Over the past few years Menno Simons Christian School in Calgary, Alta. has taken the students on a spiritual journey to explore an upside down kingdom, a world that is the complete opposite of the one that our society promotes today; PEACEKEEPING, our school’s foundational acronym with each letter describing an attribute of a peacekeeper; and now "servant hearted" for the 2019-20 school year.
What do we mean by “servant hearted”?
Being the hands and feet of Christ, living with joy, showing love, being obedient to God’s will, giving of our time, being accountable, choosing to say yes when an opportunity arises, giving of ourselves and expecting nothing in return.
Through our Friday chapels we have challenged our individual classes to take on these definitions and create skits or presentations to help students visualize and understand what these might look like in our world today. We have further challenged them to think within their classroom about how to apply this through their studies.
The results?
• As a school we stuffed a bus with more than 1,500 food items for the Calgary Food Bank.
• The Grade 5 class took its math concepts of decimals and applied it to budgeting, cost comparisons, purchasing and preparing lunches for the Brown Bag for Calgary Kids program.
• The Grade 4 class studied light and how it can be bent through lenses. This led to a further discussion about glasses helping to correct vision and recognizing that some people do not have the resources or access to glasses. The challenge was then brought forth to collect glasses for the local Lions Club. The class also went a step further, dedicating an afternoon a month to walk to a local seniors home to play board games and cards with the residents. This relationship continues to bloom as the residents recently attended our Christmas concert to support these students.
• Other grades were involved with the Calgary Pregnancy Care Centre, Mennonite Central Committee and the Samaritan’s Purse Christmas Child shoebox campaign.
“True evangelical faith cannot lie dormant,” wrote Menno Simons in 1539. As our school journeys through the last half of the school year, we are excited to see how our students will engage in real servant-worship; how they will see beyond our bubble to the world around us; and how they will learn to serve where they live as well as around the world.
Related stories:
Lessons from Narnia
'An education for life'
Menno Simons students help pack Christmas Child shoeboxes for Samaritan’s Purse. (Photo courtesy of Menno Simons Christian School)
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