As I have been observing our fall sports teams practice this summer, I have noticed how the culture of each team is slowly being formed hour by hour and day by day. Who are the leaders? With what intensity does the team practice? How does the coach interact with the athletes? How does the team handle adversity? Every team, and every community, develops a culture. Many variables contribute to the culture of a community, especially its defined purpose and how the members of that community commit to that purpose. When a community is infused with new members, there is often an amazing opportunity to accelerate and cement the desired culture
And what an exciting time at Crosshill! We have 14 new teachers and over 100 new students joining our school community! More importantly, God is on the throne and is active on this campus. He is our coach, and His Word is our playbook. Jesus is the MVP of our team, and the Holy Spirit helps officiate our play! We are excited to continue to develop the defined culture within the shared Crosshill community. It is a culture built upon a shared partnership between teachers and families to train children as disciples of Jesus Christ within the school setting. When I was on a sports team, there was always a tension between my desires and the purpose for the team. A great coach helped me understand that when I make the purpose of the team my desires, the culture flourishes. And more often than not, the team wins! As parents and teachers, we share the common mission of training students as disciples of Jesus Christ. We are grateful for our coach who works everything for His good when called to His purpose! Since the school opened its doors in 1992, God has called us to provide a place for His people to practice discipleship training in community. New growth and new buildings are viewed as a means to the greater end of this timeless mission. The success of our school community during this pandemic was a result of obedience to making a place for this mission. Our recently completed High School building allowed us to serve all of our students on campus every day. And now God is calling us to even greater things.
We have over 200 students in our application process for the 21-22 school year, with close to 500 total inquiries. While we certainly cannot meet the demand, God is calling us to provide room for about 100 new students for next year. More specifically, we want to provide a space for 2 classes of students for every grade level. So many students have been given the opportunity to grow as disciples on this campus. They have learned how to integrate the truths of creation in every content area into a Christian worldview. They have practiced how to love God and love their neighbor in the CCS community and outside the CCS community. They have had a safe a consistent place to allow their faith to flourish. We need to make a bit more space for the families God has prepared to be served on this campus. Thank you for being a part of this community. We will keep you updated with more details throughout the summer. Also, come join our Kingdom Builders event on June 11th to learn more! The past couple of weeks our Class of 2021 seniors have taken time off to partner with the Santiam Canyon Rebuild Coalition Shed Project. This community of pastors and volunteers (mostly retired) has welcomed the energy and strength our students are providing. This project seeks to help families who have lost their homes during the fall wildfires. A shed constructed on their lot allows them to safely secure needed supplies and belongings as they continue the rebuilding process. Materials for the sheds have been purchased through the giving of the CCS community, and the labor as well!
It has been a core value of our school to keep the main thing of discipleship the main thing. When students are encouraged (required) to skip school and other activities often viewed as top priorities, in order to be strategically deployed into the world around them, their faith built in the home, the church, and the classroom quickly grows into a faith that students own. This authentic faith is a faith that flourishes independent of changing circumstances, and is always seeking God’s will to direct and drive decisions. During years with no pandemic, every Crosshill high school student participates in a weekly mission trip either locally or abroad. These trips expose students to experiences outside of their local community and require them to learn and practice engagement with new people. Students are often given the opportunity to practice meeting physical needs as an invitation to potentially share how Jesus fulfills all of our needs. Most of the adults helping host our seniors on these recent workdays have been so impressed with their eagerness to serve, maturity, and responsibility. We often express our mission of discipleship training through the phrase “discover, develop, deploy”. Just as Jesus practiced with his disciples, complete training progresses through instruction, practice, and application. Our prayer for the graduating class of 2021, along with the next decade of graduating classes, is that Jesus would live in them and through them in exciting ways beyond graduation! In a recent family conversation with our children, my wife and I were explaining many of the qualities our parents possessed during our childhood. Much of it was positive, but also contained lessons learned and the hope of not repeating those mistakes in our own lives. This of course moved into a critique by our children of how my wife and I are doing as parents, people, and believers. As you can imagine, some positive and some negative. Finally, the conversation moved toward the qualities we desire for our children to develop now and maintain into the future. This of course is not a new conversation, but one that spouses often have with each other and their children reflecting on their progress as disciples.
In the book, Faith for Exiles, the authors unveil major new Barna research regarding the lives of “Christians'' in the decade after high school. Unfortunately, they conclude that only 10 percent of young “Christians” would be considered what they call resilient disciples. Resilient disciples are those who remain consistently and resiliently faithful in spite of the tensions they feel between church and everyday life. To dig in even deeper, a resilient Christian has made a commitment to Jesus. They believe he was crucified and raised to conquer sin and death. They choose to be involved in a faith community beyond attendance at worship services. They strongly affirm that the Bible is inspired by God and contains truth about the world. In addition, they often want to find a way to follow Jesus that connects with the world they live in. They believe that God is more at work outside the Church than inside, and they want to be a part of that. They want to be a Christian without separating themselves from the world around them. At Crosshill, another way we describe a resilient disciple is one who has developed an authentic faith. To flourish as believers in today’s culture requires disciples who are resilient. Believers who have an authentic faith. Disciples who have taken the love and instruction and modeling from their parents, teachers, and pastors, and have chosen to commit to the truth of the gospel. It is something they own, and no person or circumstance can take that away from them. Committing to being and training resilient disciples is worth getting out of bed in the morning each day! Please continue to pray daily for parents, teachers, pastors, and our children who are much more important than a simple statistic. We desperately want them to develop into resilient disciples as we model that ourselves. For many children of households who lost power recently, the extended outage (perhaps still going) was an eye-opening experience. Suddenly screen time was VERY limited! The annoying habit of opening the refrigerator door for minutes deciding what to eat was quickly banned. Candle safety was constantly reviewed. And for young and old alike, a frustrating yet amusing habit still existed: turning on light switches! Of course, nothing would happen as a result, but our muscle memory simply did not want to surrender this conditioned process despite only walking in darkness.
It is amazing how some simple raindrops and some slightly colder temperatures brought our comfortable lifestyles to a sudden crisis. What a helpful reminder of how little we are in control and how small we are and how big God is. Jesus declared, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Unlike power grids that are dependent upon constant development, maintenance, and repair, the power of Christ has always existed and will never burn out. It does not turn off and on but is a consistent presence available to everyone. The apostle John warns the “people [who] loved the darkness rather than the light” (John 3:19). In the context of our recent power outages, that statement seems ludicrous. It only takes a defrosted freezer, gas shortage, creative toilet flushing, and/or freezing cold bedsheets to convince anyone that the light is much preferred to the darkness. As committed disciples of Jesus Christ, may we apply this illustration to the integration of our faith in all areas of our lives. When we, or our children are tempted to love the darkness over the light, let us pray and embrace the value of life in the light of Jesus Christ. |
Adam Kronberger
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