Tag: ECS

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Bring Them Up

Black Belt Raggants

“Will this be on the test?”

This is a standard student silly question. To ask it is to raise a different question: are you working to learn the most you can or are you learning to work the least you can?

Here we are on the first day of school. This is a place of learning. But it is easy to deceive ourselves into thinking that we have learned enough rather than that we are just getting started.

A good teacher knows what to expect of his students when they enter his class. He has a vision for what his students should know at the end of the year. He follows a scope and sequence. He uses books and discussions and resources to go step-by-step. His daily lesson plans add up and work to get his students to the next starting point.

Do you not think that the Lord is the great lesson planner? Do you not think that the Lord has particular tests for you to take? He does. (See Philippians 1:6)

One lesson the Lord repeats is that there are almost always higher levels to get to. When you love something, your love will be tested. When you learn to crawl, next up is walking. When you learn to walk, next up is not walking into the corner of the table. When you reliably can walk around furniture, and can hold your own against big dogs jumping into you, then we’ll see if you can do all that and chew gum at the same time.

I’ve been looking for a good name for this phenomenon. One name for it could be the category of a false summit. You’re climbing a hill, you can see the top, you do the work to get there, and once there you see that there is another hill, but it wasn’t visible before. You made real progress, but you’re not done.

Karate (or jujitsu or taekwondo) is a better illustration. Depending on the local teacher, it’s common to identify 8 colors of belts: White → Yellow → Orange → Green → Blue → Purple → Brown → Black. Kyu (or student) ranks get a beginner to “senior brown,” and then Dan (or master) ranks (black belt and above) go from 1st degree to 10th. So 1st degree black belt is an end in one way, and just the start of advanced study in another.

There are things to “master” at each level, but mastery leads to more. The fact of increasing difficulty doesn’t mean you’ve not progressed, it’s part of the process. Another lesson and test is a result of passing a test. Seeing another move, or combo, is not a failure, it is progression.

There are a few parts of our Christ-honoring culture that we identify at ECS, that we have been practicing, and that are being tested to get to black belt and beyond. We call it our enculturation trifecta.

Masculine nerve. This isn’t making everyone into a dude, but it is a kind of backbone that belongs with image-bearers who know what they’re made for. We’re made to glorify God and enjoy Him forever less like kittens just out of the bath and more like lions.

  • The Kindergartener sounds off at full volume though he might get the phonogram wrong. He tells the teacher he broke a thing before anyone has asked who broke it. This is good and proper white belt work.
  • The 6th grader sings with guts even when others act like it isn’t cool. She doesn’t laugh at a joke that’s critical of a classmate. This is green/blue belt level, when a lot of people give up.
  • The senior picks a thesis that’s pokey, not one that’s easy. He asks the girl to dance. First degree black belt is close.

Of course we will be tempted to flop. That’s the time not to.

Tactical laughter. This is knowing when to laugh, and that’s more than knowing not to laugh at a funeral. This is choosing to laugh when all signs point to freaking out.

  • The grammar-stage student biffs hard on the blacktop at recess, has blood to prove it, and turns on his laughing tears not his sobbing tears; white belt.
  • The logic-stage student bombs the Logic quiz, but laughs at his fallacies while working to get his Ps & Qs in order; green/blue belt.
  • The rhetoric student reads the most pages and plans the big events and sings and sweats running the Liden Mile; black belt.

Our school motto is risus est bellum: laughter is war.

Radical company. We are in this together. Raggants don’t go behind another raggant’s back; raggants got each other’s back. We don’t sow discord. We don’t badmouth. We don’t spread rumors. We love getting along, we love working in the same field, we love making our school a destination.

  • Kindergartners say, “I was wrong, please forgive me. Want to play?”
  • The 6th grader doesn’t take her complaints about a classmate home over the weekend to dump her fussiness on her family, but talks to her friend when it’s hard and doesn’t cut her off.
  • The almost-graduate knows the names of the grammar kids. He humbly asks the 6th grader for forgiveness for being annoyed with him. She makes being a senior, and the whole senior class, look good.

The white belt performs the move, the black belt performs the same move smoothly.

Make no mistake, your nerve is going to be tested more than it was before. When it comes to laughing, you’ll be sure that you’ve hit a situation where you can’t. For the sake of fellowship, did it really mean you were going to have to forgive that person? You’ve got to be patient, like, not just immediately?

The Bible says that we will be tested. God’s Word actually says that God will give us many tests, a variety of tests. It also says we are supposed to be excited about test day. We’re exhorted to “count it all joy” when we face various trials (James 1:2) because the tests are actually working on us.

One of the objectives in James 1:4 is that we be complete, and it means something like: ready for any situation or equipped to meet the expectations. This progress happens on a grade-by-grade level but it is also part of our school’s responsibility. Overall we are trying to give you what you need to carry and advance Christ-honoring culture.

I referenced The Horse and His Boy on the first day last year, but fits today’s call as well. Shasta barely makes it to the old man’s house when the old man sends Shasta immediately out on a more urgent task. The narrator says,

“He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.”

Will all this be on the test? Yes, all of the above. God is calling all of us to go further up and further in. He is teaching us and testing us so that we will be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. Is it your time to watch a good example? Your time to learn by trying and failing and trying again? Your turn to pick someone else up off the mat?

You don’t sign up for karate because you just want to wear the belt. You want to kick butt. Good, it’s time to robe up and become black belt raggants.

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Bring Them Up

Forging Raggants

The following is a short story I wrote and read for the year-end assembly at ECS last week.

Note: We’ve had the Mettle Shop meeting for our young men, and the theme for the upcoming TEC youth retreat this summer is “Forged.” So to complement those, and to try to put into story form the point from the first assembly of the year on doing hard things and being more than feather-lifters, here goes.

It was early one June morning as seven potential apprentices stood in the sun waiting for the blacksmith to come outside.

The master blacksmith’s name was Tubal. He was an old man with tanned skin, a bushy beard, and arms that bulged with little mountains of muscles. Men said his family had been at the anvil since the beginning, and he had forgotten more about steel than most men ever learn. When he came out this particular morning he seemed more focused than normal, and maybe a bit more grumpy.

In front of him were seven bars of raw iron. All of them were thick and ugly as if they’d been left outside in tall grass for months. They looked like things you’d step over not pick up on purpose. Tubal gave one to each boy and said the same sentence seven times: “By the first frost, bring me a blade you would stake your life on. For winter is real, and so are the wolves.” Then he turned around and began his own chores.

The boys groaned. They had seen enough of Tubal’s work to know that this was not an easy assignment. It meant feeding a fire until your face baked. It meant hammering the same stupid bar a thousand times. To make a blade from raw iron in particular requires heating and beating and folding, again and again for weeks, then grinding and sharpening before it could be counted on to keep its purpose.

But it was summer. There was a lake only a quarter mile away. And the lake didn’t require a single swing of a hammer.

While they were talking about their options, a traveling salesman rode into the yard, his cart rattling behind him. On the side of the cart hung a sign that read: CINCH BLADES – ALL THE SHARP, NONE OF THE SWEAT.

The peddler hopped off his horse and said, “Young men, my name is Mr. Cinch. I see a look on your faces that I can fix. I happened to overhear the old man talking to you. Why ruin your whole summer for one little sword? I have the materials and mold to pour you a better looking blade and be done in 10 minutes. No hot afternoons required. Just look at this.” He held up his display sword, and the sun’s reflection seemed to gleam straight into their eyes.

