Insights
You Can Do Hard Things!
Retreat. Man, what a year to have a retreat.
After missing retreat last year, we ventured to Carolina Creek this past weekend for our annual Secondary Student Retreat. With discipleship being our core value of the year, we spent the weekend talking about just that...discipleship. The main thing we wanted our students to come away from retreat with was the fact that they can do hard things!
Being a disciple and a learner is hard. It is hard in life. It is hard in school. Being a disciple and a learner of Jesus, the Lamb of God, is even harder. That being said...we are called to be disciples, followers, and learners of Jesus Christ.
When we look at the calling of the disciples in the gospels, Jesus called them to something hard. He pretty much said, “Hey you, leave everything and follow me. Yes, even that thing, leave it behind.” Jesus’ call to us hasn’t changed. He calls us to leave everything and follow Him. That is a hard thing.
Every day we are called to look at the things in our life (actions, thoughts, etc.) and ask ourselves, “Is this thing like Jesus?” and if it’s not, we are called to let it go. That’s where this gets hard for us. Over the weekend our students were pointed toward the idea of accountability and doing hard things together. Not only did the disciples have Jesus, but they had each other to walk through their days with. When Jesus made those statements that were hard or a little confusing they were able to work through them together as they all worked to be more like their rabbi, their teacher, Jesus.
As parents, it is our responsibility to set this example. May we, every day, strive to lay aside the things that are not of Jesus. May our lives be defined by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Our kids are watching.
Joel Gutowsky
Director of Student Life
Logos Preparatory Academy
Created In His Image
At its most simple definition, identity is an understanding of who one is. As we grow, that understanding should grow as well. Similarly, our understanding of who God is must be continuously growing. Our life should be a constant state of giving all we know of ourselves to all we know of God with the goal of becoming more like Christ each day. There also must be a point in our journey when we accept God’s free gift of salvation. This requires a recognition of our need. When we talk about helping our kids learn about their identity, we often focus on helping them find their strengths and recognize their God given talents. It is truly essential that we speak words of life over our children. We must demonstrate their value through our words and actions. However, their ability to understand their value is rooted in their ability to understand what it means to be an image bearer, to be deeply loved by God, and to accept God’s promise of a new heart and a new spirit through salvation.
All are born as image bearers. We are all born deeply loved by God. God desires that all would choose to accept His free gift of salvation and believe in his Lordship. Elements of our identity change at the point of salvation.
“And you also were included in Christ when you heard that message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession - to the praise of His glory.” Ephesians 1: 13 -14.
This is the Spirit promised in Ezekiel 36:26. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Having received our new heart and God’s Holy Spirit, we can rest assured of our identity as chosen, adopted, forgiven and redeemed. These are all truths about identity that must be taught to our children. Understanding who they are in God will help them battle against the lies about identity being propagated in society.
A wonderful verse to discuss and memorize with your children is found in Genesis chapter 1:27. “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Here we learn that we were created on purpose, by design. Not by any design but by a design that was taken from God’s own image. This should both inform how we feel about ourselves and others. Before God instructed us to love our neighbors as ourselves, He informed us that ALL people are created in His image. Though not everyone has received their new heart and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, all people have great value in the eyes of God. Before birth, we were intentionally thought about and designed. That is an essential truth for our children to grasp in a world trying to tell them that life is random, without specific value, or absolute truth.
Following in verse 28, God gave Adam and Eve a mandate to be fruitful and multiply, ruling over other living creatures and subduing the earth. It is important for children to understand that after creating us on purpose, God gives us each a purpose. Helping them discover their strengths and talents will help point them to God’s purpose for them but it must be preceded by an understanding of their identity as children designed by God, in His image. Let us plant these important truths in the hearts of our children before the lies of the world have a chance to take hold.
Tammy McIlvoy
Head of School
Logos Preparatory Academy
The Greatest Commandment
Welcome back and welcome home, Lions! It has been a true joy to see students, teachers, and parents on campus! Our goal this year is to spend time exploring and strengthening that which is rooted within.
The core value focus for the 2021-22 school year is discipleship. This fits well with the educational focus of social and emotional learning (SEL). The teachers have enjoyed learning more about SEL in education while recognizing the natural connection between practices taught to educators regarding SEL and the principles taught in the Word of God that we will weave into our discipleship focus. Most of you have heard us discuss the Logos Prep philosophy of discipleship. Those interested in reviewing our approach to discipleship can find the document here.
This year, as we connect social and emotional learning with discipleship, we will focus on teaching from the Word of God. More specifically, we will focus on the teachings of Jesus. It is Jesus who tells us in Mark 12:29-31 that love is the greatest commandment.
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
As you can see from our philosophy of discipleship, love is the first priority when working to impact hearts. Heart will be an overarching theme throughout the year. Specifically, we will focus on the hidden person of the heart. Proverbs 27:19 reminds us that, “as in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man.” Within the hearts of our students, we want to hide the Word of God, the truth about their identity, true wisdom, biblical knowledge, and the strength of the Holy Spirit. We want to see the practice of emotional regulation, and positive social skills while also teaching students to engage in their community both near and far. Please join us by memorizing, as a family, scripture sent home from school and discussing both the biblical integration in your students' classrooms and the topics we will share here over the course of the year.
We are excited to see what this year has hidden within as we work to cultivate the hidden person of the heart in each of our students and ourselves.
Tammy McIlvoy
Head of School
Logos Preparatory Academy
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