You Raise me Up

Bridget Willard is a social commentator.  She has said a lot about the nature of faith communities such as our own.  She was recently talking with a group of Christian educators at a conference.  She said, rather provocatively for them, the following: 

“Christian School is not about where it is located.  Christian Schools are not about the buildings. Christian School is what you do. It is who you are.  Christian school should be the human outworking of the person of Jesus Christ.  Don’t go to Christian School, rather – be Christian School."

She’s absolutely right.  And it is the people for whom we say, "thank you." The teachers, with their pastoral and intellectual nurturing of all the students; the students, for all that they contribute to the classes they attend and as they look out for one another; the staff, as they seek to build one another up in their professional growth.

Thank you for the parents who deeply engage with the model of learning we have at our school – rooted in the command of Proverbs 22:6  –

Train up a child in the way they should go; even when they are old, they will not depart from it.

Thank you for the relationships between parents, as they build fellowship amongst each other while navigating being parents together; and for the way parents and teachers can engage in healthy, hope-filled conversations about the trajectory of education for their children in the world we live in, in 2022. 

Thank you for the times when we were taught more about who God is, who He wants us to be and how He wants us to be His people together.  Some of those lessons have not been easy, some we are still learning. Sometimes we've needed patience, understanding, forgiveness.

These words of gratitude and dependence on God echoed through all three of this year's thanksgiving services - Junior Primary, Senior Primary and Secondary. 

Here's a short extract from the last of those - an exquisite rendition of the song You Raise Me Up