Six of the seven made what seemed to be the obvious choice. “The water’s calling my name,” said Jake. “Yeah, us too,” said a couple others. They bought poured blades, each made in about ten minutes as the salesman had said. By lunchtime they were down at the lake with their swords leaning against a nearby tree. Their iron bars were back in a pile behind Tubal’s shed.

Only one boy had hesitated. He turned the ugly bar around in his hands a couple times, then decided not to buy. His name was Cole.

Cole wasn’t the strongest or the smartest of the bunch, but he kept thinking about Tubal’s words, “a blade you would stake your life on.” He had a hard time believing that you could buy a blade like that for cheap. So the next morning while the other boys slept in before spending another day at the lake, Cole knocked on the blacksmith’s door and asked the master to teach him.

Tubal agreed. He showed Cole how to pile the coals and read the color of the fire. He showed him how to hold the tongs in one hand, how to hit the right way with the hammer with the other hand. There was only one thing that Tubal would not do. He would not swing the hammer for his student.

“I can show you how,” Tubal said, “but I cannot give you the arm. That strength only comes one way, and slowly.”

In the early summer the work was as miserable as Cole had imagined. Sparks singed his arms. The hammer seemed to gain weight as the days went by. His hits were often off target, only good for producing blisters. He pounded for hours. He sweat and sweat. The blade mostly just looked the same, and he wondered if he should quit. One day Mr. Cinch rode through town again, saw Cole’s face over the fire, and said, “There’s still time to save a lot of summer, son.”

Tubal stepped between them. “It is supposed to take time,” said the blacksmith. “A good blade is not poured, it is forged. There are stages, they can’t be skipped or rushed any more than you can rush a tree into fruit. Strike while the iron is hot, and when it gets cold, heat it up and strike it again.”

Cole kept after it, week by week. He learned. He heated, he hammered, he heated again, and hammered again. Each time he folded the blade he could remove a little more dirt and dross. The blade was taking shape. Another thing also happened. Cole’s blisters became calluses and his skinny arm took on strength. The work was working on the metal and the smith. Iron sharpened iron.

The other boys at the lake played and joked. Jake made sure to laugh at the soot on Cole’s face. Cole kept thinking, “Strike while the iron is hot.”

A few months later the leaves turned color and the mornings turned cold. Frost regularly covered the field. And one day three wolves came out from the woods, hungry.

The boys ran and got their swords. The first wolf leapt. Steel met fang, and the poured blade snapped in two. Then Jake swung; his sword shattered against the second wolf’s shoulder. Two of the boys started to scream, and run. Cole stepped forward in front of Jake, his hammer-marked sword in his now strong arm. The wolf lunged. Cole was staking his life on his summer. He said to himself, “Strike while the iron is hot.” His blade hit, and held.

Tubal watched the whole thing from his doorway. When the last wolf lay still, the old blacksmith walked toward Cold and gave the smallest nod. “Now,” he said, taking the blade from Cole’s hand, “we sharpen it.” The very next morning, while Mr. Cinch was miles away, six unformed bars were gone from behind the shed, and Tubal was showing six eager boys how to work the fire.

You are not blacksmiths, and you won’t meet wolves in the parking lot. But winter and wolves are real, though yours won’t have fur. Remember, raggants aren’t feather-lifters. The fire is not your enemy, and the hammer is not a punishment. You are being forged. Bring back a blade.

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Bring Them Up

Yielded Hustle

The following are my notes for the 2026 graduation at ECS.

Good evening to our candidates for graduation, to their parents and families, to the Headmaster and school board and faculty, and welcome guests. To those of you on stage, you have made it to the end of your time at ECS, and ECS has made it to our tenth graduation ceremony.

My charge tonight can be summarized in two words. They are only slightly more difficult to remember than Bob Newhart’s counsel to “Stop it!” As you commence into life after high school, for the glory of God, I charge you to do everything with yielded hustle.

There’s a lot of talk in certain circles these days about high agency. I read an article just a little over a year ago titled, “High Agency in 30 Minutes.” It continues to edify me, it has added some critical lines of code in my mental operating system. I’ve shared the link with I don’t know how many people.

The article opens with the hypothetical: if you woke up in a 3rd world jail cell, who would you call? Most likely the person you’re thinking of has high agency. You probably don’t know someone with expertise or experience in this scenario; I searched for a top ten list of tips but there isn’t one. You might know a person who has a habit of figuring out what he does’t know, who is known for not quitting just because he came to a closed door, and who has the reputation of not giving up until he reaches the goal. He will get you out.

This isn’t about being an extrovert, or having the mind of an entrepreneur. It’s a person who is more cause than effect. They care enough to get off the couch. They have a kind of conviction, and confidence, to get curious, and continue working until the job is complete.

There are three traits that belong with high agency people.

  1. They have clear thinking. They know what they want. Clarity doesn’t requiring having all the info, but it does require a match of love to the truth you do have.
  2. They are disagreeable, not in the sense that they can’t be pleased, but that they won’t be conformed to the world of pessimists. When everyone else says that they can’t, they don’t lose heart.
  3. They have a bias to action. They take steps, no matter how small, with spoude/zeal.

For this kind of person, “if your problem doesn’t defy the law of physics, it’s not an unsolvable problem.”

This does not mean you need a lot of money, or that you have to invent a new product or start a business. It has nothing to do with being loud. And at any given snapshot it may look unsuccessful as you figure out the 1000 ways not to make a lightbulb. But you aren’t waiting for AI to tell you what to want, or expecting someone else to come along and fix all your problems.

High agency is a great category. You have been educated and equipped. Who better than you would know the kind of problems the world needs solved? Your imaginations have been tested and trained and expanded. You’ve exercised your mind, you’ve sacrificed your default preference for comfort in order to complete assignments, and you’ve tasted the confidence that comes from doing hard things.

As much as high agency does good work, yielded hustle goes higher. Yielded hustle is high agency par excellence. This is your charge.

YIELDED

This is a one word summary of your Christian confession that Jesus is Lord. It captures coram Deo, that all of life is lived before the face of God. It belongs with Deo volente, if the Lord wills, we will do this or that. It aligns every morning, each of your projects and tasks, all your time and habits, in the fear of the Lord. We might coin it, deditus impetus (devoted energy).

This is good because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). Yielding your will to the Lord’s will is wise. You could have all the high agency in the world in your little toe, but be running down the wrong road. “In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:6).

Such a yielded life includes high agency humility. God declares that He resists the proud but exalts the humble. The problem for the tower builders in Babel wasn’t a lack of bias to action, it was a lack of submission to God. They wanted to make a name for themselves, and the Lord let them have it, just not how they meant it.

Such a yielded life also means it’s possible to be pleasing the Lord in every moment. You can enjoy the process, not just be always waiting for joy until the risks are gone.

HUSTLE

I don’t mean a side hustle, trying to make a little extra money from a hobby, though that’s fine. I don’t mean tricking others into thinking that you’re incompetent before running the table. I mean, in the words of one of our modern day warrior-poets: Get after it.

Wisdom does not end, “In all your ways acknowledge Him and then feel free to sit around until lightning strikes.” Let the Lord steer you as you are in motion. God gives growth, and like a farmer, you have to be sowing, watering, weeding, not being a sluggard all summer expecting a big harvest.

Hustle. Have a bias to action. Most of the time in life you don’t need permission, or even encouragement, just a tendency to try. When you hit a problem—and you will, that doesn’t mean you’re finished, it’s feedback to try another angle. What else do you think risus est bellum is good for?

We are Christians. We know as those who believe in the sovereignty of God that at best we are just secondary causes. Good! And so try to be the most hustling secondary cause you can.

