As many of you know, Dordt University takes its name from the historic Synod of Dort held in Dordrecht, the Netherlands in 1618-1619. Arising from that six-month assembly was the Canons of Dort, one of the major confessional statements of Reformed churches. The Canons of Dort were a response to controversial theological statements made by the followers of Jacob Arminius; … Read More
It’s Time for Numbers . . . and Creative Thinking
Happy New Year! For those of us in education, our new year starts in the fall, a season that is always exciting for me. The summer quiet of campus is replaced with the dynamic community we love. The air is abuzz with reunions of teachers, families and friends; new and returning student orientation; opening chapel/convocation, and the state-of-the-school address. This … Read More
Our Resistance to Accountability
The resistance to accountability goes back a long way–perhaps to the Garden of Eden with the passing of blame from Adam to Eve and from Eve to the serpent. Each evaded taking responsibility for his or her actions. These problems persist to the present day as a result of this original brokenness. To whom am I accountable and to whom … Read More
Creating Moral Ecologies for Benevolence
As I write this, the middle schoolers at my local church are about to embark on a week-long gauntlet chock-full of opportunities to serve our city. You can check out some of the organizations that they will be partnering with here, here, and here. My church professes the mantra “In the city, for the city,” and we hope that our … Read More
Legal Audit: An Exercise That Does a School Good
About 14 months ago, a good friend and fellow Christian school leader posed a great question: “How’d you like to join a few other schools in California who are doing a legal audit of their school documents?” “Legal audit” was a new concept to me. At that point, I was finishing up a Head of School (HOS) position in the … Read More
The Hook: What’s in a Name?
The language we use has a real power to influence how we understand our world—and act in it. –Kristin Lin, Editor, The On Being Project My wife Joanna and I just finished facilitating two wonder-full institutes on Deeper Learning in Christian Schools and are planning a third in the Dominican Republic. David Smith has been with us (in spirit–see his … Read More
Good Tired
The blog post below is a beautiful devotional given by Dr. Jay Ferguson, Head of School at Grace Community School in Tyler, TX. This message was recently shared at Baylor University’s Academy for Transformational Leadership. We hope that it is an encouragement for school leaders as you exhale from the 2019-20 school year and continue preparations for the 2020-2021 school … Read More
What Story Is at the Heart of Our Schools?
What if (Christian) education was primarily concerned with shaping our hopes and passions—our visions of the “good life”? What if the primary work of (Christian) education was the transforming of our imagination rather than the saturation of our intellect? What if we began by appreciating how education not only gets into our head but also (and more fundamentally) grabs us … Read More
Friends Who Wrote Books You Might Enjoy
Writing a book is a labor of love. Publishing one in the education sector, and to go a step further, publishing in the Christian education sector, is an even greater labor of love with little hope of any financial return. Recently a number of my friends have done some really good work authoring books, and it is my joy to … Read More
Is There Such a Thing as Teaching Christianly?
There is power in the naming of things. I imagine that when God gave Adam the task of naming the animals, Adam didn’t just think up sounds for what to call them. He connected with the genius of what God made each creature to be, and out of Adam’s discernment of “Christ in all things,” each name came forth from … Read More