Month 5: Are you smarter than an 8th grader?

A (belated) Merry Christmas to you all, my friends!  I hope that you all had a wonderful time with family and friends, and I pray that for most of you those two groups were one and the same haha.  As for me, an author that I have an immense respect for wrote a blog post on enjoying the holidays, and one of his recommendations was to eat lots of cookies.  #MissionAccomplished

As the title up there indicated, I want to put your intelligence to the test today.  I'm going to give you 6 questions from the 8th grade final, and I want you to see how you fare.  Don't worry-no one will judge you, so be honest.  I'll give you a hint:  All of these questions have to do with the Bible itself.

1.  What is the doctrine of inerrancy?

2.  What is the doctrine of sufficiency?

3.  What is the doctrine of clarity?

4.  What is the doctrine of necessity?

5.  What is the doctrine of authority?

6.  What do we need to do to hear from God everyday of our lives?

Click this for some inspiration:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3lLYOGDsts

Finished?  How'd you do?  For some of you *Matt*, this was probably a breeze!  For others of you *Everyone but Matt*, this was probably pretty challenging.  Well, fear not-I'm about to tell you all of the answers, and my prayer is that these answers will not just allow you to pass my class, but also to enter 2015 with a deeper love and hunger for the Word of God.

1.  What is the doctrine of inerrancy?  The doctrine of inerrancy is one of those things that many of you probably knew but were unable to articulate "correctly."  Here's a working definition for us:  Whatever the Bible speaks to, it speaks to with utter truthfulness with no falsehoods attached.  Think about that for a second.  2 Timothy 3:16 says that, "All scripture is breathed out by God..."  All scripture-even the genealogies and histories that modern thinkers love to pick over and throw out.  You will meet many a Christian who will say that Scripture is inerrant as far as (maybe) salvation and spiritual matters are concerned, but that we can no longer believe the more "miraculous" parts.  They would add a clause to our definition to make it more acceptable to our world.  Whatever the Bible speaks to as long as it keeps to spiritual matters and stays out of the realm of science and history it speaks to with utter truthfulness... Two things about that...1.  There is nothing more miraculous than the fact that a Holy God would sacrifice his perfect Son to save rebellious sinners.  2.  ALL scripture is breathed out by God, and the Bible speaks to and over all things.  It refuses to be boxed into a spiritual corner and give up its authority over the rest of the world.  If we can't trust the creation accounts, the story of the flood, and the parting of the Red Sea, then I'm afraid that we can't trust John 3:16 either.  Hold tight to this doctrine, my friends.  You're going to need it.

2.  What is the doctrine of sufficiency?  Simply put, the doctrine of sufficiency states that the Bible contains all that is necessary for knowledge of salvation and godly living.  In other words, everything that we need is there, and there is nothing more to be said.  Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses love to say that they respect the Bible, but that there is more to be said.  We, along with the testimony of scripture itself, say otherwise.  Jesus has come, died, risen from the dead, and ascended to heaven.  There is no more to be said.  How do you become a Christian?  Repent and believe.  How do you live as a Christian?  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.  The Bible does not need help from any other book or from the wisdom of man.  All that you need is in these pages.  

3.  What is the doctrine of clarity?  This doctrine is closely tied to the last one.  The doctrine of clarity states that all Christians are able to understand what God expects of them through the reading of his word.  Think about what I said up there about how to be saved.  Was that confusing?  Turn away from your sin and turn to Jesus.  Believe that his death and resurrection was all that was necessary for your salvation.  What about how to live?  Love God with all that you have.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  The Bible is not full of wisdom hidden from "ordinary" people and accessible only to "the elite."  The Bible is understood by all who will come and submit to it.  To be sure, NO ONE will ever understand ALL of the Bible, so if that is what you are waiting on, you can go ahead and stop now.  As Deuteronomy says, the secret things belong to the Lord.  The vast majority of the words of the Bible are easily understood, however, and many of the things that we don't understand will come to us if we faithfully study this book.  