Pure high agency makes a man think he is a primary cause, he’s self-empowered. Yielded hustle connects to the Primary Cause, to God’s sovereign power and purposes and promises. Self-will is bad, laziness is bad. In fact, laziness is self-willed. Not hustling is not yielded. And if you are properly yielded, God will always be spreading grace through your clay pot.

I’ve read that “You can measure the impact of a person’s life by the size of the problem he or she solves.” You have the education, do you have the courage? We live in a world full of live problems, endless problems, seemingly impossible problems, unfavorable conditions. You must do more than comment on or complain about how dumb everything is, and actually “commit your work to the LORD” so that “your plans will be established” (Proverbs 16:3).

This is not just do more. It’s absolutely not working your way into salvation. But you are to work out your salvation in fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). This is yielded hustle.

Many of you have traveled to the UK and to the East Coast. You’ve not just read in two-dimensions, you’ve seen and tasted the fruit that have come from generations who sacrificed to carry and advance Christ-honoring culture. The baton is yours. Run with it into the art you make, the music you play, the law you study, the medicine you practice, the homes and families the Lord blesses you with.

To the ECS class of 2026, trust in the LORD with all your heart, and be the kind of persons that a friend stuck in a 3rd world cell would call.

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Bring Them Up

No Better Time or Place

The following are my notes for the 2026 Info Night at Evangel Classical School

I’ve been around school enough of my life to know the joke about what assuming means for you and me, but still, I’m ready to risk it. I assume that every parent wants more for their kid than to grow up to be a rock star at scrolling TikTok. I haven’t seen bumper stickers for that yet: “My kid won Most Cat Videos Watched last month at We Are the World Elementary.” Our household has really benefited from some recipe reels and hair-care tutorials, and I always enjoy a good sports’ fails compilation, but this isn’t the goal, right?

In case you’re wondering, YES! This is a completely fake award! And also, yes, it’s so fake it required Nano Banana to create the image.

I will also assume that when you imagine your son as an adult, you want him to be able to do more than prompt an AI chatbot to summarize the meaning of life, let alone make himself an AI girlfriend-bot for $20/month. You want your graduated daughter to be able to think more deeply than drafting a three bullet point list to decide whether Netflix or Disney+ is the better streaming service. I guess that means at least she’s trying to follow a budget?

I assume you want them to know how to read, and know how to pick out something that is good to read, and then even want to want to read, not just for their job, or to troubleshoot a broken appliance, but because they enjoy it. I assume you want them to know how to put down their phone at the right time, how to spot when a Taylor Swift song is trying to manipulate their feelings to make selfishness a virtue (and aren’t they all?), hand how to avoid the feelings of anxiety and panic over every hourly headline of the imminent apocalypse.

I’ll admit that I really like a Claude commercial from a few months ago. It starts by cycling through scenes of disaster under a dystopian filter while the voiceover keeps repeating, “There’s never been a worse time.” But then the music changes and a new voice says,

“There’s never been a better time…to have a problem, to be stuck, to be overwhelmed, to be impatient, to be out of ideas, or out of your depth….”

The commercial ends with Claude’s tag line: “Keep thinking.” That sounds good. But do we know how to think? Does anyone even think thinking is good?

Here’s the thing, we could call it a meta-problem, as in a systemic or societal problem, and it relates specifically to schooling: who is defining what is the problem, and then, who is willing to care and work to try to solve the problems? Are we going to have to think about it? Is this going to be on the test?

Part of the problem is that it’s easy to misdiagnose the problem. Part of the problem is that we’ve got enough food and strong enough cell signal that we’ll let others deal with the problems, especially the hard ones. Part of the problem is that so many schools are the problem, teaching students that their bodies are the problem, that their country is the problem, that God is the problem.

The future–and for that matter, the present–still belongs to people who know the truth, who can think and write clearly, and who identify what should be done, how to do it, and why. For that matter, heaven and earth belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are His. He is the truth, the way, and the life, and He calls His disciples to care about all that He cares about. Blessed is the man, and the student, who delights in all things because he’s meditating on the law of the Lord.

He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
(Psalm 1:3 ESV)

At ECS we are trying to equip image bearers to be stout and fruitful. We want them to get a taste for how good it is to work—including working with their minds—to work hard, to do hard things, to solve hard problems. Stated another way, our mission is to help them become such impressive learners that they can carry and advance Christ-honoring culture. This requires developing the skill of laughing, the strength of endurance, and the sacrifices to work at all this with one another.

We follow a teaching model that isn’t delight driven, but it is intended to direct their delights where they should go.

We teach our youngest students that God separated the light from the dark, land from sea, right from wrong, right from left, nouns from verbs, boys from girls. Flowers and bugs and books of the Bible can be distinguished, named, and it doesn’t have to be a chore.

As students mature we teach them that the world, having rejected God, is messy, logic is hard to find, and it takes effort to understand how things fit together and effort to build something great. Cause and effect, and second level consequences, aren’t impossible to think about, but you do have to think.

And as our students get nearer to graduation we teach them that they can create, not just consume. They can speak, not just scroll. They can know the truth and adorn it, make it look good. They can learn to show up, and stand out.

Classical education refers to these emphases as Grammar (distinguishing Truth from Error let alone Lies), Logic (distinguishing Goodness from Evil and Apathy), and Rhetoric (distinguishing Beauty from the Ugly and Envy). The Trivium also seems to fit with certain stages of a student’s development, from Elementary to Junior High toward High School. But they are also gifts from God that help us solve problems.

There are problems: legal problems, political problems, potty-training problems, what’s for dinner problems, what-do-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up problems, novel-writing-character-development problems, classroom problems, financial problems, health and medical problems, language problems, traffic-circle problems.

There is no better time to honor Christ in our thinking. There is no better time to honor Christ by taking agency to think clearly about what’s wrong, resist the inertia of the lukewarm, and work to advance Christ-honoring culture. There’s no better place than ECS to think about it together.

Yes we live in unfavorable circumstances. We’re not yet living in the apocalypse, but we are living in some crazy days that seems to have borrowed major ingredients of every dystopian story ever written. And yeah, the prince of darkness is pretty ticked off at how many blessings God has given to His children. The serpent has been hostile to God’s people from the Garden. But we know the one who crushes the serpent’s head. He’s given us His Spirit, complete copies of His inspired Scriptures, a lot of great books, and fast WiFi.

May our sons in their youth
be like plants full grown,
our daughters like corner pillars
cut for the structure of a palace;
(Psalm 144:12 ESV)

I’ll end as I began: I assume you’re here tonight because this is what you want for your kids. ECS cannot replace you as parents, we’re not trying to, but we can be a tool you choose to help you. Come think and pull with us in Jesus’ name.

Categories
Bring Them Up

No Feather Lifting Classes

These are my notes for the 2025-26 convocation at ECS.

Have you noticed that there are no Feather Lifting classes? I know there is such a thing as a “featherweight class” in boxing, but featherweight in that case is an adjective. I’m talking about a class that has different sizes and shapes and colors of feathers, with instruction on different lifts you could learn to do.

One reason why there are no feather lifting classes is because most people can already lift most feathers without any problems. You don’t need much muscle or flexibility, you don’t have to think too long or too hard. You don’t need an expert to model it, and you won’t find trophies for winners at feather lifting competitions because it’s easy.

