Category: News

The following are notes from Mr. Higgins’ 2022-23 Convocation message.

I read three books this summer. Hopefully you read even more. These are three that I won’t easily forget and that I think, perhaps strangely enough, easily relate to each other.

The first I’ll mention is a book that has been on my to-read list for many years. It’s not a long book, but it is a book about projects that take a long time. It’s written for 10-11 year-olds, and we have a copy in our 4th grade library. Here is my book report and rally to begin another year.

The book is called Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction. It was published the year before I was born (1973), but it’s a story about the citizens of a small town in France who decided to build the biggest and most beautiful cathedral in their country in the year 1252. It’s actually a fictional story about the people of Chutreaux; there is no city with that name, so there are no remains of this particular project. But the imaginary cathedral takes details from in-real-life construction of Gothic cathedrals built in the 12-14th centuries.

The bishop of the city when they started died before they finished. The master builder of the cathedral himself died more than halfway through and had to be replaced. In the non-fiction preface, the author only gives one qualification about what makes his story less real: the workers didn’t take any long breaks in construction. And still, it took 86 years from the first decision to the final detail.

To build something so grand took a lot of money, obviously a lot of time, and it also took a lot of different people doing their work expertly. There were teams of people, those who cut down trees in a nearby forrest and prepared the wood, those who cut out stones from a quarry and moved them to the site, those who dug deep footers and blacksmiths who made nails and hooks and hinges. There were master craftsmen and apprentices and assistants, masons and mortar makers, carpenters and climbers and cooks. No one person could have done it.

In one way your life as a student is like this. Even though your years in school are a jumpstart, your education is a lifetime project. It will take much time, much care, much effort, and a multitude of people. As the Lord adds to your knowledge and understanding and wisdom, as He knits you together with love for truth and goodness and beauty, your life is a cathedral.

In another way, ECS is a great project. For the first time, after ten years of school, now we even have our own building! Thanks be to the Lord. The classrooms are our classrooms, they have our desks and our chairs. Many of the rooms have been painted, they’ve gotten new lights, the things on the walls are decorative and educational and ours. Though they wouldn’t identify as Michelangelos, the teachers, many of the students, and some friends of the school have painted and furnished and adorned and loved this place into a more lovely place.

This facility is probably not ever going to be cathedral-level beautiful, and that’s fine. We’re actually trying to build something much more difficult than walls, something that will outlast us. We are like so many medieval stonemasons, adding a few more bricks to this generational project. Lord willing, the best years of ECS may be seen our grandchildren.

Another book I read this summer is Battle for the American Mind. It was published just this year. It’s about schools and education, about the trajectory of troubles for many government schools over the last century. The problems that are all around us are worse than new math and unscientific science and willful ignorance of history. The root problem is that people don’t have any real vision of the “good life.” They wouldn’t know beauty if it poked them in the eye-balls. They think the state has more power to make things better than the power of self-control. They have no center, no real reference point other than their feelings. They’re not practicing or pursuing virtues.

What we’re building here at ECS is more than just students who get high scores on tests. We’re not just trying to get you to graduate early so that you can get through college quicker so that you can get a high paying job. Those things are fine, but they are like a cathedral constructed of Popsicle sticks.

We want you to be great-souled. The word magnanimous is just that: manga = great and animus = mind or heart or soul. It’s related to those who are animated, full of life. We want a culture of families, students, and teachers who know and love, who know what is lovely and why they should love the lovely and be abounding in love. Previous generations referred to it as ordo amoris, ordered loves. This is where intellectual and moral virtue comes from. We want you to learn the stock responses of God-fearers, to be unimpressed by what the world says is cool, which never lasts long anyway.

This includes the alphabet and phonograms, this includes reading your assignments, but it also means paying more attention to what’s in your heart than how long a classmate has been talking. It means committing to work hard, and then actually working when it is hard. It means listening to those who know better, it means looking to take responsibilities that make the whole thing better.

We are in a battle for minds and our minds are necessary for the battle. We are trying to battle by building a culture, a paideia, that forms what you like and that you’re like and what you pursue as good.

Which leads me to the third book I read, Good to Great (a book published in between the first two, 2001). The definition of good is a little different; good in this case is about commercial success rather than cultural blessings. It’s a business book, but there’s some valuable overlap.

Want to be great? Be fanatically consistent in the right things. Those things aren’t always big things. One of the greatest dangers is thinking that the right things are other things rather than the ones right in front of you. Do what must be done; do it faithfully. That makes great people, and a bunch of people working together makes a great culture.

