The Weapons of Our Warfare

2Cor. 10.4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

18 people (shown here praying at the office windows of principal Roger Samples) gathered for our prayer walk at Spanaway Junior High. The Holy Spirit gave wonderful discernment as we spent a powerful 2 hours encircling the school with warfare prayer. We may not be able to initiate oral prayers in the classroom, but nothing bars us from praying for the classroom. Veteran missionary, Dick L., who joined us for this prayer walk shared with me from his own experience how prayer at strategic locations perceptibly decreases resistance to the Holy Spirit’s work in Muslim countries. If prayer can do that in Muslim lands, it can certainly render our schools more responsive to the Spirit’s influence. Prayer is one of our mighty weapons. Prayer will remain the key factor in taking captive the wayward thoughts of our culture, and bringing them into submission to the Truth who is Jesus Christ — whether in the marketplace or in the classroom.

Please email me if you would like to schedule a Saturday prayer walk around your school.

Lynn Graciano, Band Teacher, Spanaway Jr. Hi.

Teacher Recognition & Commissioning
As the new school year begins, some of your church congregations will recognize your strategic work as missionaries to our needy culture, and pray a commissioning prayer for Public School Educators during a Sunday service. Whether or not you get to attend such a service, I want you to know that pastors in Pierce County recognize the strategic nature of your work in the community. You are just as much a true minister of Jesus Christ as any ordained clergy. While we eagerly welcome your every involvement on the church campus, it should not be necessary for you to feel that you have a “real ministry.” You have been called and anointed by the Holy Spirit to be salt and light on the school campus; that is your vital ministry and calling, and we in your community are eternally grateful.

Bethel School District Needs Our Prayers
You’ve seen the news: Bethel District teachers opted to strike, postponing the start of their school year. This puts some Christian educators in an awkward position, and they covet your prayers for a speedy resolution of the issues. Let’s support them in this way.

Praying for you!
Roderick

Summer Intercession

Passage of the Week:

1Tim. 2.1 I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone — 2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.

Great News of the Week:

As our academic year ends, our opportunity to do a very special work begins. We can now focus our intercession upon next year’s students and coworkers. I would like to see a supernatural visitation of God in my classrooms next fall; I know it won’t happen without many people joining me in prayer for that very thing.

On Memorial Day Monday, my friend Marcus Smith joined me in walking a circle around and praying for Truman Middle School (pictured above) in N Tacoma. This quote from President Truman is written above one of the entrances of the school building:

“The fundamental purpose of our educational system is to instill a moral code in the rising generation and create a citizenship which will be responsible for the welfare of the nation.”

Harry S. Truman left us a wonderful mandate. Sadly, federal law now asks us to do this with one hand tied behind our backs. Nevertheless, the Creator is infinitely creative. As we pray, God will show us legal, appropriate and tasteful ways to not only “instill a moral code” in the rising generation but also to help them understand that the welfare of our nation stands or falls with our faith. Let’s pray!

If you would like me to pray with you on your school campus after school’s out, just e-mail me and let’s set a date.

Let’s Help One Another:

If you have a testimony of something God did in your classroom or school this last academic year, please e-mail it to me and I can forward it to our fellow educators!

Well-Driven Nails

Passage of the Week:

Ecclesiastes 12.11 (NKJ): “The words of the wise are like goads, and the words of scholars like well-driven nails, given by one Shepherd.”

Great News of the Week:

Your opportunity is almost here to give your students a thought to ponder all summer, and perhaps for the rest of their lives. Good preachers and public speakers end their presentations with a “punch,” a pithy and memorable statement that their audiences will remember and ponder long after the meeting is over. Your opportunity to make that “punch” comes right before you tell your students, “Good-bye, have a great summer!” It may be the last chance you have to speak into the lives of this year’s students, but the right words can stick like a well-driven nail.

I’m 54 years old and I can still remember a single line from my 7th grade health teacher. One day, as an encouragement to humility he said to us, “Remember, no matter who you are there is always someone greater than you.” Now, that’s not an end-of-the-school-year statement, and I can’t explain just why it stuck with me, but the point is that a well-chosen, Spirit-led remark can follow your students for the rest of their lives.

So I’m your sticky-note reminder: start thinking and praying now about the well-driven nail you’re going to leave your students with on the last day of classes.

Let’s Help One Another:

If you’ve got a great end-of-the-year saying for your students, please e-mail it to me and I can forward it to our fellow educators!

Please Help us Expand the Fellowship:

Please help us encourage Christian Educators in our public school districts. You can do this by sending us your insights about teaching in public school. Please also send us the e-mail addresses of teachers who would be willing to get networked with us.

We will never try to sell you anything, we will never ask anyone for money, and we will never share our mailing list with anyone who would.

Greater Love Has No One Than This

Passage of the Week:

John 15.13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Thought of the Week:

By now you’re familiar with the story of the Virginia Tech professor who gave his life for his students. As reported in the L. A. Times:

If you were lucky enough to have a choice, there were only two ways to go Monday morning on the campus of Virginia Tech: away from danger or toward it. Seventy-six-year-old engineering professor Liviu Librescu chose the second option, saved a classroom full of students and became a hero — at the cost of his life.