Is there anything wrong with doing easy things? Well, no. Breathing is usually so easy that you don’t realize you’re doing it, but if you stopped breathing there would be something seriously wrong. Some sins are easy to commit, but it’s the sin part that makes sin wrong, not the easy part. Easy isn’t necessarily bad, but it also isn’t usually impressive.

For that matter, just because you can do a hard thing doesn’t make you awesome. You could drink nine gallons of chocolate milk in a day, which would be difficult, but it wouldn’t get you much more than a lot of trips to the bathroom. And yet, God made the world—which was easy for Him—in such a way that image-bearers would learn to be more stout by learning to lift heavy things for their glory.

I bring this up on the first day of school because we really are tempted to believe that life, and learning, should be easy. But we not only want you to learn more than how to lift feathers, we want you to learn to love the good hard parts of learning so that you’ll keep learning good and doing good hard things for the rest of your life.

In a lot of ways, school is what could be called a “kind” learning environment. You are told what problems are going to be on the test or what the assignment requires, someone else gives you instruction and resources to prepare to handle those problems, and then you get fairly quick feedback (also known as grading) to know how you did and what you could fix for next time.

A “wicked” learning environment is when the problems are not so defined, when you have to figure out what you need/want and then try to get it. You might not know if you succeeded until long after the work is done. Lots of “assignments” and jobs and projects that are worth something are harder than lifting feathers. Part of what we’re doing here together is training you to want and to work in unfavorable conditions, and do all those things without complaining or arguing.

Remember in The Horse and His Boy about Shasta:

“He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.”

So make sure that you don’t believe lies. The work is hard enough without adding the heavy load of false expectations. What I mean is, it takes more than a couple weeks to get an education. A good school knows that there are stages of development and how to keep stretching students at each stage. Lord willing, you will finish this grade, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be finished being awesome.

There are some things that others just can’t do for you. Good teachers learn not to do anything for their students that students can do for themselves, and part of the lesson is teaching students what they can do.

Why memorize anything when you could just look it up? Why write anything by hand when you could just have your phone transcribe your talking? Why read a book when you could just have robot summarize it for you?

Sure, and why would married people kiss each other when they could just put a lips sticker on their Stanley water bottle? Why eat steak or pizza when you could just watch a YouTube video about it?

Summaries are good. They are even better when they are your own summaries. Bullet points are beneficial, but there’s a reason parrots aren’t the boss of very much. The story of Moby Dick wouldn’t be the same on a 3×5 card. The scouring of the Shire matters more because of the 60 chapters that came before it. The Bible has something good for you to read every day, but you cannot get it all in just a day. Salvation and sanctification and eternal life are God’s gifts, and our day-to-day challenges are also given to us by God as He is “preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

Constraints increase value, especially the constraint of time. God made night and day, God made you need to sleep, God made it so that things are due, maybe even tomorrow. Yes, you’ll be learning to decide what to cut, what to prioritize and what to postpone, and when to go to bed.

If the brain is a muscle, then you’ve got to exercise it for it to be stronger. You can’t skip the line to know what/who and how to love. You don’t win a wrestling match without getting a little sweaty. You can’t order the courage of a raggant off of Amazon. But you can learn to care and you can learn to care more.

This is the problem with cheating, and I don’t mean just lying about whether it is your own work or not. Don’t cheat by not doing your own work. Because it isn’t just the right answer that we’re after, we want you to be smart and have self-control and steadfastness.

Education is not difficult like trying to reverse stuff toothpaste into your tube from the hole, it’s difficult like trying to dig and dung enough around your tree so that it grows more by the time we check it next year.

  • Do something. “In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty” (Proverbs 14:23) Get started. “It’s the job that’s never started as takes longest to finish.” —Samwise Gamgee
  • Do your own work. “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10)
  • Don’t complain. “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father” (Colossians 3:17)
  • Finish what you start. “A lazy person does not roast his prey, but the precious possession of a person is diligence.” (Proverbs 12:27 NASB)

If we want to carry and advance Christ-honoring culture, then we’re going to need bigger imaginations and stronger muscles. You don’t get those things from lifting feathers.

Categories
Bring Them Up

Jealousable Blessings

I read the following story at the ECS end-of-year assembly.

Abram and Harry stood before the judge, ready for it to be over. Neither one of them really doubted what the verdict would be, but getting to this point had seemed very difficult.

Abram Holloway had been the Mayor of Paterson for a long time. While he occasionally was called to testify as part of his civic role, he hadn’t ever been as antsy to hear a judge’s answer. Harry, even though he was only thirteen years-old, had been in courtrooms many times. He had barely known his mother and never known his father and ran away from his aunt’s house as soon as he could. For the last three years he had been living from house to house, getting into trouble, getting caught, and then getting to appear before a judge who would try to determine a new way to punish him. This day was different.

Finally, with all the formalities finished, the judge signed the papers and announced that Harry was now Abram’s legally adopted son.

Dad and son talked on their drive home, headed to a celebration party. “Do you think Ben will come home now?” Harry said. “Won’t he be excited to have a brother?” Abram caught Harry’s eyes, then looked out the windshield across an open field. Harry waited, and waited, until his dad said, “I love Ben so much, Harry, as I love you. But Ben is very angry right now. We’ll have to keep hope.”

Mayor Holloway lived in a large house on a tall hill just a few minutes south of the city. The property was a young boy’s dream. It had hidden spots for a curious boy to explore and open spaces for an active boy to kick balls back and forth. On the east side of the house grew a variety of trees that always smelled like good fruit. The orchard was so large that the mayor hired men from the city to come and take care of it for him, and the fruit was known in every neighboring county. On the other side of the house was a barn that housed horses, some sheep, and a couple dozen chickens who produced a crop of eggs every morning. These were all things that Harry could now call his own.

These were also things that Ben Holloway had called his own for seventeen years, but no longer.

It’s hard to imagine a son who had it better than Ben. Even though his dad was busy as mayor, his dad truly loved him and sacrificed to give him the best gifts. Maybe the best gift of all was time together, especially in the summer. Ben and his dad would backpack into the woods. They fished together at a nearby lake. Sometimes they caught fish, but mostly they didn’t worry about it because they preferred being loud and telling jokes to each other, even if that scared the fish away. Lemonade was a favorite hot weather drink, and root beer floats were a Friday night treat.

Abram was preparing his son for great responsibilities. He didn’t necessarily expect Ben to take over for him one day as city mayor, but he still had special plans in mind. Every week he told Ben about Ben’s inheritance, past and future.

“Your grandfather’s grandfather built the first house on this property. He felt called to this place.”

Abram promised Ben that one day the house would be his, the orchard would be his, the animals would be his, all of it his. As a child Ben always had a hard time not asking too often, “When will I get it?” And always his dad answered, “As soon as you are ready.”

Ben was a blessed boy. Harry was not.

Harry was an orphan, mostly. Both of his parents were alive, but neither of them wanted him. Harry had never met his father. As for his mother, she was the kind of woman who didn’t love anyone but herself, and she didn’t even do that very well. Harry somehow survived until his mother’s sister persuaded his mom to let Harry live with her and her husband.

Harry thought his aunt and uncle were weird, and strict, and their house smelled, so he ran away. When he showed up in Paterson, it didn’t take long before he found some other young trouble makers and joined in.

One of Harry’s favorite things to do with his middle school buddies was to mock Ben. Ben was an older 11th grader, but he was small for his grade-level. Ben was also an obvious target for envy. His dad was the mayor. He lived in a huge house. He seemed, at least to the other kids, to get whatever he wanted.

