Cultivating Spiritual Formation

For the past few decades in Christian education, there has been a push to intentionally integrate academic content with Biblical truths. WCGS is grateful to be a leader in this field. In recent years, we have prioritized a discipleship model that encourages more intentional sharing of life-on-life. Dr. Roger Erdvig, a leader in Worldview thinking, calls a classroom like this the pedagogium. There, students and teachers share in authentic engagement learning together. This kind of classroom is not one in which lessons are merely delivered.

Last fall, a group of teachers attended a conference to collaborate on how to use Dr. Erdvig’s book Beyond Biblical Integration to strengthen our spiritual engagement within the classroom. In the spring, a larger group of teachers and administrators read the book together in a book study, and over the summer the full faculty and staff read it. Two of our in-services this year are focusing on Erdvig’s ideas, and teachers have built on their already strong integration of Christianity into the classroom in three areas: curricular changes, classroom patterns and habits, and the overflow of the Spirit working in their own lives into their students.

We have made several minor but meaningful enhancements to our curriculum after discussing how the best educational practices relate to Biblical immersion. Teachers reflected that they wanted to “create more unique moments where students could experience God.” Already this year, we have seen that take place. From meditative nature walks where students have reflected on the power and wonder of the Creator (Psalm 46:10) to providing more space and time for students to ask wondering questions of the Biblical text (Isaiah 40:8), teachers have intentionally shaped curriculum to better allow for a shared life-on-life experience.

Classroom culture at WCGS has always been a strength, from hallway greetings to classroom engagement. Yet teachers have become more intentional in how they implement the patterns and the language they use. In the past, some used strategies like simple countdowns or clapping to call students back to whole-class work. Now, many classrooms resound with Biblical truths where the teacher will declare phrases such as, “This is the day the Lord has made” and students will answer, “Let us rejoice and be glad in it!” (Psalm 118.24). Other teachers have modified classroom signs and bulletin boards to more explicitly call attention to Biblical truths. While the hallways have been known for the Scripture art by Timothy Botts, they also include seasonal attention to how being a Christian is like a pumpkin in His patch, chosen, cleaned out and made “holy,” with a light within to shine to others a transformed life!

One of the key marks of Biblical immersion is intentional life-on-life discipleship. When Mr. Brooke became Head of School, he gave the teachers and staff a vision of what this discipleship looks like by pouring water into a tower of water glasses. The water filled the cups and then spilled over, filling the ones below, symbolizing the overflow that we should have onto others as our “cups runneth over” (Psalm 23:5) with God’s love, mercy, and grace. Teachers have led the way by sharing their lives with one another and with students. From the joys of new births and God’s blessings to the hard news of cancer and struggles, teachers invited students into their life with Jesus in grade-appropriate ways to better illustrate how the highs and lows of life can be lived to the Glory of God through the lens of a vibrant Biblical faith. We continue to strengthen our intentionality with this commitment. For instance, junior high students have renewed opportunities to unpack spiritual lessons from chapel and specially designed lessons this year through their connect groups. All students experience this as teachers encourage them to speak life, to be digital disciples, to do hard things, and to use their academic, athletic, musical, theatrical, and other gifts for the flourishing of God’s good creation (Genesis 1). It would be too small to use these things for our own self-promotion.

All these examples can be encapsulated by our year verse. We continue to pray that students and families would move beyond the world’s conforming ways and allow ourselves to be transformed by renewing our minds, so that we might have the joy of experientially knowing what is God’s “good, pleasing, and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2)

By Eric Johnson, 6th Grade Teacher & Spiritual Formation Specialist