4.  What is the doctrine of necessity?  All human beings need to be saved, and the means of salvation are found only in scripture.  There are people around all of us who need many things, but their deepest need is to hear the words of life that are found in Scripture alone.  They don't need wise sayings from Oprah or Mark Twain.  The words of Buddha or Sun Tzu won't cut it either.  To save us from our sins we need to hear the words of Scripture:  If you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  

5.  What is the doctrine of authority?  The Bible has the final say on all things that happen in this world.  Whenever I was grading these exams, several kids put, "God has the final say..." and I had to mark it wrong.  That answer is right, but it is not what I was asking them.  Do you see the difference? Scripture has the final say.  Scripture is not being set in opposition to God (how could it be?), but this doctrine is affirming something very crucial:  God has spoken through his word, and so to disobey his word is to disobey him.  It does not matter if you're a Muslim, a Hindu, or an atheist-this Bible stands in authority over you.  If you ever meet someone who claims to be a Christian but who claims to obey God INSTEAD of Scripture, then you have one seriously confused person on your hands.  To obey God is to obey his Word and vice versa.

6.  What do we need to do to hear from God everyday of our lives?  Oh, guys.  Please hear me on this one.  If you want to hear from God...the creator of all that is...the king of the universe...the one who dwells in unapproachable light...the one who was, who is, and who is to come...if you want to hear from him EVERY DAY OF YOUR LIVES....READ YOUR BIBLE.  The Bible is not a secondary form of revelation.  You don't have to open up the Bible everyday and say, "I sure wish a burning bush would appear, but I guess I'll settle for this old thing."  God's word is living and active, and his voice is waiting for you everyday.  Love this word.  Read this word.  Cherish this word.  Obey this word.  

God is ready to have a daily conversation with you in 2015.  All you have to do is open up the book and listen.  

Love you guys!   

Month 4: Plodding along (and that's a good thing)

"When asked the secret of his success, William Carey said that it was because he was a good plodder.  In his own words he said, 'Anything beyond this will be too much.  I can plod.  That is my genius.  I can persevere in any definite pursuit.  To this I owe everything.'"-Richard E. Simmons III, "A life of excellence"

Four months at Restoration Academy have come and gone, and I love that quote a little bit more everyday.  Plodding is not usually how we describe successful people, but in a ministry like this, it's the only way to travel.  Plodders get up every morning no matter what happened the day before.  Plodders pray like they expect (and desperately need!) God to move in their life no matter if they saw Him move or not yesterday.  Plodders love the kids even when the kids don't love them.  Plodders read and teach the word even if it seems no one is listening or has listened all week.  Plodders discipline.  Plodders share the Gospel.  Plodders endure.  

I am not yet a William Carey level plodder, but I long to be.  I think of my 8th grade students.  Right now, we read 2 chapters of the Bible a day, and I make them memorize 2 verses a week.  If all you look at is one day or one week, that doesn't seem like much.  But if you were to zoom out a year, you would see 360 chapters of God's precious word read, and you would see 75 some odd verses memorized. Zoom out a few more years, and if the Lord leaves me at Restoration, these students will spend several hundred hours in God's word reading it and memorizing it.  This is God's word-the one that DOES NOT (and CANNOT and WILL NOT) return void.  How do I make this happen in the lives of these kids?  By plodding along, one day at a time.  

How can I become a William Carey level plodder?  I had been pondering that question for awhile, and the Lord sent the answer via an "Ask Pastor John" podcast.  The question posed to Pastor John was, "How do I endure in ministry?"  The answer was simple-ask God to let you.  Go read John 14:13-14.  Jesus says to us, "Ask me for anything in my name!  Go ahead-ask away!  I'll do it so that my Father may be glorified!"  I want the Father to be glorified in the way I endure and plod along at Restoration, and I want you all to join me in praying for me, in the name of Jesus Christ, to endure.  Have no doubt, my friends-I expect the Lord to give explosive growth at Restoration one day, and I hope that I am there to see it.  It's just that, with very few exceptions, as we look back at the history of the church, what leads up to periods of explosive growth?  It's really simple:  a group of people faithfully plodding along and crying out to God to let them endure faithfully until he sends in the harvest.  I want to be one of those people, and I need your prayers to get there.  

