By faithadminWe’re all filled with joy as our College comes together to celebrate milestone events this term. Last week our Year 12 students were dazzling at their formal and we all cheered them on. This week our Year 12 students led their final chapel service. In a moving act of service, they told of how God has been at work in their school years and offered insightful advice to other students. We also gathered as a community to acknowledge the achievements in our sport and culture awards. These things, together, showed true success.
Honouring achievements and celebrating milestones is a good and God pleasing thing to do. Throughout the bible we see many examples of faithful people who are celebrated for the things they do for God and others. No one is alienated because the success is enjoyed by the whole community. Nobody feels smaller by the accomplishments of others when each person knows that they are seen and that they are important. This biblical principle is very much at work here at Faith.
At the Year 12 formal, every student was cheered as they arrived. Every one was seen and celebrated. At our sport and culture awards, the values of teamwork, mentoring and dedication are recognized just as much as results. Every one is seen and their contributions are important. Our Year 12 final chapel was more about the leaders seeing and blessing the community than the graduating students being elevated. These events are a powerful witness to who we are and we all feel encouraged and that we have a place.
The bible says that we are important because we are God’s work. It’s OK to celebrate who we are and what we have accomplished because that too is God’s work.
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Psalm 139:13-14
We are all wonderfully made. Maybe we need to hear that afresh today. We have gifts and experiences that only we can use to serve God and bless others. As other milestone events take place over the next few weeks, it is OK to smile when another person gives us praise. It is OK to say, like God himself, I am valuable and beautiful. And we all say together ‘it is for God’s glory and by His power’.
Pastor Greg Fowler