Convocation 2026: Charge to Faculty and Staff

Friends, as we begin this new school year, we do well to remember that as the adults on

campus, we all exercise leadership and authority. We will, together, by virtue of the mere fact

that we are the adults on campus, establish the school culture according to the manner in which

we exercise the leadership and authority that we have been given as faculty and staff.

Some of us will exercise leadership and authority in duties related to maintenance of the

facilities and grounds, or as part of the food service staff in the cafeteria.

Some of us exercise that leadership and authority in admissions and marketing, in the business

office, or in the front office, or as an assistant to administrators.

Most of us will lead and exercise authority directly with students on a daily basis in the

classroom, in the hallways, on the playground, or as coaches on the court and field of

competition.

Still others will lead and exercise authority as administrators, tending to schedules and policies,

curriculum goals and instructional improvement, the day-in-day-out operations of the school.

And others will do so at the strategic level, thinking about the long-term goals and future of the

school.

In all of those areas we will work together, exercising leadership and authority in our area in

order to execute the mission of the school with excellence – to partner with Christian families,

providing their children with a Christ-centered education on a classical model, equipping and

engaging them for God’s Kingdom purposes.

And our vision that goes with that mission intentionally presses us to have a long view of our

work. As a school we envision young men and women leaving our campus, carrying the fruit of

the mission for generation after generation after generation. So though this is the first day of

school, the way we exercise our leadership and authority will set a tone for and establish school

culture for the year. And it will also impact our execution of the mission for this year, as well

successive school years and into generation upon generation.

That’s a weighty task. One that we cannot bear up under in our human frailty. So our charge, as

we begin this school year, is two fold.

First, we are charged to remember that we exercise our leadership and authority under the

leadership and authority of Christ, and to consider how he exercises his leadership and

authority over us. We should remember that, of all those who walked the earth in all history,

Jesus is the only one who has every right to exalt himself and lord his authority over us. He has

every right to say to us, “Here is the standard. Meet it,” and then, when in our frailty we fail, he would be right and just to criticize and condemn, leaving us in the consequences of our short-

comings.

But he doesn’t do that. To be sure, he does not lower the standard or lessen the weight of

bearing it. We are called to nothing short of an excellence that matches the glory and worth of

Christ. He never lowers that standard. But neither does he leave us to bear it on our own.

Instead, he teaches us to consider ourselves as pulling the weight like an ox in a yoke, strapped

into one bow on that yoke. And the Holy Spirit, God himself, then puts his own neck in the other

bow, coming alongside us to pull that weight with us. And in those moments when our

shortcomings overtake us – when we fail our students, when we fail parents, when we fail each

other – in Christ we find, not only forgiveness, but also the help to grow and mature, help from

the Holy Spirit as he comes alongside us, taking our burden upon himself.

So our first charge as a faculty and staff is to cast ourselves daily on the grace of the Lord and

rejoice that he exercises his leadership and authority over us with grace, coming alongside to

carry our burden with us and for us.

And our second charge is this: to remind ourselves that as we exercise leadership and authority

in the tasks to which we have been called, we ought to imitate Jesus.

Though he would be just and right to leave us in our shortcomings, to criticize and condemn, he

instead meets us with grace and comes alongside. In the same way, let us meet students,

parents, one another, each according to his or her frame, and come alongside to assist and

support. We, like Christ, ought never lower the standard of excellence, but neither ought we

condemn or criticize. Rather we ought to come alongside others to take up the second bow in

their yoke and help carry that weight as we strive to meet the standard of excellence together.

So as we start this year, faculty and staff, we have two charges before us: to exercise our

leadership and authority in a manner that imitates Christ, and to remember daily that he

exercises his leadership and authority with grace, carrying the weight with us and for us, for our

good and his glory.