Harry had nothing, which meant he had nothing to lose. It was a small school, so even though Harry wasn’t in Ben’s class, Harry saw Ben enough to remind him to be angry. In the hallways or on the playground, Harry would make jokes about Ben in ways only lonely kids know how to do. Sometimes after school, Harry would say, “Go home, daddy’s boy!”

Harry got to meet a lot of the folks at City Hall. If Harry wasn’t getting caught stealing candy and Coke from the gas station he was getting caught throwing raw eggs at passing cars. None of his crimes were really that dangerous, but the police, and the city attorney, and the city judge (let alone the gas station owner and innocent drivers), were eager to change his course, and Harry had heard all the lectures.

The Mayor knew about Harry. Some of the stories going around City Hall were almost cute. There was the time when Harry spread peanut butter on every toilet seat in the school. There was another time when he wrapped five full rolls of duct tape around the mailbox at City Hall. Abram was concerned, but not quite sure how to help.

A few months later it was the Mayor who needed help.

A wealthy developer wanted to buy the community park near the center of Paterson. The developer wanted to build a large shopping center, which he promised would bring more business and jobs and money to the people. The proposal seemed perfect to some of the citizens who were struggling financially, but the Mayor wanted to protect the park.

The proposal eventually came to the City Council for a vote. The Council members were split, 3-3, leaving the Mayor to cast the deciding vote. He voted No.

The local newspaper began to print nasty articles about the Mayor. Some of the angriest citizens drove out to his house and burned many of the trees in his orchard, and broke down large sections of his fences. For weeks, any time the Mayor walked down the street of Paterson someone, and often, many someones, would shout and swear at him for his stupid decision.

People also started treating Ben worse wherever he went because they didn’t like what his dad had done. Ben wasn’t sure it was worth it. He asked his dad, “Why not just let the people have what they want? What’s so special about the park?”

Abram patiently answered Ben day after day, but rather than being calmed by his dad’s steady nerve, Ben grew angry himself. He was tired of being treated so cruelly for things he couldn’t control. He saw his dad as the problem, and his dad didn’t seem to care how it affected him.

“Why are you doing this to us?”

“Son, because it’s the right thing to do.”

So one morning after another heated argument, Ben had had enough. He cursed his father, cursed his stupid inheritance, and stormed out of the house.

Ben was a year too young to join the military, but he was old enough to get a job and rent a spare room on the other side of town, far away from his dad. He despised his life and blamed his dad for making him miserable.

Abram was very sad that Ben was gone. But there was no phone to call, and none of his letters received a reply. By now the people in the city had stopped threatening to hurt him, though they still weren’t happy and wanted another Mayor.

The one person who seemed to understand the Mayor Holloway’s grief was Harry. Harry saw the Mayor around City Hall and, though the Mayor wasn’t mopey, Harry thought he could use some encouragement.

One day Harry knocked on the door to the Mayor’s office. “Come in,” said the Mayor.

Harry entered. The Mayor said, “Ah, Harry. What trouble brought you in today?”

“I’m not in any trouble. I just came by to talk.”

“Not in any trouble?” the Mayor replied. Then he smirked and said, “You sure about that?”

Harry sat down and the two of them talked for the next half hour. Mostly they talked about meaningless things: the weather, baseball, each’s favorite kind of pie, things like that. But it was a nice break for both of them.

Harry returned the following afternoon. And the afternoon after that, until it became a daily occurrence. Sometimes the Mayor and Harry would walk over to the park and talk. On especially warm days the Mayor would buy Harry something cold and sweet from the ice cream truck. Harry was different. If you didn’t know better, you’d have said that the two of them were becoming friends.

And about a year and a half later, we get to the beginning of our story. Abram and Harry were standing before the judge, waiting to hear that they were now not just friends, but father and son.

But that was, after all, only the beginning.

Abram had not forgotten about Ben, but he gave himself to care for Harry as his own. They played pitch and catch until the sun went down. They shared lemonade and root beer floats. And now Harry slept in his own bed, knowing that when he woke up in the morning that he could come back to the same place at night.

The nights passed into months, and the months added up into years. Abram’s love for Harry started to grow good grades on Harry’s report card. Even more than that, Harry was becoming a young man who could be trusted, a young man who worked hard, a young man who was nothing like the fatherless kid from before.

After Harry graduated from college he took over running the orchard. The men who worked for Harry said they’d never had a better boss. The women who bought his produce said their families had never tasted anything so fresh. Soon he had such success with the profit from the fruit that he bought some nearby land and planted his own vineyard. Harry became known not just around the city, but around all of the neighboring towns as a blessed man.

During this time Ben was also advancing in his company, though not to the same degree as Harry, and also with none of the happiness. Of course Ben had heard about how his dad adopted another son. He also couldn’t help but hear about Harry’s successes in school and in work. At times it seemed as if Harry was the only subject people could talk about. “Did you hear about Harry’s new company?” “Can you believe how good Harry’s wine is?” “Are you going to apply for a job with Harry?”

Ben hated his dad more for giving Harry so many good things, and Ben hated that all those good things should have been his. But for as much as he secretly wanted to see his father, and for as much as he envied Harry’s success, he refused to go home.

As fall approached it brought both the harvest season and election season. The Mayor was running for office again, but during the campaign there were some new opponents who were so tired of the Mayor’s (good) governing that they hired protestors to follow the Mayor around. Whenever the Mayor had a public appearance, these people made such a disruption that no one could hear what the Mayor was trying to say.

One afternoon Harry came into the city to have lunch with his dad, but when he got out of his truck, the protestors started yelling at him. Harry tried to talk to them, not realizing that these men were paid to be unreasonable. The local news arrived with cameras and recorded the interaction. No matter what Harry said, the mob got more and more mad. Almost a dozen men attacked Harry. Unable to silence Harry with words, a few held his arms behind his back while others took turns punching him as hard as they could. No one stepped in to defend Harry as he defended his father. Eventually the mob got tired and left Harry lying on the sidewalk.

That night when Ben got home from work he saw what had happened outside of City Hall on the news. It was hard to believe that men would attack like that, but it was even more hard to believe that Harry had been so loyal. Ben had once been the target of shouting meant for his father, but Ben ran away and resented his father for it. Harry stood up for his dad like Ben never had.

Ben decided to visit Harry in the hospital. Though he had thought about Harry almost every day for the last twelve years, they hadn’t spoken since school. Ben wasn’t even sure what he would say when he arrived at the doorway of Harry’s hospital room.

“Come in,” Harry said quietly. “Come in, sit down.”

Ben entered the room but didn’t sit down. He looked at the many bandages and the IV, at both of Harry’s black eyes and swollen face. Ben’s heart beat hard as he asked, “Why didn’t you just get away? Or why didn’t you at least fight back? Why did you suffer like this for Abram?”

“Because he loves me. Because he took me as his own. Because he gave me everything I have.”

And Ben’s stony heart broke.

At that moment their dad walked in. Ben was already crying, but cried even harder when he looked at his dad and said, “I’m so sorry, dad. It should have been me standing up for you. I’m so very sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”

“How could I not? You are still my son.” And Abram stepped toward Ben and threw his arms around him and held him tight while Harry smiled at both of them from his bed.

As it turns out, Harry recovered and went home a few weeks later. Ben also returned home, and rather than being treated as an outsider as he expected, his dad started talking about his inheritance the same as when he was a kid. Harry’s vineyard was doing so well he didn’t have time to care for his dad’s business. So Harry built a big house of his own next door, got married, started having kids, and brought his pack over to Abram and Ben’s house every Saturday night for dinner.