Love you all!  

Things I need prayer for:  See above!

Students to pray for:  KD, Jokk, and AJ

Give praise for:  making it this far!  Strong relationships with faculty and kids

Month 3: Driver's Ed

Happy Tuesday, my friends!  I know that you all were worried about me since I didn't send out my highly anticipated monthly update on the last Sunday of the month.  Fear not!  I was a wee bit busy on Sunday, but I'm back in the game now!

What is it like to be a first year teacher?  I'm glad you asked!  It's a lot like learning to drive.  Now, some of you out there may have been born to drive like Ricky Bobby, but for me, driving was not something that I ever wanted to learn.  The fact that I didn't want to learn it may have had something to do with the fact that I wasn't very good at it, or maybe it was the other way around.  At any rate, when I think back to learning how to drive, I think of white knuckles, sweating, and a whole lot of frustration and fear on my part and on the part of my driving instructor (AKA my dad).  That's what first year teaching is like.  A whole lotta white knuckle, hanging on for dear life, abrupt stopping, panicked yelling, "No, not so fast!" excitement.  With all that being said, remember how awesome it felt that first time you took the car out on the road by yourself and, yanno, didn't die?  Remember how incredible that was?  Well, that's part of first year teaching as well.  Sometimes you take her out, don't get a scratch on her, and nail that parallel parking job (hopefully in front of a crowd).  What a feeling!  

In the classroom, October was a month of starts and stops.  Here comes donor day!  My plans come crashing to a halt for a week.  Alright, that's in our rear view mirror, so now let's get back to work!  Oops!  Here comes homecoming week.  Full stop.  Ok, now let's do this thing!  Nope, here comes fall break, so it's a half week.  Starts.  Stops.  Schedules and plans wrecked.  Through it all, God has been faithful to strengthen me, sustain me, and to give me little opportunities to share with kids.  Last week, we were discussing the role of works in our salvation in the 11th grade.  One student (who has recently had some behavior issues) kept insisting that he was right with God because of the good stuff that he had started doing.  He is one of our star football players, and his dad is a LOUD fan.  I asked this kid if he heard his dad cheering for him during the games.  He said that he did.  I asked him, "If it was third and three, and you knew that you were getting the ball, why would you want to get that first down?  Would it be to make your dad love you or to make sure that your dad kept on loving you?  Or would it be because you KNOW that your dad loves you and you love the sound of him going crazy over you?"  He smiled and said that it was the second one.  I told him that that was how God wanted him to view his performance for Him as well.  His face lit up, and he told me afterwards that that made sense to him.  The great thing is, while I'm teaching him, God is teaching me.  Why was it a big deal that I was able to explain this stuff to this kid?  Is it because I want his validation, or your validation, or because I want to make God love me?  No!  It's because he already DOES love me, and I love the sound of him saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant."  This job, you guys.  It's just the best (white knuckles and all).  

Praise for:  great sleep (can't stress how important this one is!), great camaraderie with the staff (ditto), and deepening relationships with the students.

Pray for:  the grace to completely kill my sarcasm in my class, compassion for my kids, and for the Lord to move in the lives of these three kids:  Khari Pugh, Antwuon Jones, and Jokk Hall.  

Love you guys!  

Month 2: Best Sub Ever

Hey guys!  Just wanted to take the time to update you on the latest at Restoration Academy.  As always, I'm happy to tell you more than I'm sharing here, but I want to give you all a little snapshot of life at Restoration that will, hopefully, inform and shape your prayers!  Also, in case I don't get to say this to you personally, thank you for praying for me!