We care about raggant virtues. Be generous, be a producer, be a learner, be thankful, be joyful. As we work toward being great, let us be staff and students known for: High discipline, low drama.

I read something else good just yesterday, and I’m thinking maybe I should tape it to mirrors around me. It said: stop whining. An alternative, since we’re on the first day of school: don’t start whining.

Your education is like a cathedral, ECS itself is a different sort of generational project, an educational cathedral, and may the Lord bless this next year of classical education, weaponized laughter, and sacrificial labors so that we will carry and advance Christ-honoring culture.

It was quite warm in the Christopher Wren church that summer day, and my very flamboyant British professor had just finished a discussion on the glories of archways when he turned his eyes upwards, snorted, and decried the defacement of one of his favorite churches: “Look at the ceiling – upside down bundt cake pans and fat flying babies. Typical Victorians, ruining perfectly good architecture.”

It was in that summer that I started really learning about worldview and philosophies and understanding why the Victorians were so prone to scatter rotund babies and demigods over their ceilings. And because I also studied Fantasy literature, a central question began reappearing: What does it mean to be a child? What does it mean to be mature? And how does one move from childhood to adulthood well?

Though a Standard article does not afford enough space for a treatise on philosophical perspectives on childhood and maturation, I challenge you as we round-out the summer and head towards school to consider how you answer the questions above. Do you see children as innocent, sweet angels to be protected from the evils of the world for as long as possible? Do you see them as tiny adults meant to be dressed in topcoats and tails? How do our children arrive at adulthood with some level of wisdom, strength, and virtue? Such answers must inform every facet of how we parent and educate…even down to how we decorate our church buildings.

As I began having children, I had to admit that many of my answers had been shaped not by biblical understanding, but by a hefty influence of Romanticism and a zesty dash of Victorianism. If we believe that children are born in a state of innocence, only to be corrupted by the evils of society, we have fallen directly into the philosophical trap that bound brilliant thinkers like Rousseau, Godwin, and more. Once stuck, we are apt to idolize childhood, viewing it as a time of Edenic innocence that will be permanently altered and broken by the outside world.

But is this how the Bible presents childhood? Certainly Christ has a special care for children, inviting them to Himself and exhorting us to become like them in many different ways: wonder, trust, love, simple faith, and more. But in typical biblical fashion, we are likewise exhorted to grow up and stop acting like children, setting aside the milk of infancy, for “solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Heb. 4:15).

So…which is it? What does a mature, child-like adult look like? And how do we do it? This is why Sam Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings has long been one of my favorite characters in Literature. We are too apt to see maturation as a loss of innocence, faith, and wonder. Think of many coming-of-age stories, from Harry Potter to Star Wars: we know a child has attained adulthood when he is up to no good. But Sam matures in a thoroughly Christian way: he grows as he faithfully moves forward, answering the call to adventure while yet immature, and doing incredibly hard things. He, like Merry and Pippin, leave the Shire as greenhorns and return as valiant warriors. They have matured not through the loss of innocence, though they have experienced great hardships, but through the loss of foolishness and the taking up of wisdom. They are hardened in the right ways, while their capacity for mirth, fellowship, and curiosity has only been deepened and broadened.

At ECS, the teachers and staff labor to come alongside you so your child will one day “carry and advance Christ-honoring culture.” We are here, by God’s grace, to help your child lay aside the immaturities that so easily entangle and take up the virtues that strengthen muscles and hone faith and fuel ingenuity in that advancement. We reject the world’s definition of maturity as incarnated in narcissistic young adults with jaded consciences seared to any sense of awe and ears dulled to the call of Lady Wisdom. But we also reject the notion that these children are to be plunked down in a meadow and entirely hedged in to avoid the perilous journey right around the bend. We desire to take their hands and begin the ascent.

Thus we hope that every visit to the U.H.’s office, every chant, every song, and every piece of homework that takes a little longer than you had hoped for and every book just a little beyond their mental reach will cause them to, as the Green Lady in Perelandra would say, grow older not through a loss of innocence and faith, but through attainment of wisdom and a deepening capacity for knowledge of themselves, this world, and its maker – in short, worship. We don’t fear the mountain of maturation, but with each step befitting their frames, we hope that they will be honed, grace-saturated, virtuous men and women who laugh louder, climb higher, and worship louder than those who have gone before.

—Mrs. Bowers

The following are notes from Mr. Higgins’ graduation address last Sunday evening.

Hailey and Autumn, euge, bravo and well done! We praise the Lord for you, and we praise the Lord with you that He has blessed you with strength and endurance to finish this phase of your education. My graduation message to you tonight is simple. I believe it will be helpful and hopefully memorable. The message is this: you are too blessed to be stupid.