As for Ben, he not only took over responsibilities on the property but also started working for his dad at City Hall. After a few years he was running for Mayor with his dad’s blessing, and after winning the election, he governed the town with a name to make his dad proud. The land, the fruit, the blessing to him and through him on the city was the inheritance promised by his dad long ago, and Ben was finally ready for it all.

Categories
Bring Them Up

The ECS Enculturation Trifecta for Unfavorable Conditions

The following are my notes for the 2025 ECS Fundraising Feast.

What makes ECS the best school in the world? If that question seems too ridiculous, what makes ECS the best school in Snohomish County? Could we be the best private school? The best private Christian school? The best private Christian classical school?

Some of this depends on the definition of “best.” Maybe we are not The Best, and even if we were, are Christians allowed to talk that way? Wouldn’t Christ-like humility be an important part of a Christ-honoring institution? Yeah, we probably can’t say ECS is the best.com.

It’s a ride

But are we just trying to do what everyone else is doing? Are we just one of many options? Other than the names of our people and the address of our location, do we have anything unique? Are we just like all the other Flamboyant-Natural Kibbe body-type schools?

This question and conversation have been taking place for at least a few months. We’ve actually not done all that we could to clarify and communicate our value, which, I’m here to tell you, is a only-one-of-its-kind value.

A lot of our school’s tangibles are similar to other schools. We have classrooms and teachers, we read books and write papers and take tests. Our teaching model, following the Trivium, is not only something we do; there are other ACCS sister schools in Western WA training their students through Grammar and Logic and Rhetoric. It’s not our playground that makes us unique, though, also, that we keep using the parking lot as our soccer, foursquare, tetherball, tag, jump rope, and kickball “field” is, I suppose, different.

We are trying to nail the tangibles. We never stop trying to make the most of our campus and curriculum. Our academic culture is excellent, and getting sharper year by year. If you walked around for five minutes on a typical school day you’d say, “this looks like a school.”

Our mission is to commend the works of the Lord to another generation so that they will carry and advance Christ-honoring culture. Lots of Christians could say that, but what does it mean? What ingredients go into that culture?

We don’t want the ingredients to be secret, though they can’t be seen tangibly. They are like the aroma of baking bread: you can’t touch it, but it’s the place where you want to be.

Let’s call these the ECS Enculturation Trifecta for Unfavorable Conditions. I just get a kick out of the word trifecta. It’s more than just another way to say three, it means the three winners. Hitting the trifecta at the race track means putting your money down on the first, second, and third place winners in order. Solomon said that two are better than one, and that a threefold cord is not quickly broken (Ecclesiastes 4:9). This trifecta is the intangible but invaluable ethos of our Christ-honoring culture. We already have this kind of culture, and we are trying to advance this culture, for families who see that we live in unfavorable conditions.

Masculine Nerve

It’s been said that cultures are built by men who have families to feed. Our school culture is built by men who have families to feed, men who have children to feed with truth, goodness, and beauty so that they can carry and advance Christ-honoring culture.

We currently have as many male teachers as we do female teachers, which means we have double the men on our campus by percentage than the average private school. The number itself is unique, but the men themselves have nerve. That is, they have a sense of purpose and a spine in unfavorable conditions. Have you ever heard someone say, “Can you believe the nerve of that guy?” We want to say, “Yeah, we hire those guys.”

It takes us a month of morning Matins to get through all the men who are available to pray.

Which does not frustrate the ladies. Our women don’t have to be first in battle, even as they beautify and help make things better. We’ve got guys with guns, actually (following a strict internal policy). Now, we’ve also got women with guns, that’s good, but it should be that they’d never have to pull first.

This translates to the students. I recently read about a homeschool prom organized by a mom who watched the night go by and no young man asked any young lady to dance. The young men were Christian guys, the kind who workout and read their assignments, who do some good things. But they weren’t willing to take a risk of rejection or failure. ECS has guys who ask girls to dance.

We’ve got men with backbone leading the charge and women with backbone making it glorious. When conditions are unfavorable, you want men with chests, men with ordered loves and convictions and vision and enterprise. ECS has, and advances, masculine nerve.

Tactical Laughter

Maybe the easiest thing to do in the world is see problems. Education tends to make it worse because the educated know more of what it could be, should be, might have been. It is just not hard at all to complain; first semester Kindergartners can do it. Highly educated people complaining in multiple syllables may sound more intellectual but it doesn’t fix much.

Our school motto is risus est bellum, “laughter is war.” It’s a real battle, to learn stuff, to see so many broken things, and also not to take oneself so seriously. We’re not laughing because nothing is wrong, we’re trying to deal with what’s wrong with a good attitude. Let men their laughs employ.

Loud Laughter (and its cousin, Strong Singing) is the audible aroma of faith, joy, and hope. There’s a sense in which laughter is our goal, yes, but it’s a tactic, it’s a tool we use to get to the goal. We don’t wait until the end of the day to laugh, we laugh as we work toward the end of the day.

Unlike the world, we’re not teaching our students how to score higher on the victim scale, how to be more easily offended or identify as oppressed. This takes discipline, humility, and faith.

The current conditions make it seem that the self-confident are succeeding, but “the righteous shall see and fear and laugh” (Psalm 52:8). The three steps are not see and fear and freak out. Fearing the Lord leads to laughing at the time to come (Proverbs 31:25). There are really uncertain things, hard things, tough assignments, weeks full of events, challenges in the world. ECS has, and advances, tactical laughter.

Radical Company

Have you ever felt like you’re a lone charcoal brick trying to provide heat for the entire grill? At ECS you don’t have to be alone.

Company is a great word. I noticed it in That Hideous Strength (talk about unfavorable conditions), and “the company at St. Anne’s.” A company is a group of companions, derived from the Latin words for “with” (com) and “bread” (panis). A company are bread-breakers, sharing a table, sharing a feast.

Pursuing this type of fellowship is radical, not just because it’s extreme, but because fellowship is rooted in the gospel, the evangel in ECS. Sin disrupts, and the gospel enables forgiveness and then fruitfulness.

ECS is absolutely committed to dealing with sin, for when “your brother sins against you,” just as Jesus taught in Matthew 18. Students learn how to ask for forgiveness and then learn what reconciliation and full restoration looks and feels like. We’re in this together. Just yesterday a teacher asked the whole school for forgiveness. Recently a senior asked a seventh grader for forgiveness for being annoyed. It’s accountability to keeping short accounts that enables way more fun and fruitfulness. ECS has, and advances, radical company.

The Threefold Cord

Wrapping these three strands together it’s no wonder that this night every year is perhaps the culmination of our culture. Not the fundraising (though we need that to support the work) but the feasting. This is like being around Beowulf’s table in Heorot. Who doesn’t want a man with glad gravity at the head of the table that fills the room with a delightful aroma?

Sort of interesting: Men with chests is from The Abolition of Man. King Lune is the embodied tactical laughter from The Horse and His Boy. Company comes from THS. And even “unfavourable conditions” is from an address called “Learning in Wartime.” All these are C.S. Lewis stuff.

Maybe ECS stands for: Educating (like) Clive Staples. Or, stated another way, ECS is the place Lewis would send his kids across the pond for school.

There’s no other place like ECS. We’re seeking to nail the tangibles that build a school, and then to bake the trifecta of intangibles that advance a culture. Our men don’t take the backseat; they’ve got skin in the game. Laughter isn’t a joke; our gladness has gravity. Retreat isn’t an option; we’re not building a bunker or even a bubble, we’re a powerful company. It’s worth it.

