“Why do I love serving in a Lutheran school?” Hmmmmmmmmm, let me count the ways … Oh, forget that. I can’t count that high! Maybe that’s why God made numbers innumerable! Like counting my blessings, I could never even begin to enumerate all the reasons I love serving in my Lutheran school. So here’s a “top ten,” knowing that each day, the order and number would never be the same, as priorities, emotions, and circumstances change. But here are some of the reasons on this particular day and time that I love serving in a Lutheran school:
1) I share my Savior with children from all different backgrounds, family demographics, and faith formation levels. I see joy sparkle in their eyes as they, in turn, share His love with classmates and learn how to share it with family members, even those aggravating brothers and sisters.
2) I see that same joy light up the faces of young and old who see the children share their Savior in church services, chapel services, and musical performances.
3) I know the families of my students on a very personal level, understanding their family dynamics, praying with them and for them, sharing rides with them to church and Sunday School, and mutually encouraging each other with love and respect.
4) My students continue to teach me so much about my Savior, His love, and His forgiveness. Like the three purposes of the Law, they can be my mirror, curb, and rule, and do it in the most delightful ways.
5) Only at a Lutheran school am I given the privilege of designing chapel services for my class to lead so that they can help a fellow student through a difficult time – each student with a part and each part for a specific student and his/her needs.
6) With Jesus as the center and foundation of everything done in school, He gently led my class and me through the process of helping a classmate deal with the hospital and hospice care, death, and funeral of her mother. Staying here on earth to fulfill God’s plans for her after trusting her mother to Jesus’ arms continues to be a lifelong lesson for her, her classmates, her family, and her teachers.
7) Nowhere else on earth can I serve with more wonderfully devoted, cheerfully amazing, inspirationally supportive co-servants. While a majority of the world’s workers may dislike their jobs because of the conditions or coworkers, I get to serve in a warm and loving environment with people who are second only to my Savior in their love for their students and their willingness to serve.
8) The blessing of serving in a Lutheran school where congregation members have supported its mission for over 150 years is humbling and gratifying. Through times of war, civil unrest, economic downturn, and population decline, God’s faithful people have constantly kept His Great Commission alive as they pray for their school, volunteer in their school, and financially support their school.
9) Only in a Lutheran school do I get to be in on the fun of planning all the crazy celebrations and worshipful thanksgivings for Lutheran Schools Week, be it in January or March.
10) As a servant in a Lutheran school, I worship physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually with the thousands of other Lutheran school teachers, students, pastors, and staff across this nation and around the world that love and serve their Savior, the perfect SERVANT.
May our gracious and all-loving God continue to pour out His blessings on each and every Lutheran school and the congregations who support them!