There is a categorical cornucopia of those who are dumb, fat, and happy, but I want to argue that your blessedness, your beatus, your happiness, won’t allow you to be stupid.

Stupid is a word your mom probably doesn’t want you to use. Stupid isn’t usually polite, and it’s regularly used to describe someone else’s actions/decisions that we just don’t like. But I have something more specific in mind.

I recently read a 46 year-old book titled, The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity by an Italian economist named Carlo Cipolla. It’s short, a little over 80 printed pages, and ought to be on everyone’s summer reading list, including those who have just finished high school. I am going to share the best of the book, but I knew the gist before I read it and lost none of the value.

Cipolla points out that humans are relational creatures. To my knowledge he didn’t claim to be a Christian, but as Christians we know that we are made in the image of one God who has revealed Himself in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This means that we were created with the capacity for work and connection, even for cooperation. For some this interaction is a painful necessity, other individuals will put up with other persons they don’t really like so they don’t have to be alone.

Think in economic terms what each person brings, what each person aims for. “From each action or inaction we derive a gain or a loss and at the same time we cause a gain or a loss to someone else.” (Cipolla, Location 202) Those benefits and losses can be plotted on a matrix.

He observes that there are always four types of persons in their interactions: 1) the Helpless, 2) Bandits, 3) the Intelligent, and 4) the Stupid.

The helpless person may contribute a minimal amount to society but is often taken advantage of. It’s not that the helpless person is ignorant per se, it’s that in his interactions he is more impoverished than enriched. The helpless are drained even when they aren’t the worst drain on others.

The bandit likewise is not a dunce, but exerts more energy in causing another’s loss in order to gain for himself. Thieves can be quite creative but they concentrate on what they can get. It’s a win-lose relationship, a bigger piece of the pie for bandit means he’s taking it from someone else’s piece.

The intelligent uses his brains for win-win. He benefits, not just parallel to, but together with, the benefit of others. The pie gets bigger for everyone. Intelligence in Cipolla’s definition is not just mental horsepower or IQ, not just quantitative reasoning on the CLT. It’s applied logic in love, a relational intelligence. Having read Proverbs we’d label it wisdom.

The fourth character in the last quadrant is the stupid, and he is the worst. Cipolla defines it in the third and “golden” basic law of stupidity: “A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.” (Location 245)

“Our daily life is mostly made up of cases in which we lose money and/or time and/or energy and/or appetite, cheerfulness, and good health because of the improbable action of some preposterous creature who has nothing to gain and indeed gains nothing from causing us embarrassment, difficulties or harm.” (Location 255)

And it’s not just an individual concern.

“This [stupid] group is much more powerful than the Mafia, or the military industrial complex, or international communism—it is an unorganized, unchartered group which has no chief, no president, no by-laws and yet manages to operate in perfect unison, as if guided by an invisible hand, in such a way that the activity of each member powerfully contributes to strengthen and amplify the effectiveness of the activity of all other members.” (Location 101)

It might seem that bandits would be worse: purposefully benefitting themselves at the losses of others. But bandit types can be reasoned with to some degree, or at least we can use reason to understand their decisions. The helpless are also not helpful for a community, but their biggest problem is that they can’t stand up against the stupid.

The stupid person is committed to doing things that benefit no one. They take the perfectly good pie and throw the whole thing in the trash, probably while congratulating themselves since sugar is a drug that causes diabetes. No one wins, and there’s no logic that can move them. They will work hard to make it so that they don’t have to work hard, and that hinders others from working hard. The stupid are “the most powerful dark forces that hinder the growth of human welfare and happiness.” (Location 107)

Cipolla’s categories get close to Solomon’s characters. The helpless is as the naive or the simple. The bandits compare to the scoffers, the sinners whose feet run to evil (Proverbs 1:16). The intelligent are the wise. And the stupid is the fool. It’s more than failing grades and a low Lexile reading level, it’s resistance to knowledge that does good.

• “a fool flaunts his folly” (Proverbs 13:16)
• “a babbling fool will come to ruin” (Proverbs 10:8)
• “the mouth of a fool brings ruin near” (Proverbs 10:14)
• “doing wrong is like a joke to a fool” (Proverbs 10:23)

“Let a man meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs rather than a fool in his folly” (Proverbs 17:12).

Bertrand Russell once said (ironically): “The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” Solomon said it a long time ago.

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,
but a wise man listens to advice.
(Proverbs 12:15, ESV)

Cipolla asserts that the percentage of stupid = σ is a constant, and “Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.” (Location 121). No matter what group or demographic, there are always those who make decisions detrimental to themselves and others. If Cipolla is right, you can see that now, not just when you “go out into the world.”

