Trinitas Blog

God is a good and forgiving God. His mercies are renewed to his people afresh every morning, and oh, how we rejoice! God’s people living in community with each other are called to imitate God, to love him and to love each other. Because we are fallen and imperfect people, not only do we sin against each other, but we also have trouble forgiving those who sin against us.

In spite of Christmas displays in the stores in October and continuous Christmas music on the radio since the day after Thanksgiving, it isn’t Christmastime yet. According to the historical calendar of the Christian Church, we are currently in the season of Advent. Taken from the Latin, adventus, meaning coming or arrival, Advent is the season leading up to Christmas that is symbolic of the world’s longing and waiting for the promised Messiah of God who would take away the sins of the world. Though it is often unobserved in Evangelical circles today, I want to offer just three reasons why we should consider observing Advent with our children.

The Trinitas community is headed into the home stretch leading into the 4th Annual LoveThyNeighbor: Great Day of Giving event on Friday of this week!

Again this year, just over 300 Trinitas students, parents, grandparents, and alumni will be taking a break from regular routines and partnering with a dozen or so local non-profit community partners in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties. The whole focus of the day is on loving our neighbors well. From kindergarteners, who will spend the day packing duffle bags with hygiene supplies for foster kids, to upper school students assisting with feeding the hungry in our community there will be plenty of love in action!

How about a quick look back at LoveThyNeighbor from 2019, 2020, and 2021?

Parents are in the business of working themselves out of a job. Think about it: from early in a child’s life, the role of parents is to prepare children to be independent. We train them to eat, use the restroom, brush their teeth, dress themselves, read and write, say please and thank you, and lots of other things before they ever lose their first tooth. It doesn’t stop there, of course. By the time they’re teenagers we’re making sure they can get themselves out of bed and to school or work on time, drive themselves around, make all the right friends, take the classes that lead them to the best colleges and then on to the best careers. All these things we do because we know they’ll be on their own soon, and we won’t be there to tell them what to do.

Graduation is such a special time in the life of young adults. In the present age, it has become arguably the most important rite of passage into adulthood. Eighteen-year-olds across the nation stand on a threshold: thirteen or more years of compulsory schooling is behind them, and the whole world lies ahead. Education, career, marriage, everything is ahead of them, and finally, they get to make their own decisions about where to go and what to do.

Our days are BUSY. Between work responsibilities, volunteering, taking care of the home, and transporting children to school and other extracurricular activities, the average parent has little “downtime”. Over the last two years or so, the Lord has impressed it upon our hearts to be more intentional with the time we have been given with our children. If we want our children to really know the God we love and serve, then it is our responsibility to model that to them in everyday moments.

The work Trinitas requires can put a strain on parents and students, but, as uncomfortable as it is to hear, that’s the way it ought to be. School should be hard. Why? Because hard work brings a profit (Prov. 14:23).

Think of something good. Is it easily acquired? Now something beautiful… Now true… The world our Father created yields its fruit only to laborers like the ant in Proverbs 6. Students who are allowed to grumble about memorizing an additional five vocabulary words or to roll their eyes when required to show all of their math work are being prepared to live life lazily.

Last week in this space, we considered how Trinitas is distinctly different in our classical pedagogy. This week, we’ll note together how Trinitas is distinctly different in our classical content and in our Christ-centered instruction. And, most importantly, how all of these things contribute to our distinctly different Christ-centered culture.

The next thing that makes Trinitas different is what we teach.