The enculturation trifecta for unfavorable conditions:

  1. Masculine Nerve
  2. Tactical Laughter
  3. Radical Company

What would you give to have this, for your kids, grandkids, for your community, for Snohomish County, for the honor of Christ in the world?

Categories
Bring Them Up

What Do You Want?

The following are notes from the talk I gave at the 2025 ECS Information Night

Humans are bad at doing what we need to do. Why? Sometimes we don’t know; we have to learn. Especially with our kids, we catechize them and quiz them so that, we hope at some point, they can remember for themselves. But, knowledge is only part of our need. Lots of us can answer the test questions correctly. Our own experience teaches us that we often fail to do what we know is right because we don’t feel like doing it. And, it turns out, we won’t ever learn what is right if we don’t feel like learning in the first place.

Because of how God made the world to work, we always do what we most want to do. We have wants that compete with each other. Paul said that he didn’t do what he wanted to do (Romans 7:15), but, in the moment, the stronger want always wins. You pay the bill because you really want to avoid a bigger fine. You do the dishes because you want to avoid a mess of drosophila melanogaster (a.k.a., fruit flies). A student stays up late to write the paper because he wants a good grade or to avoid embarrassment.

The point is: our choices come down to which want you want more, not whether or not you choose what you want. Of course we don’t like to think about it this way because regularly our outcomes show that our wants were messed up. And, okay, this is a lifetime project, here we are. What do you want?

What do your children need most? Knowledge? Character? Diligence? Persistence? Imagination? Sure. But what they need most is for you to WANT them to learn to want the best wants, the blessed wants, to have driving desire for the true and good and beautiful. A good school is a factory for good wants. A good education exposes students (and their families) to desirable things, challenges them not to be satisfied with lesser things, and supports the process until all our wants are the best ones.

Note: the proper standards for our wants are outside of us. God tells us what we should want. He gave us a Book all about it. Christ’s disciples grow up as they learn the content of right wants, repent when they realize they were wanting the wrong things, and then love the standard more and more. That’s what our emotions try to trick us into forgetting. We think we can’t help but have certain feelings. We think that they are our feelings. But while they are personal, they aren’t actually allowed to be subjective.

Lewis quotes a couple ancient heavy hitters that use different language to make the same point.

“Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it. Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought.” (The Abolition of Man, page 17)

A good eduction shows what God says is good and what good things good brings about. A good education shows good examples of those who want and receive the good.

Note also: the popular standards for our wants are really cheap today. Our collective wants have been gutted, torpedoed, castrated, and drained, and state schools are driving the power drill with a 6” hole saw bit into the bottom of the barrel. Christians should want better than the state schools anyway. But for those who only want to stay above the state’s want factories, well that takes almost nothing. In 2020-21, all we had to do to be attractive to parents was stay open and not require five year-olds to wear masks. The Marysville school district in particular keeps finding spectacular ways to be MEH.

The overall feeling about education in our current culture is that it doesn’t take much to get what you need; maybe it’s still the three R’s, but just text it, lowercase, no apostrophe, no punctuation. Programs or schools pursuing a higher bar are seen as wasteful, even annoying. How many parents want to be bothered as little as possible, in bank accounts and homework expectations and questions around the table? Parents want very much, or maybe they don’t even know what they really want for their kids.

One of the parts of our new family application process is a Pastoral Reference. One of the questions asks the pastor to select the best description of “The family’s church attendance.”

  • Surprised to see they listed your church as a reference
  • Occasionally present
  • Regular worshippers
  • Would crawl over glass to be at worship

That’s it: we always do what we most want to do.

ECS is a fire in the bones sort of place. Not everyone wants that; fire is hot. But we want parents to want to increase their own wants. We want to spark their flame thrower. We want parents to encourage each other in wanting more. Each of our teachers (save one) are parents or grandparents (or alumni), because we are trying to inform and inflame the wants in our own kids, and then also in your kids, in ways that we don’t think are happening anywhere better.

The younger grades focus on naming all the things that God has given; the Grammar of Good Wants. The middle grades focus on distinguishing between good and the sounds-good; the Logic of Good Wants. The older grades focus on wanting to better adorn and embody the good, and to enjoy working together for good; the Rhetoric of Good Wants. Put it all together, with students sharpening each other, sharing with each other across grades, and everyone gets to have their bucket of wants both expanded and also more filled.

At ECS we’re conforming our wants to God and His Word, and our wants are compounding in ways that just one student’s best want couldn’t add up to.

ECS wants to offer better wants, for you and your kids and your family. We exist to train and shape and exercise wants because all things are ours because we are Christ’s. We’re not doing it for the money, though we do need tuition dollars to pay our teachers and bills. We’re doing it because God wants big wants for us.

The following quote keeps being a favorite kick in the pants:

“The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable. Favourable conditions never come.” (“Learning in Wartime”)

We want to challenge you to want more, support you when wanting more is hard, and rejoice with you when God blesses you with more than what you wanted to begin with. What your kids need most is for you to want the best for their wants.

Categories
Bring Them Up

Watershed Raggants

There are three things I’d like to do today. I’d like to welcome you to year 13 of ECS, and so, WELCOME!

We’re already down to just two more. Second, I’d like to encourage you again, from a different angle, about carrying and advancing what it means to be a raggant.

Raggant characteristics are Christian characteristics (see these notes from the beginning of last school year). We talk about being raggants because it’s playful, and because it’s particular to the life of Christian students at ECS. There are Christians all over the world, but it’s a limited group who get to have the raggant as a mascot.

At the most recent teacher retreat, we considered the idea of watershed raggants. A watershed is “an area or ridge of land that separates waters flowing to different rivers, basins, or seas.” At its height, a watershed is a point, and rainfall goes one way or the other.

Perhaps the most famous/dramatic watershed near us is the Continental Divide. See this page by the US Forest Service for more.

At some points along the divide, rain that falls just a quarter inch apart either ends up in the Pacific Ocean or the Atlantic Ocean.

That’s a physical/geographical watershed. The word watershed also has then been used in a figurative sense in reference to “an event or period marking a turning point in a course of action or state of affairs.” And we are interested in watershed raggants. When you meet one, you can’t stay the same as you were. A watershed raggant is light in the dark, salt to the tasteless, hard to ignore or forget. Other people remember meeting a raggant. (See 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 for an evangelistic example.)

On the last day of school we talked about The Summer of Raggants. We considered some examples of what kind of things raggants could do that were ragganty while not at school.

One question you might have is, what does it look like to be a raggant in class? That’s reasonable! In class is where we’re training raggants, building and sharpening your watershed qualities. Here are some ideas that go with all six raggant virtues.

Stout Image-bearers

An image bearer is a reflection of God, and one of the things that means is that we’re made for relationships. Each student has a job, and part of the job is not being isolated. So he Works and plays well with others.

To be stout means to be strong, and that includes being strong enough to know when and where to fight. Most of the time, your classmates are not your enemies, and your teacher always deserves respect. He Is courteous in speech and manner.

God made men to take dominion. The whole earth is a gift, and this assignment is part of who He made us to be. No excuses, even when it is hard. He Accepts responsibility.

More than only doing what one is told, there is some eagerness to find things that can be done. He Shows initiative.

Generous Disciples of Christ

The word disciple means learner or follower. Learners pay attention to those that have something to teach them, they are ready when the leader points the right way. He Responds to authority promptly and cheerfully.

While in class, there are some times to give gifts (for example, maybe around Christmas time). But most of the time, you give yourself. One way to give yourself is to have your things ready and be where you’re supposed to be without others waiting. He Shows regard for others in timeliness.

