This was a productive summer. I’m actually pretty proud of myself for adopting a new skill: an appreciation for soccer. With the FIFA World Cup in the U.S. this season, I was determined to figure out what the rest of the world liked so much about this sport. By force-feeding myself FIFA-level soccer, I gained an appreciation for it: the artistry, the players’ conditioning, and the fan engagement. But what I really loved was seeing our country through the eyes of so many people who came here for the World Cup.
According to news reports, many of them came with wary eyes, given what they had seen in their own local media. They were expecting hostility and political divisiveness. They were pleasantly surprised. In an AP article, Harry Gunns from London (his actual name- sounds American, maybe East Texa) said visiting for the World Cup was the first time he experienced “hospitality in its absolute abundance,” from Uber drivers to hotel staff. “It almost feels like you’re home straight away; it’s the best way I can describe it,” Gunns said. “Because in the U.K. specifically, it takes a while for people to warm up to you, but over here you get that immediately.” Plus, they LOVED Ranch dressing, Buc-EES, and the fact that everything is enormous.
As we celebrated our nation’s 250th anniversary this summer, it struck me how precious what we have is, and how important it is to protect it.
Even more importantly, however, I had several experiences this summer that drove home how precious a thing we have at Grace Community School, and that we have to be strong and courageous to protect it. Last week I was talking to the executive director of CESA, our accrediting body. I was discussing with her the process by which we take teachers from all different backgrounds and teach them to teach from a biblical worldview. She responded, “When I visited your school, I knew you all were coherent in your messaging. I saw it in your culture. But, I didn’t have any idea how intentional you were in equipping your teachers to teach Christianly. I don’t know of other schools in CESA that are this intentional.”
I saw that intentionality play out in the lives of our new teachers at their annual orientation last week. Every year, it’s an amazing blessing to see seasoned veteran teachers understand, for the first time, what Christian education is all about. I love reading the “I used to think…I now believe” reflections of our teachers after they’ve begun this process. “I used to believe Christian education was the same as public school, but with prayer and Bible study. Now I realize God’s Word speaks to everything we do as a school.” I get excited for them, because everyone who teaches as Grace had that moment when we realized, “Man, God really does care about and speaks to everything I’m teaching and how I’m teaching it. That’s amazing!” And, then, I get doubly excited because I know what that knowledge and passion are going to look like when they’re unleashed on our kids.
Speaking of that, last Thursday night I had the opportunity to speak to our new families at new parent orientation. And, I usually finish that talk with some testimonials of our alumni. I normally contact about 6 or 7 of them and ask if they’ll give me a testimonial of what they would like new parents to know about their time at Grace. No one has ever turned me down or said they’re too busy. They’re excited to talk about their experiences at this school, and how God met them here, and how you impacted their lives, and changed them forever. And, by the way, every single one of their emails and texts are extremely well-written. They all went to different colleges and universities. The common denominator in their writing was you.
Finally, I was talking to one of my friends this past week, who was expressing frustration at a sermon she heard recently. While she appreciated the general points of the sermon, she was bothered by the idea that one has to leave one’s job to “do mission work” and that the preacher “sacrificed his dream to do what he really wanted to do in order to become a pastor.” We talked about how grateful she is for the graduates of this school and how, for them, “I don’t have time to do ministry because of work” is not a meaningful concept. Work is ministry, marriage is ministry, kids are ministry, hobbies are ministry, and life is worship. Our students understand that their life is their calling, and they’re always on mission because of how Grace taught them to reason and think.
These things the Lord has given us are so precious, and we need to protect them.
We’re in a time of growth and expansion in our school. TEFA, school choice, is changing the equation, making Christian schooling accessible to more Christian families than ever before. We have 225 families at our school this year who are eligible for TEFA funding. While the vast majority of those families are existing Grace families, many are new.
As we begin testing this semester for upcoming capital expansion, we’re beginning to explore building out our master plan, work that will ultimately give us capacity for grade levels of 100 students, which we’ll have to plan and scale up for over the next few years. This year, we’ve added a Mother’s Day Out program in Tyler and additional students on our early education campuses. This will eventually provide students who will feed into the K-12 program and into Grace U.
In our most recent strategic plan, we had as an initiative to build out a network, allowing us to expand our mission by coming alongside Christian schools in other towns in East Texas to provide intellectual capital and resources to help them continue to flourish and grow, as well as coming alongside churches and people in other areas in East Texas where Christian education doesn’t exist to help plant Christian schools. This summer, we received a grant from a local foundation to hire Sarah Cumming, formerly of Promise Academy, to launch what we’re calling the Illuminate Network to make that goal a reality.
In all of these ways, God is growing Grace, the Lord pressing into all of us to draw strength and courage from Him in this season. That’s why we believe God was calling us to be strong and courageous, the theme for the 2026-2027 school year.
In Joshua 1, Moses, who has led the Israelites faithfully for 40 years, has died. They are mourning, and Joshua, who has been left and equipped by Moses to lead after he has passed, is left. Joshua is obviously concerned about the future, about his ability to lead the Israelites, and how they will fare in the new land they’re entering. God appears to Joshua and speaks to him:
2 “Moses my servant is dead… 5 No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. 7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success[a] wherever you go. 8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
God encourages Joshua with several things, ideas that I think are helpful for us as we enter this new season in our school’s history, a season that, like Israel at this time, brings both excitement and challenges.
- God tells Joshua, “Moses, my servant, is dead.” – The era of Moses is over. Often, we want to return to some day we’ve created in our minds as the “good old days,” when life was better than it is now (that’s a fiction created by our tendency to forget the hard in our past; every time in our past was filled with both victory and defeat). God is making the point that you can’t go backward. We can’t return to yesterday. It’s time to move forward.
- “I am giving the land to you”—I am doing the work in you. God tells them, “You’re not responsible for the outcome. I am.” Your success in whatever God calls you to does not rely on your human frailty, your timidity, your trepidation, your fear, or your motivation. God says, “It’s on me, and I’m all-powerful and unchanging. I never get tired, and I’m afraid of nothing.” That’s a tremendous source of courage and rest as we move forward in our calling.
- “I will be with you. I will not forsake you.” – God promises His constant, unyielding, unconditional presence. Even on days when you’re tired. Even when you don’t necessarily hear God’s voice or feel His presence. He is with you always. He will never leave you.
- “Be careful to do all the law had commanded you; do not look to the right or the left, or let it depart from your mouth.” God invites us to press into Him. He calls us to be steadfast, to persevere in following Him. He says, “Never take your eyes off of me. Meditate on my word day and night.
And in all of these things, God calls Joshua to be strong and courageous. In the context of Grace, and all we are doing as we face growth and changes ahead, being strong means standing firm in the Lord, true to our mission, with an unrelenting focus on what He’s called us to do. And being courageous means being prepared to grow, to change, and to adapt to who we need to be to be ready for these people and these new contexts God is bringing us into.
One of the great theologians and pastors of the 20th century, John Stott, urged modern Christians to engage in what he called “double listening”—listening to God’s Word, treating it with total humility and respect, and looking to it for guidance and evidence of God’s character. And listening to culture around us with care, love, and a sharp mind. Double listening allows us to apply ancient faith and truth to the needs of modern life.
We have to be willing to put to death old ways of doing things and learn the new, which is change and always scary for most people. But that’s our calling—to be both strong AND courageous.
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