Chancellor's Challenges: New and Old

What new things will occur this year? Will you be able to teleport yourself to another place? Will we have all meetings with more than four people via a new online platform that allows for 3D images? Will students be able to access their teachers by a means yet to be invented? What new means of social meetings will be constructed that allow for in-person gatherings and eating together? How about a new way of doing school that deconstructs the emphasis on grades and replaces it with an emphasis on learning? And, as usual, what new fads, clothing and hairstyles will come about?

Of course, no one has any answers to these kinds of questions, but it would be silly at this end of the year to predict the future when God has shown us that one tiny virus can interrupt the whole world! We live in a world that is always changing and forever coming up with new inventions, new ideas and new ways of thinking.

At ICS we are teaching our students two things in regards to that: the first is to think in terms of biblical thought. So, that means that just because something is possible to do, doesn’t mean that it should be done. There may be ethical reasons to not do something. The second teaching is for students to look at an idea, action or plan in light of what the history of the world has taught us. What did we learn from the fall of the Berlin Wall? What walls of ideas are being built that force people into thinking that the government is the solution to all our problems? Why is that not a good idea?

I am excited by the new year and what it holds – mostly because I know that God holds the future in His hands and He always does what is right. Will that mean that things will be easy? Of course not. Nothing worthwhile is easy. But I can ask for His wisdom in responding to the present moment, and lean on the truth of His Word. That presupposes that I know God’s Word. So, this year, we are studying Psalm 119:9-24 to encourage your children and young people to memorize and learn what it has to say about them, their world and about God Himself.

How about you doing the same? Pursue knowing God through His Word. You’ll be glad you did!