Examples in a school context: Students who defend not doing their work and make it hard for others to do theirs, whether mouthing off with each other or blowing off their assignments. Teachers who habitually over-assign work that then we also have to grade. Or broadening the view: Politicians who mandate untested or unnecessary restrictions to the harm of everyone.

Raggant-about-to-be-alumni, you are too blessed to be stupid. The blessings God has given you are abundant and extraordinary. Your parents have blessed you, your teachers have sacrificed to do the same. You’ve read books and had conversations about things that maybe most students, most human beings, never will. These are not blessings that just happen anywhere.

Blessings include but are not limited to: learning how to partner for projects (with others who don’t care as much as you), learning how to keep reading good things when your eyes hurt, learning how to learn when the subject is difficult, learning how to sing in harmony, learning how to laugh when it’s hard, learning how to make and defend your case, learning how to change your mind.

You both have finished this part of your course and are more equipped than the majority of your peers who are hurting themselves and others by not taking advantage of the assignments in front of them. You have been blessed, and I charge you to bring blessings to others, for their joy and your own.

Hailey and Autumn, we are glad to celebrate with you as you cross the ECS finish line. Fear the Lord, be wise, get wisdom, remember that you are too blessed to be stupid.

The following notes were from Mr. Higgins’ talk at last Friday’s Fundraising Feast.

I am one of the founders of ECS. Being a founder is interesting, because founders aren’t the past tense of finders. A founder doesn’t find something that was there, a founder lays down a foundation for something that could become. The only thing that existed about ECS eleven years ago was an idea. But look around. The wine and steak and laughter and songs and relationships are real.

This is our ninth fundraising feast, and this is the ninth time that I’ve spoken. Someday there will be another speaker (and the people rejoiced). Debatable statistics say that most people would rather drown than speak in public, but even if the task doesn’t seem fun to you, you can certainly imagine that it is a privilege. Year by year I ask Jonathan if he would like me to speak, and he keeps including me because I’m connected as a founder, a board member, a parent of raggants, a teacher, and now a grandpa to a future raggant!

But as I said, it won’t be me up here forever, and not just when I’m dead. If we fulfill our mission, it definitely won’t be. My comments so far are a personal angle on our institutional vision. I have the perspective of a founder with a purpose to make more of them, and from my perspective it’s working.

Consider how different things are than two years ago, when we didn’t even host a fundraising feast because we were all ordered to stay home. But more than that, think about how different your life, your family, your weekly schedule, your budget, your relationships, your expectations, are now compared to before you got connected to ECS. The influence isn’t only one way, and it’s not always immediately positive I suppose. But all of us are changed (and/or challenged) by one another. Every new teacher and student and family adds to the foundation.

I am one of the first founders, but we are all ongoing founders. This is our school’s mission. We aren’t interested in making graduates as much as we are interested in graduating founders. By that I don’t mean that every young man or woman has to start a brand new school or business, though some will. I mean that every young man or woman will carry and advance the foundation.

That foundation is our confession that Jesus is Lord. He cares about everything He created, and if we are to please Him and grow in likeness to Him, we must grow in our care for everything He created. The works of the Lord are the foundation, and we commend them to another generation (Psalm 145:4). So we are always abounding in the work of the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:58), reading books and translating Latin and laughing at tyrants and stacking chairs again in and for Jesus’ name.

We are doing this so that we’ll be more than a “read-only” culture. If the government keeps down its current path, we’re going to see the increase of a “can’t-read” generation, which I suppose will at least keep them from being as irritated someday when they have to buy gas. Read-only is better than unread-only. But we’re aiming for more than literacy. We’re aiming higher than knowing history. Let’s make history.

A “read-only” people have “the ability to repeat what an ancestor has handed down – but not recreate it from first principles” (Balaji). In the model of classical education that we follow at ECS, the first stage is the Grammar stage, and it necessarily includes learning about and learning to appreciate all that we’ve been given. We repeat vocabulary words and multiplication tables and parts in songs because repetition is a tool in education. But it’s not the telos of education.

Repeating isn’t enough, and neither is knowing more so that we can have more informed complaints. We live in a day, or at least in a streaming news-cycle, where resentment is triumphing over vision. Algorithms are written to engage our attention with anger. We don’t know for sure what’s happening, but we know for sure someone needs to be damned. The cultural foundations around us aren’t just deteriorating on their own, they are being actively destroyed. Did we expect anything different from a system starting with deconstruction?

