“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,” was the now famous catchcry that was JFK’s challenge to the American people in his inaugural address in 1961.
The United States was at a time in history where there was great promise and opportunity, but there were also complex problems to solve. In 2023 Australia is in a place of unparalleled opportunity and prosperity, but there is undoubtedly complex problems to solve. Our focus on improving performance and gaining a materialistic advantage will not solve the problems we are faced with. On the contrary, if we continue to live for ‘me, myself and I’, we will miss the opportunities and indeed miss the whole point. We are not here to just improve our own personal standing. We are all called to be part of a community. Community could be defined as ‘the footy team’, ‘the neighbourhood’, the church’ or in our case ‘the school community’. As a community we are called to look out for one another: encourage, support, love, rebuke, guide, share, correct, rejoice, laugh and cry… all of it, is part of living in community.
Jesus modelled the way, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45) He didn’t come to acquire more stuff or to elevate himself at the expense of others. Jesus came to demonstrate to us the key to successful living, ‘serving and loving one another!’ What does this look like in practice? Well, I think we each need to work this out as individuals. Some days we do it better than others. Corporately, we must be focused on developing a culture where this is just what we do for one another. It is so hard for kids to hear the message because it is lost in the milieu of our self-focused culture, but when they do begin to ‘look out for others’, their world looks so much more positive. This is expressed in so many different ways: a team that works together to solve a problem; a class that hits a sweet spot and breaking through into a new level of understanding; a group of friends that work through conflict to get to a place of peace and forgiveness; the extension of a hand of friendship to those on the outer; the celebration of key moments of victory as a community etc.
When students engage proactively in community they begin to discover who they are; they mature as individuals; they begin to understand what it means to be fully human. There continues to be a wide range of opportunities for students to grow and mature, including: carnivals, camps, excursions, different levels of sport, classroom activities and groups that participating in the extensive co-curricular program. Our encouragement to parents is to help your child to get involved, to resist when a child wants to give up and to talk to someone if there is an issue blocking progress. It will take all of us to build a great community, but that is what we are called to do. God Bless!
