At our school this year, we’ve been exploring the theme Fully Alive, based on John 10:10: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
The thief wants us to ignore parts of ourselves, but Jesus cares about the whole person - our bodies, minds, emotions, relationships and souls. The thief tries to pull things apart, but Jesus is putting us back together and calling us into a relationship with Him.
As we have explored this idea with our students, it’s been a challenge for the adults in the building as well. How can I speak about wholeness and fullness if I, myself, am not whole and filled with the Spirit? How can I give what I do not have? We all know the truth is that we cannot give what we don’t have, and an invitation to our communities to be fully alive in Christ means we also need to live into His fullness.
A call into abundant life and being fully alive with Christ can seem paradoxical - it actually means I may have to adopt habits and a lifestyle that may be difficult at first, but that can be life-giving. Once upon a time we used the word sanctification to understand this work being done in us - we are being made holy and called into holy living. Leadership is one big act of sanctification!
In the book Didn’t See It Coming, Carey Nieuwhof challenges leaders to think about how character shapes our true capacity to lead well. Nieuwhof writes:
Obviously, it’s a lifelong journey. The ancients called it sanctification, the process of being made holy, of separating yourself from the things that murder your soul. It’s the sometimes-painful work God does in your life, not because he hates you, but because he loves you. Paul knew his internal battle to do what he knew he should do was spiritual, and he believed the solution focused on Christ. Look at how he concluded that honest passage about his struggle: “Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Nieuwhof, 53).
Nieuwhof goes on to offer 3 simple, practical ways that we as leaders should practice sanctification:
He also emphasizes that this is a life-long journey, not something that can be completed as a checklist in a matter of days or even years.
As we have been processing what it means to be “Fully Alive” at DCHS, I asked our Art teacher what he thought his students would draw if they were asked to draw or imagine fully alive. He said “first, I would tell them they can’t draw someone with their arms outstretched, and they can’t draw trees.”
With my top two ideas scratched off the list, I pondered other imagery of being fully alive. I found myself first thinking about my children and their innocent enthusiasm for life right now. How when they learn a new skill or perfect something challenging, they seem to be full of life and excited.
My mind also wandered to the image of water and washing, perhaps because of baptism. And then I recalled one of my favourite stories from the Chronicles of Narnia.
In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the 5th book in the series, the book begins with the line “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” We learn that Eustace is greedy, arrogant and doesn’t get along well with the others. During their adventures, Eustace finds a dragon’s lair and is greedy for treasure. He puts on a gold bracelet and falls asleep. When he wakes up, he has been turned into a dragon. He quickly realizes he is cut off from his friends and feels a weight of loneliness and desperately wants to change.
After a few lonely days, Eustace encounters Aslan, the great Lion. He later describes to his friend Edmund what it was like to have his scales removed:
Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off ... And there was I, smooth and soft and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again...
God calls each of us to live a life fully devoted to Him. To be sanctified by his Grace and to model that for our communities.
How has God been sanctifying you so far this school year? How has it caused you to grow? How do you think this has impacted your school community?
Shannon Marcus is the Central Region Cohort Leader for Edvance, and Principal at Durham Christian High School in Bowmanville, ON.