We have to learn what is better, and then commit to trying to build something better. That is the part we put on repeat, not just parroting what a founder said, but what a founder did. Keep founding.

Tonight will end, but it is not the end, right? When the dishes are done and the donations counted, we have a lot more to do. We will have school on Monday, four more weeks of this school year, graduation for our seniors, and a final assembly, then we start again in the fall. It’s just a little over 16 weeks away from the first day of school. Ha!

You also have only so many weeks have left. I read a book titled Four Thousand Weeks, which is rounded for how many weeks there are in 77 years of life. What are you doing with those? What foundation are you building up (or tearing down) for your family? For your city?

“The world is bursting with wonder, and yet it’s the rare productivity guru who seems to have considered the possibility that the ultimate point of all our frenetic doing might be to experience more of that wonder.” (—Oliver Burkeman, Loc. 55)

The point of tonight is not to raise the most money we’ve ever raised. That’s not the end of the game. The point is to give thanks and raise money for the purpose of continuing the wonder, and the work of helping others see the wonder.

I’m not so starry-eyed as to think everyone gets the wonder in the works of the Lord at the same level. Not all of our current students see what they’re being given. Do any of us? But, wow, how kind the Lord has been to us these last ten years. What fruit has come from so many late nights and caffeinated mornings. It’s totally costly, and yet what a foundation of laughter and feasting do we dance on. Even when God has said “No” to particular prayers, He has worked in ways we can easily commend to one another.

No person has worked harder than our Headmaster to find us a place to root our work. At the direction of the Board he asked a local church if we could rent their space, and we sent him back at least two more times after they said no. As it turns out, had that church, or the other alternatives we pursued said yes, we probably would not have been able to open our doors in the fall of 2020. Not only that, we wouldn’t be in the position that we are now to pursue purchasing the Reclamation Church campus.

For the first time in our history we are about to have our own property on which to build more foundation. We also have the opportunity to honor our city and protect our investment from burning down by installing a sprinkler system. This is not a distraction, this is the spoils of founding something that God has made so fruitful. A number of people have observed that the building isn’t as bright as they’d like. That’s okay, neither are we, and fixing the former is easier than the latter. The same is true for Marysville. Paint is cheap compared to the cost of bringing light to the darkness, and yet it’s exactly the foundation we’ve been working on.

We have joy in a work that we are only starting. We laugh because we can’t finish it. The work is that big, that glorious. We are doing this because an idea turned into 370 people having a feast. Imagine what it could be just ten more years from now?

Keep rejoicing in the works of the Lord and keep founding.

Here is the next edition in our series of letters celebrating our tenth year at ECS, this one by Mrs. Jennifer VanderBeken, overseer of ECS’ original basement home, mother of three Raggants, and one of our first teachers

It is hard to believe that a decade has already gone by and here we are together celebrating Evangel Classical School’s 10th anniversary. What an amazing experience it has been and what a tremendous impact those experiences have had on our family and so many others. 

Really, the groundwork for ECS was set long before 2012 when God in His absolute sovereignty brought together like-minded families at a small church in Marysville and eventually, through a series of challenges and events, the idea of creating a classical Christian school took form. 

The first day of school was a gorgeous September day with an abundance of excitement and anticipation. Rays of sunshine highlighted the freshly ironed uniforms and carefully organized school supplies and streamed through the windows of the…basement. Yep, a basement. A basement located in a home, on a farm, on Goebel Hill Road…with the family who owned the basement, in the home, on a farm, on Goebel Hill Road living in Brisbane, Australia. 

While the Bour family enjoyed their extended stint in the Southern Hemisphere, our family had enthusiastically taken on the opportunity to act as caretakers of their property. Then when the fledgling ECS needed a space to meet, it made perfect sense to utilize the property for this endeavor. After all, what could be a more idyllic setting for a classical school than a beautiful property with sheep, goats, cows, and chickens meandering through the surrounding fields, eagles soaring above the large garden; all with a breathtaking view of Mt. Pilchuck?

During that first year, Mr. Sarr’s desk was in a storage area right beside the hot water heater and under the pipes to the upstairs hall bathroom. While kindergarten through 5th grade met in the open area of the basement (about 300 sq. ft.), the three secondary students met upstairs in the living room. Recess included school-wide soccer games on the gravel driveway and, for a time, swinging on the rope swing in the barn (until it became too risky). 

Toward the end of September, the property’s well ran dry, so we brought in a portable outhouse and large bottles of water to get by until a new well was drilled. Ironically, later in the school year the basement flooded with an ample amount of water, and we were required to face the challenge of moving the entire school upstairs for a time. Our already cozy and crazy school setting was even more so and yet absolutely wonderful. 

