Trinitas Blog

Being in the Christian education business, one of the things I hear often from Christian parents is, We send our children to non-Christian schools so they can be salt and light to the lost children and teachers. Yikes! I want to suggest to those parents that they’re asking something nearly impossible of their young ones. In fact, if your Christian children are in a secular school, here are three reasons to get them out of there before they lose their faith.

The following is adapted from a faculty address delivered by Miss Cate Price at the induction of new members into the National Honors Society on December 13, 2024, at Trinitas Christian School.

Singling yourself out for honor is a risky business. Admission into the National Honor Society is a process that revolves around paradox. We ask that you be servant-minded individuals, who model a humility that does not sound your own praise to the heavens. And yet, on the same application page, I ask you to tell me why you deserve this honor. You had to ask someone to write you a letter of recommendation, in which they detail all the things about you that make you so great. Perhaps, some of you wondered if the application was a trick. Would it be better to turn it in blank? Obviously, you all chose to answer the questions (which was an appropriate thing to do by the way), but, in deciding to turn in the application and ask for admission into this society, you have essentially put a target on your back. You have come forward and asked for distinction.

Now, I am not saying that you should not have come forward for this distinction, but I do want to be forthcoming to you and to tell you what exactly happens next.

One distinguishing mark of God’s people should be thankfulness. Over and over again in Scripture we are exhorted to be thankful. James, our Lord’s brother, says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.” God has given us all that we have, all that we need, so it is only right that we should be eternally grateful to the One who has given us every good and every perfect gift, indeed, every thing.

The following is adapted from an address delivered at the Annual Parent-Board Forum by Pastor Jon Mark Olesky on September 9, 2024, at Trinitas Christian School.

Parents interested in bringing their children to Trinitas Christian School are often asked “What do you want for your children before you shoot them out into the world? What’s your greatest aim and desire for them as they move toward adulthood?” Questions like these and others like “Do my desires for my children align with God’s desires for my children? or “What is God’s will for my child’s life?” are worthwhile not only when beginning at Trinitas but also repeatedly as our children mature. As I hope we would all agree, helping our children do the will of God is the ultimate purpose of Christian parenting.

The following is adapted from a faculty address delivered at Convocation by Mr. Varela on August 16, 2024, at Trinitas Christian School.

Our theme for this year at Trinitas is love. Of course, love is a central theme in many of the stories you have read, and it will be a continual theme in your studies because it is a constant in the world God designed. Jane Austen writes of a love that grows over time between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice. In Little Women, Louis May Alcott gives the reader the heartbreak of unrequited love between Laurie Laurence and Jo March. Romeo and Juliet tells of a tragic love, courtesy of Mr. Shakespeare. These are all examples of romantic love. Since dating isn’t a part of our school culture, let’s lay that kind of love aside for now and think about love as it pertains to you, dear senior, and even you, seventh graders.

The following is adapted from an address delivered at Parent Orientation by Mr. Cowart on August 14, 2024, at Trinitas Christian School.

We gather together this evening for orientation. To be oriented. But what does that mean? Perhaps you came here this evening, expecting to hear from your child’s teachers about school supplies, textbooks, class schedules, homework procedures and the like. And, yes, we will get to all of that. But before we do, I want to take a few minutes to speak to you about a different sort of orientation. In the English language, the word “oriented” has four primary uses. It can connote interest in that someone is “oriented” toward a particular thing or activity. Or it can mean designed for, like, for instance, if an industry is “oriented” toward a particular market. Frequently “oriented” is used in terms of adjusting to one’s circumstances or surroundings as we do when we visit a foreign city or country. But tonight, I want to use “orient” in the sense of positioning oneself in relation to a fixed point. As a sailor of old would orient himself by the north star, I want to challenge all of us tonight to orient our school in the coming academic year by the fixed position of the Christian virtues of hospitality and healing.

When the time rolls around for us to talk to the teachers about how our kids have been doing at school, there are only two things we really want to hear: 1) they have been obedient, and 2) they have been cheerful about it. Don’t get me wrong—we love to hear that they are excelling academically or making great improvement in a particular subject. It is just that we care a lot more about how they are behaving at school than we do about what grades they are getting.

There are a few reasons for this. The first and most important is obviously that it honors God. A great education is a gift. But it is a gift that comes with a corresponding gift for sanctification.

I often find myself urging Christian parents to consider Deuteronomy 6:4-9 as a guiding principle for how they educate their children. One common objection to this assertion goes like this: We send our children to non-Christian schools so they can be salt and light to the lost children and teachers. If that’s what you think, I suggest what you’re doing is more like sending your lambs to slaughter.