Not Angles But Angels: The Mission of Augustine of Canterbury, the Apostle to the English

Augustine of Canterbury is a man who has, unfortunately, been lost to the majority of  historians. In, fact, if he pops up in a history book, it is often as a mere footnote. Yet, it was through this man that God brought Christian renewal to Southern England. Let me introduce you...

5 Things I Learned as a First Year Teacher

Th following list is a few of my thoughts and insights I had over this past school year. In no particular order:

1. High School girls are stuck in a perpetual state of Disney Princess Fantasy (DPF). I’m not talking about the good theme of “kill the dragon, save the princess.” That’s the Christian theme; it’s what Jesus does for His church. I’m talking about the love for everything Disney. If you suffer from Disney Princess Fantasy your symptoms may include singing Disney songs, creating lists of which Disney princesses would fare better in a given situation, singing Disney songs, drawing your favorite princess, singing more Disney songs, and dressing up like your favorite Disney princess. This is a phenomena I have noticed in the majority of the female population. I’m not saying that DPF is a bad thing, it’s just strange.

2. When Second grade girls put on a ring pop, they begin fantasizing about marriage. When Second grade boys put on a ring pop, it just becomes a weapon to punch the other boys. Are you seeing a theme about girls developing? From a young age they want to be that princess I mentioned above. Boys don’t care much for royalty though, they just want to wrestle. Which leads me to my next point.

3. Playing catch with a group of first graders is a great study in original sin. Girls fall into this category too, but mostly boys. Everything is a competition to a boy. Throw sin into the mix and you can end up with some bloody noses and hurt feelings in no time.

4. I’m selfish. Moving on...

5. Children have a way of capturing your heart. My favorite grades to teach are first and second grades. I realized this past week that with the school year coming to a close I may never see some of those children ever again. I'm really going to miss those kids.

Well there it is - five things I learned while teaching my first year. They paid me to teach. I received so much more.

Raising Worshippers, Part 2 of a Series on Education

In my first blog I argued for movement toward a liturgical education, an education based on worship, because God desires worshippers. I'd like to submit a few ideas on why and how we can incorporate worshipping opportunities in an education. I'd like to thank James Jordan for an essay he wrote that inspired some of these thoughts.

First, our bodies are musical instruments. When I talk I make percussive sounds using my lips and tongue, my vocal folds are strings in my throat, and no sound will come out if I don't exhale wind. A musical education ought to train these parts of our bodies for worship to God.

Second, music education is trinitarian. The third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is the Music of God. What does the Holy Spirit do? He glorifies the Son, the Word (logos) of God. Therefore, music is the glorification of language. I can speak to you in my normal voice or I can sing/chant to you. The latter is going to help you remember what I said; I'm glorifying my speech. 

Ok, so how can we create worshippers? It's not hard if we make time for worship every day. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we start our day with at least a 30 minute worship service where we sing Psalms and psalm like hymns, read Proverbs, and pray? If we follow this consistently a child can have all 150 Psalms memorized by the time he's a teenager, and probably the book of Proverbs, too.

But, we don't stop there because the Bible tells us to praise him with instruments (Psalm 150). A good music teacher can teach young kids a variety of instruments. Let's enroll our kids in violin and piano lessons and guitar and drum lessons. We do this so they can be better worshippers, not because it will help them achieve better math scores - though it will.

Every teenager should be in choir all four years of high school, just as they should study the great Christian writers like Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, and Jane Austen all four years. They should be in a good choir, a choir that will introduce them to the works of the great Christian composers. Our teenagers should be saturated with the counterpoint of Bach and the beauty of Handel and understand the old plainsong melodies of the Medieval period.

This is our foundation on which to build. This can be done right along your current curriculum. 

Descartes Was Wrong, Part 1 of a Series on Education

Many “Christian” schools fall into the snare of basing their institutions on government norms. They copy the public education system, baptize it, exchange evolution for creationism, and then proclaim to the world that their school is now a “distinctly Christian school.” The problem with this model is that these well meaning Christians have not proposed anything entirely different from what our culture gives us, a culture which has been shaped by the enlightenment.

Enlightenment Philosophy tells us that we are homo sapiens - thinking man. This echoes Descartes’ famous quote, “I think, therefore I am.” If we lay our education model on this foundation we will be forced to conclude that educating the mind, the “real” part of man, will save us.

The Bible gives us a different picture of man. Mankind is not chiefly homo sapien but homo adoran, worshipping man. God created man on the sixth day then rested on the seventh. That means that man’s first full day was the seventh day, the sabbath day of worship. Man’s life begins in worship. We must never forget that God seeks worshippers (John 4:23) not a perfect GPA or doctoral candidates; or even theologians.

David sings in Psalm 144 that God “trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle.” Why does David need trained fingers? Because he knows when he plays the lyre in worship to God he is going to war with the devil, and that Worship trains our mind to see the battle through. In order to gain wisdom we must start with the worship of our Lord.

I would, therefore, argue for an education model based on liturgical worship. I would like to see Christian schools training their students from a young age how to worship biblically. This is where education must start. If we skip this we are fooling ourselves.

Descartes was wrong. I do not “think therefore I am.” Instead, I worship because God is.