The lessons of God’s sovereignty in both abundance and want continued to come into focus throughout the year. The garden produced wonderful vegetables, including carrots to nibble fresh out of the ground during recess and periodically, a newly laid egg could be found in the hen house. A school wide contest to name a newborn calf resulted with the winning name being “Stewy.” When the two ewes, Sophia and Lily gave birth to their lambs we were delighted to watch two sets of twins frolicking together, not to mention very entertained.  However, it was heartbreaking to have one lamb, Benny, rejected by his mother. The little black lamb was brought into the house to be cared for and bottle fed. Eventually Benny died due to a heart defect and many tears flowed. On the other hand, when a naughty and downright mean goat was sent to the butcher tears were not shed and the students thoroughly enjoyed snacking on tasty goat pepperoni sticks. 

Now here we are in 2022, far from the farm on Goebel Hill Road and instead nestled in essentially the middle of Marysville. The four 5th grade girls were joined by three additional classmates and together made up the largest graduating class so far when their graduation was held clandestinely at the Pakinas’ Farm in May 2020. The three original kindergarteners whose feet dangled precariously above the floor at their shared table during their phonogram tests are now a part of the 9th grade class. Recess on the gravel driveway is now, for the most part, in a large parking lot, and while the footprint of the school has expanded beyond a residential basement there are still, shall we say, space limitations.

However, God’s faithful provision is perfect, and taking the time to reminisce is encouraging. With grateful hearts we look forward to the next ten years and wonder what our perspective will be at ECS’s 20th anniversary. Whether your family has joined us this year or several years ago or anything in between, we all have the immense privilege and important responsibility to lock arms, work together, and anticipate God working tremendously through the ECS Raggants and their families. 

—Mrs. Jennifer VanderBeken

It has been amazing to get to watch God’s outpouring of blessings on ECS the past 10 years. When the school first opened its doors, I was 12 and officially the first guinea pig to make it through all of Secondary. From my perspective as a Raggant during those first insane years, I definitely never noticed how odd we must have looked from anyone else’s perspective – all I knew were faithful and joyful teachers, and a plethora of hard jobs to attack to the best of our abilities. Through the faithfulness of those first teachers, I was brought to Christ; over the years, their perseverance made me want IN to the party in all the ways they could give me. I remember thinking in early high school that there were no other people I’d rather lock arms with and jump into the trenches with gusto. Over these 10 years, between wearing hats of student and teacher, I can vouch for the fact that all these teachers continue to pursue God more and more every day, that their joy has been given greater roots than they thought possible, and God has given them more grace than they realized they would need.

A couple random memories that come to mind:

• Year 1: Our entire school fit in the window of an aquarium where, 8 years later, my entire class had to squeeze to fit.
• Year 4: Our first class of Seniors graduated. Today, 6 years later, our Omnibus classes are currently working through the same books those Seniors ended on.
• Year 10: My first class of 2nd Graders (including the current youngest Rothenberger) is now in 5th Grade – this happens to be the same grade Mrs. Taylor Rothenberger started in 10 years ago. And now, in this tenth year, we will welcome ECS’s first alumni-baby!

God has been good to this little school, and I am daily blessed by the students, families, teachers, and Board. Laughter is, indeed, war within these walls! May it ring ever louder!

—Miss Kara Rothenberger

As we round the corner on the second half of ECS’ tenth year, this section of the Standard will be devoted to sharing reflections from some of those who have been here since the beginning: teachers, spouses, board members, and students – many of whom have filled a variety of these roles over the years!

We begin with Chuck Weinberg, the ‘older’ Charles Weinberg and father to the teacher Mr. Weinberg. He has been the ECS Board’s Chairman (fondly called the “CheerMan”) from before we opened that basement door in September of 2012.

10 years – Crazy how quickly time has gone. 

When we decided to start the school the common model was to start in Kindergarten and add a new grade each year as that class went up in age. We had students in grades spreading from K-10, so we decided that we would ignore all the experts and accommodate all the ages. It was risky, it was hard, and it could have failed AND it didn’t fail. God blessed our small beginning and we are starting to feel the blessing more as we continue to bust out of our space. 

I also remember talking through the budget during planning sessions and the UH was/is always thrifty and trying to get his numbers exactly correct. Have fun trying to do that when you have no really solid idea of how many students you will have. It was somewhat laughable since each of the first few years we were increasing the size of the school by so many students that it was ‘musical-chairs’ with new families coming in, how many grades were together in one classroom and such, all while trying to be fiscally responsible. And just like “it didn’t fail” God also took care of those small beginnings and blessed the financial piece as well. 

