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Last Saturday, if the Parent Teacher Interviews were taking place at school, I was to give a talk on “The heart of Christian Education.” Christian education is absolutely dear to my heart because I believe it is the only authentic education a child can receive. It is an education that does not deny or ignore God, instead, Christian education firmly places God at the center, the foundation, indeed over every aspect of teaching and learning. It an education that proclaims the Lordship of Christ over every part of the school, including student and teacher (Colossians 1: 17-18).

Today, however, I want to talk a little about my heart, and then yours! Several weeks ago I suffered a mild heart attack but put it down to tiredness, work, diet, and lack of exercise. Yes, it was all of those things but I thought I could just soldier on and keep going with the same routine. Unable to shake off the fatigue, shortness of breath I thought it would be wise for a medical check-up. Three days later I found myself having two stents inserted to clear up a severely blocked left anterior descending artery, which I am told is quite an important one! Hoping that was the end of the drama, I then had an allergic reaction to the most important medication! After coming out in a head to toe itchy rash, the new medication seems to be much more acceptable to my body!

From the bottom of my heart, which now beats well, I would like to give my thanks to the many parents, staff and students for your messages of encouragement and prayers. That was such a blessing for me and my wife Linda. As it says in Proverbs 12:25 “Anxiety weighs down a heart, but a kind word cheers it up.” My heart has certainly been cheered, and for that I give God the praise and you my thanks.

But, it would be remiss of me to merely speak of my ‘healed physical heart’ without addressing the type of healing the heart really needs, and that is spiritual healing. Just as cholesterol blocks the heart, so too does sin block the heart from beating as effectively as God intended it too. When God created us, he did so to have a loving relationship with us. But sin, our rebellion against God got in the way and has blocked this relationship. Just as we cannot operate on ourselves, we cannot by our own strength remove that sin either.

I am very grateful to the cardiologist who removed the blockage in my artery, but I am indebted to the Great Physician, Jesus Christ, who alone has healed my ‘spiritual heart.’ As Jesus said in Mark 2: ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners’ (v. 17).

An essential part of an authentic Christian Education for your children is for them to see their need for healing. We teach the students about the importance of ‘healing’ the world by caring for the environment, and we also teach them about the importance of a right heart relationship with God, one that has been healed.

All of us, especially me now, need to care for our physical hearts. We need to be disciplined to eat the right food, exercise well, sleep and rest. The same goes for our spiritual hearts. We need to feed it God’s Word, to pray for forgiveness (healing) of our sins and spiritually exercise the heart through prayer. I could have pretended that I did not have a problem with my physical heart, but the blockage would have still remained. Ignoring it won’t have made it go away. And the same goes for our sin. Pretending it isn’t there, or just ignoring it, will not make it go away.

Once we see the need for the Great Physician, Jesus Christ, to remove our sin, he will do so, with his own blood, to fully cleanse our heart of sin, and have it beating as God intended it to be! It is my prayer that you ask the Great Physician for spiritual healing, that your sins against God would be removed. Then you have a heart that will beat for the glory of God for all eternity!

Blessings in Christ

Richard Vanderpyl
Head of School

This coming Monday, 12^th October, Canadians will celebrate Thanksgiving Day. (Jour de l’Action de grâce). In 1957, the Governor General of Canada, Vincent Massey issued a proclamation stating that Thanksgiving Day was: “A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed.”

What a wonderful proclamation of God’s benevolence and providence to people. It is good to give thanks to the “Giver of every good and perfect gift”. (1 Chronicles 16:11; James 1:17) How thankful are you? I once heard someone say, “If God took away everything you had not thanked him for, how much would you have left?”

Today in our culture, many have become ‘entitled.’ We expect not only to have good things, but plenty of those good things! As Christians we are called to be ‘counter-cultural’, so may I encourage you to be thankful for every blessing you have received.

I am so thankful to the Lord for school resuming face to face, for the safety of our students, for God’s love to them. I am thankful for the wonderful caring school culture we have, though with plenty of room for improvement, and I am personally thankful that God has led my wife Linda and I to CAIS!

‘Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good’
Psalm 136:1

A thankful servant of God
Richard Vanderpyl
Head of School

Our school theme for 2020/21 is “Nerve to Serve.” In 1 Peter 4:10, we read: “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”

Why would a Christian school have ‘Service’ as part of its DNA? Why such a focus on something that brings reward to others and supposedly not to us? Well, it is pretty obvious when we know that our Saviour ‘came to serve and not be served’ (Matt 20:28). The Creator and Sustainer of this world could have demanded the opposite, but he did not, instead, he gave of himself to others.

Many of us have attended the funeral of a friend, family member or colleague and been hugely touched by the eulogy given about the person, about the type of person they were. If you are like me, I immediately think that I should make changes in my life to be a ‘nicer, more caring’ person. As we listen to the eulogy, we don’t want to emulate their jobs, just their character and personal qualities.

Herein lies the difference between ‘eulogy virtues’ and ‘resume virtues.’ Resume virtues are those skills or qualities people have to do their job well, such as being punctual, hardworking, precise. Eulogy virtues, on the other hand, are those qualities that people say about you at your funeral, such as you were kind, forgiving, compassionate, bold, faithful, loving, and you cared about others.

We all know the virtues or qualities we want people to say about us, it is those ‘eulogy virtues. That begs the question, does our educational system promote eulogy virtues or rather resume virtues? In our culture and the educational scene today, it is generally the resume virtues that are promoted. Schools are judged on how ‘successful’ they are in developing students ready for the workforce, to be ‘productive members of society’. The productiveness is an economic productiveness. The evidence for this is to consider how schools are ranked and evaluated for their effectiveness by the government, public and media. They are measured by their academic results.

Do not get me wrong, I prize academic excellence and students faithfully using their God-given talents in academic studies, that is a way of honouring God. I certainly have high expectations on students, but we sell our young people short when we imply that academics maketh the man.

I believe our educational system is weighted more towards teaching the skills and knowledge that a student ‘needs’ for a successful career, rather than towards a godly character that blesses others. I believe society has lost the foundational basis, the Word of God, by which to call people to godliness, and which leads to eulogy virtues. When we take God’s Word out of our life or education system, we lose sight of what the purpose of our life is. That is why for a secular education system, the focus is on teaching facts and skills (head knowledge) rather than ‘matters of the heart!’ The truth, however, is that the heart will be shaped by what is taught.

In a Christian school, we must attend to both the head and the heart.

If we do well there, then the hands will follow. A Christian school must not neglect to train its students in moral and spiritual domains. The best that we can give to society after 13 years of Christian education are students who are able to critique and engage in society, using their gifts and abilities to serve God and others, and who are ‘measured’ not by economic output but by the contribution they make to growing God’s kingdom here on earth.

Again, to be clear, I am not advocating that all our students become overseas missionaries! I am talking about every student having a heart disposition that leans towards serving others, considering the needs of society, family, and friends, and growing in love for God in wherever God has placed them.

This is why service is such an important part of our DNA. It is evidence of a heart that loves others and finds its true fulfilment when this is done for the glory of God.

Richard Vanderpyl
Head of School