Another thing you can “give” is not making others do what you can do for yourself. Don’t “take” their energy. He Uses self-control in actions and in speech.

Copious Producers

Copious means plenty/a lot, and a producer is a maker. Making much. In class, he’s trying and trying hard. He Works up to ability.

It also means he’s got to watch out for distractions. There are so many things! (And this only gets more true the older you get.) He Stays on task. and Is diligent.

Making more includes not just quantity, but quality. Take care of what you’re working on. He Shows neatness in work.

Prodigious Learners

There will be a time when you learn on your own. Classical education includes learning how to learn.

We’re at school. This is a place of learning. And similar to the meaning of disciple, a learner Listens attentively.

Technique can be improved, but you have to learn it first. There are a lot of words in English, but if you don’t know the ABCs and the phonogram rules, you won’t make much. Start with the start, do what you’re told. So he Follows directions.

Especially at school, our teachers know things. He Interacts well with adults.

Thankful Stewards

A steward is one who cares for things. All that we have is from God, so we give thanks to Him. Also, God cares how we care for His things.

Steward your work. He Completes assignments.

One of the things that we cannot buy but are always spending is time. Steward your minutes. He Uses time wisely.

Steward your word; do what you say you will. He Is trustworthy.

Steward things, including things that others have paid for. Maybe that’s part of the classroom, maybe that’s recess equipment, maybe that’s the lunch of a friend. He Respects property.

Jovial Warriors

We don’t want to be isolated from one another, true. But also, have you ever tried sword fighting while needing someone to hold your hand the whole time? It’s one thing to need help, it’s another thing to require the whole class to wait for you. He Works independently and Claims only his/her share of attention.

Independent effort (without talking to your neighbor) is right when it’s time to do your homework, contributing to the discussion is right when it’s time to talk. Demanding that others give you attention is wrong, giving attention to the subject, and to what others have to say, is right. He Participates in class.

And he Is optimistic. We work in hope, hope that our labor pleases Jesus, hope that He will cause what we sow to be a great harvest, hope that when we sacrifice He will bless us. Let the joy of the Lord make you confident of good to come.

A lot of this should sound familiar, because you see it on every grade card at the end of every quarter as part of the Character Assessment. For that matter, some of the teachers have posters of these very things around campus. It’s all coming together, isn’t it?

So may the 2024-25 school year be a watershed year for ECS as we train watershed raggants as part of a watershed rumpus.

I said there were three things I wanted to do today, and here’s the third: I’d like to give you a bookmark! (Thanks to Mrs. Herr for the watery raggant and thanks to Mrs. Higgins for cutting them so straight!)

Categories
Bring Them Up

The Summer of Raggants

The following are my notes for my final assembly talk at ECS.

On the first day of school I declared this The Year of the Raggant. We’ve made it to the last day, and here is the other bookend. I don’t have a short story, but more of a pep talk as you enter the short summer. Let this be The Summer of Raggants.

We want you to be awesome Christians. We want you to be the kind of Christians that people who aren’t Christians look at and think, ‘Those people have something different than me.’ We don’t want all of you to be the same, not just because boys aren’t girls but because God made all His people to do different things. And yet, there are some characteristics that every Christian student should have. That’s why we refer to them as the “other graduation requirements,” or, what it means to act like a raggant.

Do they apply only to school at school days or also to summer days? Duh, they apply to all time, including after you graduate. But while we work on helping each raggant develop these six muscle groups while they are here, what can/should you do over summer to keep getting more ragganty?

I’ve got some feet on-the-ground suggestions (which is good, since raggants don’t like to let others see them fly). Mr. Sarr and Mrs. Pakinas also helped with some of the particular ideas, which include things that a new first grader could do and the new seniors, too. Mrs. Herr made the colorful raggant, and Mrs. Higgins cut out these reminders you can put on the fridge or use as a book mark.

Stout image-bearers. Human beings are not meant to “do our own thing” or “decide who we are.” We are meant to reflect the likeness of God who made us. When we “behold” Him we know more what we’re to be. We become like who or what we worship. This is one reason why our worship on the Lord’s Day not only is for the glory of God but for God to give us our shape and strength.

Of course we see more about God in His Word. What a privilege to have our own copies. Every one of you can read now, so you could read a verse a day, or some of you ought to read more. If your parents let you, listen to Scripture; it’s free, and it’s forming. God’s Word is spiritual food. If you don’t eat, you will get weak.

Go to church and worship God every week, read your Bible every day.

Be patient, gracious, forgiving. These are godly, and ragganty. And for a test of your stoutness and braveness, tell all gossips to STOP IT.

This is first, starting with the first day of the week, so first in priority, and first in the list of raggant virtues. This is the most obvious way of honoring Christ: worship Him.

Copious producers. A producer is someone who makes things, you take some raw materials and create something else. You cause something that didn’t exist to become a thing!

I’m not saying that there’s no place to wind down and enjoy watching some TV/movies/YouTube or play video games as your parents allow, but don’t let that suck all your minutes away.

The blessed man is like a tree planted by streams of water, and as you reflect God more and more you will bear more and more fruit.

Make: dinner, cookies, paintings, Lego castles, blanket forts, science experiments, your bed (every day!)

Generous disciples of Christ. To be generous is to show a readiness to give more of something than is necessary or expected. It’s a way to show kindness to others.

Generous might make you think of money, but most of you as students probably don’t have a lot of that. Christ didn’t give away money. He gave Himself.

We are Christ’s disciples, we are His students, His followers. So we follow the example that He left for us, and walk in His steps. We obviously can’t do all the same things Jesus did, but share the loaves and fishes you have. One thing we all have the same amount of is time. How will you be generous with yours?

Do the dishes (not just on your assigned night). Play with your siblings when they ask. Do something good for a neighbor.

Prodigious learners. Part of what we’re aiming to do is give you the skills and the exposures for sake of increasing interests to keep learning for the rest of your life. To be prodigious means to let it be BIG; Christ made a big cosmos, and He loves all that He made for us.

Reading is a way to do it, and it doesn’t have to be non-fiction. A good story can teach you lessons, even if it’s just some new vocabulary.

Read 3 (hard for you) books before September 4 (the first day of school, not that you want to think about that today). Learn a skill: guitar, drawing, volleyball, wood burning. Sometimes people say, Go big or go home. I say, learn big at home!

Thankful stewards. Thankfulness is appropriate, required, and good for you. There is nothing you have that you did not receive, from God directly or from God through another person.

As Mr. Sarr likes to remind us, thankful people are more fun to give things to anyway.

Handwrite a thank you note for every gift you get. Write a card for a gift you did NOT get. And you all are working on your penmanship anyway, right? This will give you a chance to show off your skills. Say “thank you” after every meal anyone makes for you. See if you can do it!

Jovial warriors. Jovial is a word that refers to being cheerful, like a king in his court, taking care of things without any worry on his face and gifting his people from his resources. He is glad and giving, even though all his projects aren’t finished. This is the kind of attitude to start the day with, not just to end when things went like we wanted.

Whether or not you are naturally so, call a T.O.: Try Optimism. When you’re assigned a chore you don’t like, when your plans didn’t work out, if you can do it without being snarky, throw your head back and say HA!

“Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:14-15)

Refuse to complain, about the weather, the boredom, getting sick, the Mariners losing again. Practice LOL!

Raggants are high discipline, low drama summer rockstars. Summer break starts today, so start your summer stage of carrying and advancing Christ-honoring culture. May the Lord bless the next few months as The Summer of Raggants.