One of the things I really enjoy is stopping by the school, on the way home, and seeing my four Raggant grandkids as well as the “other Mr. Weinberg.” Never did I imagine that Grant would be a teacher at the school and LOVING it. When our kids are young we try to imagine what they will be when they grow up; I’m still working on that myself, and being a Math and Science teacher wasn’t anywhere on the radar for Grant in my head. Next year, Lord willing, I will have five Raggant grandkids. Small beginnings and who’s to say that some of those Raggants won’t also be doing something on staff or teaching at the school some day? 

– Mr. Chuck Weinberg
ECS Board CheerMan

There’s no denying that we are in a spiritual war. Our enemy is invisible and our weapons are unconventional. The Apostle’s arsenal included “the belt of truth…the breastplate of righteousness” and more. At ECS we’ve added to the list things like “weaponized laughter” and feasting. And really, any good gift from God becomes a weapon of our warfare when received with gratefulness.

If you want proof, consider the enemy’s perversion of God’s gifts to us. Food? Wine? Sex? Freedom of speech? Satan hates that stuff. He would have us fear food or (at least!) be gluttonous. He would have us abstain from alcohol because of its dangers when abused. He would have us commit sexual sins because doing so harms the image of God in us and because sex is meant to be fruitful, which he also hates. He would have us abuse our freedoms (including speech) to the injury of our neighbors. While we could go on, I want to focus for a moment on a weapon we rarely wield well: the weapon of submission.

Submission offers a formula for human peace, happiness, and flourishing. It is therefore well-positioned for abuse. Husbands abuse their wives; parents abuse their children; political leaders exploit those they’re supposed to serve and protect.

The abuse cuts the other direction, as well. Wives seek to manipulate and control faithful husbands; children seek to manipulate and control faithful parents; citizens subvert and undermine faithful leaders.

But what do we encounter when submission is the delightful norm for the faithful Christian? Well, I’ve already said it: peace, happiness, and flourishing.

A friend of mine once remarked that submission was a genius strategy to establish authority and responsibility among equals. Take marriage, for instance. Scripture nowhere argues that husbands are superior to wives, intellectually or otherwise. They generally have a different makeup and constitution, but it’s just that: different, not superior. Husbands and wives are equal in value, so how is a couple ever to make a decision? By identifying a responsible party who will give account for the outcome regardless of whose personality or voice is the strongest. And that party is the husband.

So even if a wife wants her husband to submit to her, he still bears responsibility for her before God. (I’ll let you read that again.) When a wife realizes this, she is then freed up to submit to her husband in the Lord. When the couple faces a tricky decision, she can say with appropriate respect, “[Husband’s name], you’ve gotten my input on this situation, and now I trust that you will do the right thing as God works through you to act in our best interests.” She can then support him even when disagreeing (provided, of course, that he’s not acting sinfully).

This extends to our children as well. I’ve had countless students unhappy in my office because they disobeyed. Quite literally, if they would have submitted to the direction of their teachers, they would have been happier than they were while paying me a visit. Such a child can say, “I don’t understand why you want me to [insert parental directive here], but I know that it pleases the Lord and everyone’s happier when I obey…especially me.” That’s idyllic, I know, and rather sophisticated for a child to use such language. But parents can help shepherd them that direction through cheerful and patient shepherding. This sort of weaponized submission can change the world.

To be sure, some objects of submission abdicate their authority, disqualify themselves, or otherwise don’t deserve our submission. But that too is an abuse. Christians must submit as far as we can, which is probably a lot further than we are submitting at present.

Benjamin Franklin is reported to have said, “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” That’s true. Tyrants pervert submission and they should be thwarted. But there are times when the way to thwart a tyrant is by…submission. A king who tyrannizes his subjects deserves what he gets. But part of the way a king comes to ruin may just be through his subjects’ faithful submission to God. It happened to Nebuchadnezzar, and it certainly can happen to parents and presidents. This sort of submission is active, deliberate, proactive.

That’s one way to weaponize submission. Another is through the conscious exhibition of cheerful submission as we refute worldly wisdom. A child who cheerfully submits to his parents may prompt the curiosity of the world. A wife who cheerfully submits to her husband may find a husband who is working to take responsibility…unto the flourishing of her whole family. A citizen who submits whenever possible to the king (i.e., as far as faithfulness to Christ will allow) may soon find influence with the king. When we wield the weapon of submission, we hack at the root of humanistic ambition; we put feet to the faith we proclaim…that death brings life, loss is gain, and happiness comes through self-denial. We model our Savior, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2).

