Faith Through Forty Years
Our Forty Year Festival is on Tuesday.
It is going to be such fun. It is our chance as a whole school community to get together and celebrate our school’s fortieth year. (By the way, most of our staff and parents are not even forty years old!😊)
At the beginning of the year, I wrote in this editorial about the Faith, the Outcomes, the Respect, about Trying-your-best, and the Yes-we-can attitude (FORTY) that got MCC to where it is today. In this editorial, let’s explore what faith can mean for your vision for your children.
We are part of what gets called a “faith-based school”. I like that title; it rings true for us. We are indeed based on faith. Faith is the evidence of things that you can’t yet see. It is knowing in your heart, and showing with your actions that you trust that things will be as you envisage them, even though those things are not yet visible.
That is pretty much what faith is: seeing what cannot yet be seen.
I have been told that the school started with nine students… but then I also heard that it started with twelve students but three didn’t stay past the first few days. I am not surprised that some families didn’t have faith in the school and removed their children. There was not much to see back then. A bunch of wooden desks in the Melton scout hall was all there was. Every evening it had to be packed up, and every morning it had to be set up. The children played outside in the scout hall car-park. Gosh, those that stayed really did have faith. They could see something that was for them not yet visible.
I don’t suppose that anyone who was there for those first months and year could have imagined that MCC would become a school of one thousand, two hundred and fifty students. Presumably all of those first families of the nine children hoped the school would grow, I am sure they believed the school would grow, clearly by sticking with it they had faith that the school would grow. It grew.
Where is our faith? What are we seeing that is not yet visible?
When you pray to God for your children’s future what are you praying for? Can you see a vision for your child? I dare you young parents to be dreamers, visionaries. I dare you to look to a faith-based vision for your child’s future. And for goodness’ sake, do not fall into that media-promoted trap of thinking merely about a ‘good career’. See bigger than that. Even a bad person can end up in a good career. See a vision for your child of a good person! You want your child to become a wonderful dad, an amazing mum, a marvellous employee or employer. See with eyes of faith and dream deep dreams for your child. Bypass the shallowness of media-led competitiveness and prayerfully ask God for a true vision of what really matters for your beautiful children.
In our school’s fortieth year of faith-filled visions, let’s celebrate together: parents, staff and children.
david gleeson, principal