As a child, he had survived the Holocaust. As an adult, he had survived persecution for defying Romania's brutal Communist regime during the Cold War. With their children grown, he and his wife, Marlena, had spent a quiet two decades on a peaceful university campus in rural Virginia.

But Monday, trouble found him once more. With bursts of gunfire rattling through the second floor of Norris Hall, Librescu closed his classroom door, giving his students time to escape through the windows, recalled senior Caroline Merrey of Baltimore, the third student to jump.

"He saved my life," Merrey said.

As they fled, Librescu held the door shut with his body while the gunman, 23-year-old Tech senior Seung-hui Cho, tried to force his way inside.

Moments after the last student leapt to safety, Cho apparently forced the door open and shot Librescu to death.

I will remember Liviu Librescu as the kind of teacher I want to be: one for whom teaching is the students more than the job — even when caring becomes costly.

Encouragement for the Week:

We in the general populace have not forgotten that you are serving our children and our community, sometimes at the risk of harm, and often at the cost of very little recognition or appreciation. We want you to know that we are deeply grateful for what you do!

Praying that God will constantly be the Shield around you at school (Psalm 3.3),
Roderick

Teach A Youth About The Way

Passage of the Week:

Proverbs 22.6: Teach a youth about the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. (Holman Christian Standard Bible)

Thought of the Week:

The biblical proverbs are not promises guaranteeing an outcome, but express the more fruitful of two choices. It is far better to teach a youth about the way he should go than to leave him to his own devices regarding the important questions of life. When we do teach our youth about righteousness and character, the probability is great that they will feel the influence of that teaching even when they are adults.

Great News of the Week:

“Though schools must be neutral with respect to religion, they may play an active role with respect to teaching civic values and virtue, and the moral code that holds us together as a community. The fact that some of these values are held also by religions does not make it unlawful to teach them in school.” The preceding is a quote from the Federal Guidelines For Religious Expression in Public Schools, published by the United States Department of Education. You may read the complete presentation of those Guidelines on our web site at:

http://www.tmin.org/tminpages/religion_publicschool.html

The great news is that teaching a “moral code” is one of the most powerful ways to point people to Jesus Christ. In a sense, that’s what the law of Moses was all about, as Paul explained, “...the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (KJV). You have complete freedom to teach a biblical moral code in your classroom and on your sports field. I’ll be praying this week that you find opportunities to do so with sensitivity and grace.

Praying that you’ll have a great week at school,
Roderick

The Battle of Ideas

Passage of the Week:

2Cor 10. 3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (NIV)

Thought of the Week:

Why do we believe that Christian educators in the public school system are the front line in our spiritual battle? Because the spiritual battle is a battle of ideas. Notice that when the apostle Paul spoke of our warfare, he spoke of “demolishing arguments” and taking thoughts captive. Spiritual strongholds are large belief structures, every building stone of which are a specific lie.

Great News of the Week:

Paul affirmed that we have the power from God to do the job of bringing down false worldview strongholds! We do this by living the truth, affirming the truth at every opportunity, and (here’s our secret weapon) praying the truth into the minds and hearts of our students.

Please Help!

Please help us encourage Christian Educators in our public school districts. You can do this by sending us your insights about teaching in public school. Please also send us the e-mail addresses of teachers who would be willing to get networked with us.

We will never try to sell you anything, we will never ask anyone for money, and we will never share our mailing list with anyone who would.

We also welcome your prayer requests which will be held in strict confidentiality.

Praying that you’ll have a great week at school,
Roderick

The Ultimate Question

Passage of the Week:

Rom. 8.28,29 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren... (NASB)

Thought of the Week:

When I query my students about what they think is the ultimate question, their answers always correspond to one of the seven most important worldview questions of all time. (I’ve listed all seven “ultimate questions” below.) But most people are interested in The Question of Teleology: “What is the purpose and meaning of life?” The hearts of countless people in our world hunger to know what the apostle Paul summed up for us in two verses: God has a purpose for us, and it involves growing into a suitable sibling for His Son! Romans 8.28 and 29 are just the tip of the revelation about our purpose, of course, but my point here is that we have a sense of purpose and destiny that most of the people around us hunger for! Our young students most certainly yearn for that sense of purpose as they grow into their teens. Let’s watch for opportunities to affirm that things happen for a reason and that there is a plan for our lives!

Great News of the Week:

Paul told the Athenians, in Acts 17.26 and 27, that God determined the exact place where everyone should live, knowing the most advantageous place in which any given individual can find Him! It’s no accident that your students live in Pierce County. It’s no accident that you teach in the school that you do. God has a purpose and a plan for guiding you into this very teaching job!

The Seven Ultimate Questions

Ontology: What is the nature of existence and being?
Theology: What is God’s nature and character?
Ethics: What is right and what is wrong?
Teleology: What is the purpose and meaning of life?
Epistemology: Is the universe rational, and if so, what forms of knowledge are reliable?
History: Why is there evil in the world and what is the origin of competing religious explanations?
Happiness: What is the path to greatest fulfillment?

Praying that you’ll have a great week at school!