Last week I had the chance to lead a conversation for the online campus of my church with some amazing educators. We were doing it as a part of a special worship experience about living our faith in the ordinary time of life. We have been going throughout the summer hearing from people who live their faith out in amazing ways.
In essence, it is the spirit of living into the small things of the Mother Teresa quote, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
These educators represent the heart of most teachers, but they are an undervalued/heard voice. They are amazing people who will tell you to talk to those responsible for the education of the students. They want to be on the learning team so that each child can find success with as mean cheerleaders surrounding them as possible.
But just sharing this link is not the reason for the post….
In the chat, during the live worship experience, there were a few comments that made my heart well up and think about how this is the way the church (universal) is supposed to be.
“Are all of these people from one school? I wish they were my child’s teachers”–was one of the comments in the chat as our panel talked about the way they all want the best for the kids as a whole.
The response was, “No they are from all over but connected to FaithPoint church.”
This comment got me on a couple of levels. First, I get to be the pastor of this amazing group of people who care so deeply for their students and one another. Second, they care so deeply because in some way they all know what it is to be hurt, told they are not good enough to have had to fight for someone else and they want to make sure that experiences doesn’t’ happen to someone else. This is a critical part of being the church. Not just teaching people the brain knowledge of what it means to follow Jesus, but teaching them the “why” behind what we do. That way when making decisions on their own they have more of the path of faithful decision making rather than just the past decisions to draw from.
Secondly, there was a lot of talk about the assumption of greatness from each student. They said that every student shines and it is our job to help the world see them shining. What a powerful message for the church. That we are called to be the reflectors of God’s love so all can see. More practically, we are to speak life into everyone we meet and find a way to share their worth to the world in a way that is not just uplifting to the person, but a blessing to the community as well. So cool!!
That is easier said than done. For the times when we don’t’ have the best days we do have one another. When Stacy, Madeline and Tonya agreed to be part of the conversation. They love to teach together. They share about the times that they can celebrate together and also when they can pick up the slack from each other in a way that makes everyone better.
Yes, I lead the conversation, but we didn’t have the answers preprogrammed. We sat down 5 minutes before filming and outlined a few basics and then let the cameras roll. I loved the result and the conversation/blessing that followed.