Though this is not a typical Raggant Standard “Letter from the U.H.”, I believe that we all need to be reminded that our kids (and students!) are learning from us. We are teaching them how to submit, and our actions are more effective teachers than our words. This is a principle we discuss frequently as a teaching staff, and we ought to do so as parents, as well. And just as we imitate Christ, may our children learn to wield this powerful weapon. And may grace cover the gap between our actions and our words…while we fight to close it.

—Mr. Sarr
The U.H.

Believe it or not, it’s November. Here we are, still recovering from Reformation Day, winding up the quarter, and staring down the barrel of Thanksgiving and the holiday season. This is a great time to offer some reminders about Thanksgiving and the value of feasting.

I was tempted to cut and paste from any of the multiple times we’ve discussed this topic in the past, including this invitation to the 2017 Fundraising Feast, this article from a 2017 Raggant Standard, or even this post from the Sarrs’ blog the fall that we opened ECS. I never get tired of talking about this, and I’m always looking for ways to make the message more helpful. This article is still another such attempt.

Why did the Lord wish for the Hebrews to remember Passover? Because that dark day was full of blessing and provision from God. Why do Christians call the day of Christ’s death “Good Friday?” Because that was the day that He dealt Death a fatal blow and paid our death penalty. These things are worth remembering, so Christians feast to remember the good that God has done for us…especially when we may be momentarily focused on bad things (like the death of a firstborn or the murder of the Son).

At ECS, we have problems. This is not the time or the place to catalogue them, but there’s plenty we need to work on and plenty that we need the Lord to fix. Much of my days are spent thinking about and trying to address them…or even helping to Lord to fix them (as though He needs it). But in the midst of our problems are countless blessings. Here’s a sample:

• We still get to come to school.
• We still get to retreat to God’s Holy Word, which affirms that all men have value as image bearers…and that God made male and female (Gen. 5:2).
• We get to finish The Iliad and read all of The Psalms in the same class in the same week (this week, in fact).
• We get to serve about 180 students.
• We get to put our children under the tutelage of godly teachers…many of whom are men, and male teachers are quite rare these days.
• We have a second basketball hoop on the playground (er…parking lot).

Whether it’s a basketball hoop, a sip of water, a candy cane, a decadent dinner roll, or a turkey’s hind quarter, receive it as gift, given by a smiling Father who loves to watch His children enjoy His blessings. Receive it, deliberately remembering that it represents a teensy fraction of the good He’s doing for you right now. Know that He delights in You because of the work of Christ and Christ’s righteousness in you.

If I’m being honest, I write these things first for myself. I need my philosophical tools to be sharp and oiled if I’m going to answer for why we want a culture of feasting…or if I wish to share that mindset with others. Articulating these thoughts proves a sharpening, orienting reminder. I also need to be reminded of the goodness of God and how He’s showered me with blessings. Your families comprise 95 separate blessings to me.

Along the way, I also want to encourage you. This practice of thanksgiving is a guard against presumptuous sins. Our blessings – both pleasant and unpleasant – are from Him…and they’re on purpose. And they’re good. And we will praise Him.

Risus est bellum.

-U.H.

Something I’ve been preaching to my own heart in recent weeks has been a simple little mantra, namely this:

Mind the good.

In any given moment of our lives, whether in class or around the dinner table, there are a thousand blessings, if we would but see them. This takes eyes of faith, because we believe that being responsible means dealing with the problems before us. But thankfulness cleans off of our smudgy glasses to be able to see those problems more clearly. It lends perspective, and we all need that.

Imagine a mom and dad and their four kids are at the dinner table, and the kids are bickering. True, it’s bad that they’re bickering. Maybe even really bad. But…

• It’s good that the kids are all there, and none are sick or in the hospital.
• It’s good that the family has managed to prioritize mealtimes together for sake of connection.
• It’s good that the table has food on it.
• It’s good that they have a place to eat that food.
• It’s good that moments like these are (probably) outnumbered by sweeter moments of harmony that cultivate family loyalty and create happy memories.
• In sneaky ways, these times are stabilizing and anchoring for the family.

What, of these good things, do they deserve? (Hint: it rhymes with “sun.”)

Being mindful of the good things in this vignette does not make the bickering automatically disappear. And yet it does lend a degree of helpful clarity when it comes time to address that bickering.

If you’re at ECS, you have a family. Families are good, and families have family problems. Your kids are in a classroom full of other sinners and also full of good blessings.

May God grant us eyes of faith to see the good in the midst of the bad.

—The U.H.