I have seen a lot of growth this past month in the way that I discipline my students, and I know that this is a direct result of the Lord working in my heart as you all pray for me.  Again, thank you.  I haven't had any more chances to talk with Tim, but another teacher gets to meet one on one with him every week, so please keep him in your prayers!  I'll get to KD in a second, but Gerald and I are growing closer, so I ask that you keep on lifting up opportunities for me to connect with him on a deeper level.

So, about that substitute teacher....

If you and I have talked in depth about my time at Restoration Academy, you know that the 10th grade is my "favorite" class.  They talk way too much, and they are difficult to manage, but they have tender hearts and good attitudes.  They get excited to talk about the Word, and I just have a good time with them.  With all that being said, I have wanted to pull my hair out when I have been with them these past few weeks.  I have been trying to deliver what I thought were perfectly good lectures, and I have not been able to get them to sit quietly and pay attention.  Finally, on Tuesday, I gave up.  To kill the last 20 minutes of class, I told them to sit and read Matthew 26 and 27 to themselves.  I figured that this would be a way to hit the "reset" button and start again the next day.  My intention was for every student to read to themselves, but they insisted that they would enjoy it more if they read it out loud.  Wanting to keep the peace, I gave in and agreed that the class could read it together.  I would read 5 verses, and then I would call on students at random to read the next 5.

Well, as I'm sure you can guess, the results were incredible.  The kids paid attention, were eager to read, and, best of all, had some great questions based on God's Word.  After we read, one kid asked, "Mr. Wood, why didn't Jesus just get down off the cross?'  I told him that that was the most important question anyone could ask, and then the bell rang.  Encouraged, I started Wednesday with what turned out to be a wonderful discussion on that very question.  I realized that I've been so busy trying to teach the kids ABOUT the Bible, that I have neglected to expose them TO the Bible.  No matter how good my material is, no matter how good my delivery is, I am nothing compared to the Word of God unleashed in a classroom.  I confessed my sin of pride, and dedicated myself to reading the Word of God every day in all of my classes.  God is a way better teacher than I am, and I am excited to see what God does over the rest of this year as the kids get to hear Him, and not me, teach daily.  He gets to increase; I get to decrease.

Now, about KD.  I gave what turned out to be a very difficult test last Wednesday.  It was so difficult that I ended up giving the test again on Monday.  During that retest, I caught three of my students cheating, and KD was one of that three.  The fallout from that cheating has had some pretty profound implications at our school, and in the junior class specifically, but I'm not ready to go into all of that right now.  What I wanted to share with you about this situation is the way that God brought peace to me after it was all over with.  I was grading quizzes on Friday, and I was feeling pretty discouraged by the cheating that had occurred.  As it "just so happens," guess what the passage that I was grading said?

"3 What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? 4 By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written,

“That you may be justified in your words,
and prevail when you are judged.”

I had only graded 18 out of the 23 quizzes when I finally got the point.  Through the ups, downs, triumphs, and momentary setbacks, our God is faithful.  He will be justified.  His Word is eternal.   His word is powerful, and His word is good.

Praise:  Praise God for continued growth in my life as God shapes me through this ministry.  Praise God for His faithfulness to speak to the kids AND me through His word.

Request:  Pray for the junior class.  Pray that all of them would see the high cost of sin, and that they would measure the faith they claim against what their lives look like.  Pray for salvation to come to them.  Pray also for my relationship with a senior named John.  Ask the Father to grant me opportunities to encourage him and to pour into him.

Love you guys!

Month 1: Rats in the cellar

As a wise man once said, "Don't use a quote to introduce a parapgraph; it's so cliche."  Even with that being the case, I hope that you will permit me to use a long quote here at the beginning of this blog post.  This is the best way of describing my first month teaching at Restoration that I can think of, and it comes from C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity."  Lewis writes:  

“We begin to notice, besides our particular sinful acts, our sinfulness; begin to be alarmed not only about what we do, but about what we are. This may sound rather difficult, so I will try to make it clear from my own case. When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is  some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed.  And the excuse  that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected: I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself.  Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular  acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated.  On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly.  But the suddenness does not create the rats:  it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man:  it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am.  The rats are  always there  in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light.”-C.S Lewis, Mere Christianity

If you were to ask me what I've learned my first month of teaching, I would say this:  I have a lot of rats in my cellar.  

