Feasts in the Bible are associated with special occasions and remembering. Passover (instituted in Leviticus 23) was a feast to recall Israel’s deliverance from Pharaoh; the wedding at Cana (in John 2) was a feast to celebrate the union of a husband and wife before God; the Supper of the Lamb (in Revelation 19) will be a big feast celebrating the union of Christ and His bride, the Church.
So is it a misnomer to call our annual fundraising effort a feast? Wouldn’t it rake in more dollars if we had a gala or an auction? Maybe. But that’s not the point. If it is a feast, what exactly are we celebrating? What are we remembering?
Well, the Fundraising Feast is a combination of two things: a fundraiser, and a feast. We have financial needs as a school, and we’re not bashful about sharing those needs with those who love the school and are glad to be used by God to help meet those needs. But as those who affirm happily that God is in control and He will ultimately meet our needs, we trust God to raise the necessary funds. We don’t need to freak out if we don’t meet our fundraising goal in one night, and we don’t freak out if we do. Our job is to be faithful, and part of that faithfulness requires expressing those needs.
But we also want to remember the ways God blesses the school (especially contrasted with what we deserve), so we want the fundraising element to be enveloped in the grace-saturated context of feasting and revelry. Every week we conduct classes and sing psalms and chant multiplication tables and scrape knees beneath a Niagara Falls of God’s blessings. We are getting inquiries from awesome families, we currently comprise awesome families, we have teachers who are discipleship-oriented, and our Raggants love their classmates and their teachers. We sin against each other all the time, but God has given us a handbook for dealing with that, too! (See Matthew 18:15-20.) While we watch and even take part, these students are being trained to engage culture, love Scripture, debunk Nietzsche, love their families and worship robustly Sunday through Saturday. For my part, I just don’t get tired of talking about at the great things He is doing at our school.
Our school is financially stable, growing at a healthy pace (to keep us dependent and humble), failing with a healthy regularity (to keep us dependent and humble), deeply committed to our mission, and bafflingly blessed. And we boast of our blessings because they’re God-wrought. All such boasting is humility; we make no claim to be worthy of our situation or to be the makers of it. God is at work among the families of ECS, and let us remember!
To be sure, God uses faithful human elements to effect His will; I don’t mean to downplay the role of the parents, grandparents, friends, students, teachers and the Board in all this. But what we are reaping is far greater than what is commensurate with the academic and spiritual seed we’re sowing. The difference can only possibly be attributed to a gracious God. And that is worth a feast.
There are a few dozen spots left, and I hope you’ll join us at our feast on May 10. You can RSVP to Leila Bowers at lbowers@evangelcs.org.
Risus est bellum!
U.H.