Trinitas Blog

One of the toughest days for parents is their child’s first day of school. The event is especially difficult for mom. Let’s face it, there is something unsettling about handing your child over to a group of strangers who take her behind locked doors where you are not free to follow. Whew! The first day of school leaves more than a few moms feeling, well, is guilty the word I’m looking for here? One begins to wonder while driving away from the school, just what is the parents’ place in education.

If you have stumbled upon this blog, there is a good chance you are trying to make a decision about your child’s education. Should you send her to a public school like most everyone else you know, or should you spring for a Christian school? Make no mistake, this is one of the two or three most important decisions you will ever make. No pressure, right? If you are a Christian, there are a lot of reasons you should consider a Christian education over a secular one. Here are three that top my list.

When asked which is the “great commandment?” Jesus tells those gathered to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Then he says the second, which is like it, is to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Astonishing the hearers, Jesus confirms that all the law and the prophets can be summed up in those two commandments (Matt 22:36-40).

With increasing frequency technology makes such forward leaps that it can no longer be ignored. When was the last time you saw a horse drawn carriage plodding into town for the weekly shopping trip, for example? Automobiles are all the rage now! That example will be too dated for most readers, so how about this one: did you know that rural families in certain areas are now considered oppressed because of the lack of internet availability in their area? Before dismissing that as silly, consider all the services you access through the internet. Imagine a life without internet access in today’s wired (or is it wireless?) world. Most of us could hardly function if we were permanently offline because so much business is conducted online, not just generally through the internet, but more specifically on smartphones through the internet.

To the graduates in the Trinitas class of 2019, congratulations. To all the faculty at Trinitas Christian School, to all the parents of the graduates, and to the Trinitas Board— among whom I count many dear friends— well done.

I cannot tell you how pleased I am to be back in Pensacola again, where I and my family spent many happy years with the Trinitas community.

Have you ever noticed how a song can get stuck in your head? Sometimes I wake up in the morning with a song in my head that I haven’t heard or thought about for years. That seems strange to me, but memory works in some unexpected ways, I guess. A more expected way memory works with something like a song is in reminding us of a specific event—and sometimes even bringing back an emotion attached to the event.

Student: What do you think about students dating in high school?

Gibbs: Why date? Why not just get married?

Student: We’re obviously not old enough to get married.

Gibbs: So why date?

One of my favorite teachers sometimes reminds her class of nine-year-olds that they came into this world with nothing and that they would have nothing still if their kind and benevolent parents hadn’t given them everything they need. She usually issues that reminder to her students in the context of a pep-talk about taking proper care of their clothes, lunchboxes, backpacks, pencils, binders—you get the idea, but it also extends to care of their desks, chairs, books, and other non-consumable items they use at school. She refers to these items under their care as their little kingdoms. If they can take good care of those little kingdoms, they will someday be prepared to rule well over larger kingdoms—households, businesses, churches, and governments, for example.