Greetings, Raggant families!
Here we are at the start of another school year, and every family is in a different place. Some of you may be lamenting the end of summer while still excited for the year ahead. Others may be hoping this was the right decision. Still others are of the seasoned-veteran variety whose only actual concern is whether or not one box of colored pencils will be enough this year.
Of course there are bell schedules, reading books, and a stockpile of bandages to address turf-burn from recess activity. But sometimes lost in the daily chaos is the what precisely we’re up to at Evangel Classical School, and why we’re doing it.
When you applied to ECS, signing off on our mission statement was part of the deal. But it’s possible you haven’t read it since. It’s a lofty one, and it reads like this:
We commend the works of the Lord to another generation, with the tools of classical education, weaponized laughter, and sacrificial labors, so that they will carry and advance Christ-honoring culture.
Ours is a cultural work, and the academic aspect represents the first tool of that work. Those colored pencils are fixtures in the first graders’ desk, but they’re in service of a cultural project. That first grader is becoming a weapon fit to flank his father in the city gates with a tool belt that would make Batman jealous and a smirk that would impress King Lune.
There are a host of other tools that we wield in this work and they help weaponize our laughter, such as a 2nd grader’s burger in the parking lot on the first day of school, or a well-reasoned argument from the mind of a 8th grader, or a combative psalm on the lips of a senior. Handle with care!
Our mission assumes some important lessons from Psalm 127, and it’s always fitting to revisit them.
First, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (v. 1). If God is not at work in the families of ECS to finish these arrows, we are wasting our time. But He is at work, and we are confident that He’s using a host of tools to fashion the students of ECS into the weapons He wants them to become. In other words, it is because God is at work that we work; it is because we are confident He will bless our labors that we keep going forward in faith.
Second, “Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth” (v. 4). Like me, some of you can only recall the “youth” part; its experience is in the past. I’m more concerned presently with the arrows in our classrooms. These cute little kids, the lovely ladies, and the strapping young men wearing the Raggant uniform are arrows in various developmental stages, and it takes eyes of faith to see it. Arrows go through a host of phases and steps in their development, but the end product is both beautiful and dangerous.
So we’re about the work of enculturation, arrow making, worship, and math fact mastery. We’re about the work of debate, submission, obedience, and battle…and constant fellowship maintenance. As you talk about your child’s day around the dinner table tonight, and stuff her backpack tomorrow morning before sending her off, may God give you the eyes to see what’s actually happening.
Risus est bellum!
Jonathan