Pot's Ponderings: We Are What We Love

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the Christian Schools Canada Conference in Victoria, B.C. It was good to meet with Christian school leaders from across the country, attend some meaningful workshops, enjoy a beautiful setting and be challenged by the keynote speaker, James K. A. Smith. I received a copy of his most recent book, Imagining the Kingdom, at the conference.

The ideas that he writes about and that he presented at the conference resonate deeply with me, as they get to the heart of why Christian schools exist in the first place. But they also challenge many of our assumptions regarding what a school should be. Here are a few nuggets of wisdom that I gleaned from the speaker that I found particularly thought provoking.

   1.     Humans are lovers. We are defined, not so much by what we think (believe), but by what we love.

   2.     A Christian education should capture the imagination, not just inform the intellect.

   3.     How we teach is just as important as what we teach.

   4.     The primary goal of Christian education is the formation of a peculiar people—a people who desire the kingdom of God and thus undertake their life’s expression of that desire. - James K.A. Smith