Setbacks: Through Christ, we are empowered to deal with setbacks with hope, faith and trust.  We overcome setbacks through the strength of the Holy Spirit and live in hope and faith.
• Pondering Creation: Our God is the supreme artist. We contemplate both the creator and his handiwork and respond in delight and praise.
• Practising Hospitality: God's love extends to all nations and His desire is for a family drawn from 'every tribe, language, people and nation'. We welcome and accept others and use our gifts to embrace others in the community.
• Pursuing Peace: God appointed a way where biblical peace or shalom could be found; through Jesus who pursued peace between humanity and God. We bring healing and restoration to people and areas of brokenness.
• Reflecting Creativity: God reveals His creativity in what He has made. We praise God by reflecting the Creator in making expressive and inspiring things and ideas.
• Relishing Play: The fear, despair and drudgery that is so evident in the world was not God's intention. We have an attitude of joy-filled play as we respond to what God has provided and Christ has restored.
• Seeking Justice: In the Bible, God reveals himself as a God of justice. We act as agents of change by identifying and responding to injustice.
• Shaping Culture: Our task to manage the good creation with care and creativity shapes both the physical and cultural landscape of life. We engage with, and lovingly shape, our culture. We understand our cultural context, discern its errors and its virtues, and seek to shake and shape it for the Kingdom.
• Showing Mercy: Our God is a god of mercy. We respond to God's mercy by likewise being merciful to others.
• Transforming Thinking: We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. We let every thought be captive to Christ so that our thinking is transformed by the renewing of our minds.
• Understanding Vocation: God is a worker and in our work we can reflect our creator. We discover the vocational task in which God has called us to serve.
• Unwrapping Gifts: God created man in His own image. We enrich our own lives and the lives of others by developing and using our gifts.
• Additional threads? Are there any other aspects that we can identify as God-created ‘threads’ that can be woven into the experience of education, just as they are woven into life, our culture and community?

And, finally, educational faithfulness sits hand in hand with academic faithfulness.  While my article three weeks ago was primarily focused on the lived experience a student has with their teacher in the classroom setting, these threads invade all our educational planning for all our intentional learning experiences – in the classroom, on the sports field, on camp, in the creative arts setting, to name a few.

My summary comment in my academic faithfulness article (with a couple of minor tweaks) similarly applies here:

“The educational experience a student has at DCC should, in no way more or less than any other experience, be one which gives us regular glimpses of God’s perfect plan.  It should be a space where staff and learners alike can serve one another, as the hands and feet of Jesus, in the daily rituals of their activities”.

Shalom.