Peace

by Kelly Knowlden

In the1960’s there was a group of young people that made “peace” be their mantra. They drew peace symbols on everything they could think of and used it as their greeting and their benediction. Their focus was on desiring war to cease, racial tensions to be non-existent and for people to generally get along. By the end of the movement, they were willing to fight for their ideals.

Almost two thousand years before that, there was another group announcing the same thing. It was their greeting and their benediction. It was spoken into a world on the verge of war. It came to people who knew the rankings of class, the discrimination of race, and the oppression of power.

There were several major differences. The former peace-speakers were focused on the outward circumstances that they felt needed changing. They were clueless as to what the basic problem was that caused these circumstances. They only knew that people needed to get along - to just LOVE ONE ANOTHER - but how to do that was outside the scope of their thinking.

The latter peace-speakers were messengers. Their announcement was not a hopeful idea - but rather a reality in the making. They knew that the real problem was that man is rebellious at heart... that he always thinks he is better than others and will find all kinds of reasons to fortify that belief: race, class, intelligence, looks, money, power, etc. They also knew that God did not design man for that kind of existence. Instead, God designed man to be His friend. Because of man’s insistence on being his own god and trying to figure out how to run his world most effectively, he is at enmity with his Creator.

So the peace-messengers were really speaking a wonder: “The Creator God is coming to solve your most basic problem and make peace with you!” As you see the Christmas season unfold, remember this: “For unto you this day a Savior is born; He is Christ the Lord”... on earth there is peace to men who submit to His rule.

Thankfuls

by Kelly Knowlden

The work staff at a camp that I am affiliated with ends their day with devotions and a time of “thankfuls.” Each staff member tells what they are most thankful for from that day. Sometimes staff will say who they are thankful for; sometimes they will mention a circumstance; sometimes they will just point out the goodness of God in the normal things like sunshine or stars in the dark.


So here is my list for this past week: I am thankful for the auction team’s hard work: April Talanca, Ivette Perez, Michelle Berner, Christine Stock, Judi Hall, and Ali McKittrick. I am thankful for God’s working out details of my Tuesday morning because my wife needed to leave at 4:30 am to take a friend to the hospital and I needed to get my mother-in-law out of the house in time for school. I am thankful for my daughter who took care of her grandma on that day. I am thankful for the crisp mornings and sunshine! I am thankful for God’s overwhelming mercies in showing me my sin and His sufficiency. I am thankful for my grandsons: Edmund and Eamon. I am thankful for my wife who is investing in the unseen kingdom by giving her life away to serve others. I am thankful for our church where God’s Word is faithfully preached. I am thankful for the aches and pains of working hard outside and knowing that I am older and in more need of God’s sufficiency. I am thankful for the ladies that work in the office: Michelle, Maureen, Justine, Karen and Kim, and for my administrative assistant, Susanne. I am thankful for the students and families we serve, and their sacrifice and commitment to Christian schooling.

Okay... you’ve got the point. Perhaps this Thanksgiving, wherever you are, it would be a good thing to do to go around the table and have everyone tell one thing that they are thankful for. Then sing the doxology and give thanks to God in prayer. It is good to give thanks to the Lord. [Psalm 92 :1] Enjoy your holiday!

Hard Lessons

by Kelly Knowlden

In my pile of notes, I have an article that gives me ideas to write about, saying, “Things I am missing that are truly important.” In it are ways to note what I am missing. Here are two:

• The kids are startled when you want to interact with them.
• When you say, “I’ll play with you later,” and you actually think there will be a “later.”

 Of course we have reasons. And of course they are legitimate. They even may have to do with the work of God’s Kingdom, like: calling the widow, helping the unsaved neighbor, being at Bible study. The real problem is generally not that we are involved in things that we ought not to be. Rather, it is that we invest in the good things and miss out on those things which are most important. God does not call me to do everything. He calls me to be faithful in some things. I choose what I want to invest in.

My children are one of those “most important things.” My times with them will come to an end (all too quickly, I might add!) Bath times, bed times, seeing them play a Little League game, reading to them, praying with them, having conversations at the table with them, helping them with homework, all will come to an end. The call of the yard work, the vocational work, even the work for the church must take second place in vying for our time. I must be building relationships with them now so that when they are grown and gone, we will still have a relationship.


Sometimes the seed of teenage rebellion is simply our lack of investment. They seek a relationship with those who are most important to them (Mom and Dad). When we are too busy, they develop relation- ships elsewhere... someone WILL satisfy those needs. Let’s work at winning the hearts of our kids now.

Private School Education

by Kelly Knowlden

According to the Council for American Private Education, private school students perform better than their public school counterparts on standardized tests. While I am not aware of what scores the children are earning in local public schools, I do know two things about how we are doing as a school.

First, the standardized test scores that the K-8 students receive with their final report card for the year indicate a general trend that goes like this: in the early years, the children are at grade level or above in the two primary areas tested—reading and math; If the student started here, then by the third grade, most are testing above grade level in those two areas; By 6th grade, many students are reading at a post high school level and are testing in math at a high school level. For those who had the privilege of being here since Kindergarten and are in 8th grade, students are often testing post-high school in both reading and math. The primary reason is because of your influence in holding children accountable to high standards of excellence and diligence. If that continues into high school, students will excel in their college years and beyond.

The second thing that I know is that children who come to us from most other schools, regardless of whether they are from a local school district or another state, are behind. Many of these children bring a report card that says they are achieving A’s and B’s. In our entrance exam, many high school students struggle with finding parts of speech and in simple computation involving dividing and fractions. That is not usually the student’s fault. It is simply a failure of the public school system to attain to high standards. I am not stating that the work that they do is inferior or that the teachers are less dedicated, I am simply saying that the system is not producing results.

Pray for us. We have the two sided task of offering an excellent education that is rooted in historic Christian thought, and making it affordable. We need to pursue foundations, grants and funding provided by legislation that has been enacted. Pray that God will help us do that.