Just so we're all speaking the same language, let me set out the particulars of my job:  I teach 8th-11th grade at Restoration Academy, and the school, which has 290 k-12 students, is located in Fairfield, Alabama.  I teach "The character of God" to the 8th grade, "OT Survey" to the 9th grade, "NT Survey" to the 10th grade, and "Biblical Ethics" to the 11th grade.  Restoration is a Christian school, but I mean that in the sense that all of the faculty are Christians, and we are trying to reach our students with the Gospel-the vast majority of whom are NOT Christians (thought they would profess that they are.).  I am one of two Bible teachers, and the other, Sam Cargo, teaches 7th and 12th grades as well as overseeing the spiritual development of the entire school and of the the faculty.  

I want to send all of you faithful prayer warriors a monthly snapshot of what's happening Restoration, but I don't want this to be a kind of day by day log of the previous month.  That would be tiresome to write and worse to read.  I would be happy to give you that if you wanted it (individually haha), but for the sake of brevity (ha!), I'm going to just keep this to more of my impressions rather than my daily activities.  This month:  rats.

They tell you when they hear that you've accepted a teaching position that "It's going to be the hardest thing you've ever done."  4 weeks into my teaching career I can say that "they" are absolutely correct, but in my case the difficulty has come from within rather than without.  I have not found the act of teaching too be difficult, though I will admit that I am more tired than I have ever been before.  I have not found the act of preparing lessons to be where the difficulty lies; that has actually been great fun thus far.  Even classroom management itself, my greatest area of concern going into the year, has not been as hard as I feared it would be.  (Hear me well:  all of these areas, and countless more, are only doable thanks to continuous prayer, so please continue to lift me up in these ways.)  No, what has made this "the hardest thing I have ever done" so far is that my heart, the heart that is supposed to be teaching these kids, is full of rats, and our Father has started the process of showing them to me.

When a kid sleeps in class, am I angry because he is hurting himself or because he is ignoring ME?  When a kid rolls his eyes at me, am I upset because he is breaking God's laws or because he is disrespecting ME?  Am I driven to weeping over the darkness that these kids find themselves in or frustration because they don't get my cool lessons?  Am I driven to my knees over the hardness of their hearts or do I just send them to the office for someone else to deal with?  Am I willing to take the time to discipline with love and the Gospel, or do I just punish them and move on?  Friends, I confess to you that far too often it is the latter.  As our principal told us, aren't we so grateful that our heavenly Father doesn't discipline us the way we discipline others?  He never gives up on us or gets tired of how many times he has to explain something to us.  I am learning so much about myself in this job, and the news is both worse than I expected and better than I hoped.  I am in desperate need of the gospel on a day to day, class to class, moment to moment basis.  Without Christ, I am as prone to wander as any of these kids, and I am not the patient, loving person I imagined myself to be.  That's the bad news.  The good news?  As I have preached grace to these kids, I have heard the Father say to me:  "There's plenty of grace for teachers at my cross as well."  

Pray for:  discipline.  Pray that I would learn to discipline in love; pray that I would have discipline in my own life with time, preparation, and my diet and exercise.  I need to be at my best physically as well as spiritually in this job.  Pray that I would not just see these "rats" in my life, but that the Lord would move me to exterminate them.

Praise:  Praise the Lord for moments of clarity with students as I have explained a gospel concept, and they have understood it.  Praise the Lord for incredible co-workers to labor alongside.

Students:  Pray for KD, Gerald, and Tim.  The Lord is working in all 3 of their hearts; pray that salvation would come to them soon.  

Grateful for you all!