One of my favorite memories from the years Kim and I lived in St. Louis took place on Good Friday at the Chinese church we attended. For the Good Friday service, our church always combined all three congregations – English, Mandarin, and Cantonese – and my friend Roger and I were asked to lead worship. I was a bit nervous about the songs we selected because, needless to say, some songs don’t always land right in three translations. During the first song I could tell it wasn’t that great, but then we transitioned to the wonderful old hymn, O Sacred Head Now Wounded.
It was like heaven.
English, Cantonese, and Mandarin voices simultaneously belted out three translations of a hymn originally written in medieval Latin: “What language shall I borrow to thank thee dearest friend?” I was so overcome that I couldn’t keep singing. What a foretaste of Revelation 7, when one day we will join “all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne…crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God!’”
I am incredibly excited about our theme this semester, which is also one of our Expected Student Outcomes (ESOs): Explore God’s Diverse World.
As a missionary kid, this is a theme especially near to my heart, and I count it as a great privilege to be able to speak to kids about it in all of the opening chapels of the year. So you can effectively partner with us in this theme this semester, below is what we have been talking through thus far.
1. God’s wisdom is kaleidoscopic.
In Ephesians 3:7-13, Paul reflects on how incredible it is that he of all people – a Pharisee, a Jew, a murderer of Christians – has been chosen to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. And then he states that through this gospel the church will be used incredibly by God to make known the manifold wisdom of God. Manifold wisdom. It’s a really strange word; in fact, it’s the only time that word is used in the Bible. It means “multicolored,” like a garment or a painting. I like to think of it as “kaleidoscopic.”
Think for a second about the incredible work of God, through a great diversity of people, in bringing his redemption to the world through Christ. He used a poor, malnourished, teenager to birth the Savior of the world. He used some crazy guys and their paralyzed friend, crazy enough to break through someone’s roof, to teach about the power of forgiveness. He used a hot-headed fisherman to lead the early church. He used a eunuch from Ethiopia to spread the gospel into the African continent. He used a Centurion – an highly-ranked officer among the oppressors, to spread the gospel. The list goes on and on. God’s work is often done through a kaleidoscope of individuals, working together with unity of purpose, to bring his Kingdom to earth as it is in heaven. It’s a marvel.
2. Your story matters, because it is a part of God’s story.
So often we forget that as we seek God, we join this story – this manifold work of wisdom – too. And it’s not in spite of our stories; it’s often because of them. Mary’s background mattered in the story of redemption: she proclaimed that “God has filled the hungry with good things.” Paul’s background mattered: he proclaimed that “God’s power is made perfect in weakness.” The Ethiopian eunuch’s story mattered: who else would be better suited to spread the gospel up the Nile to Aksum?
CHA students represent dozens of different cultures. We are Korean, South African, caucasian, Indian, Vietnamese, Ukrainian, African American, Haitian, Polish, and Canadian. We represent over 100 churches in Chicagoland. Think of the impact that the children of our school can have on the world in light of the stories and heritages and cultures and perspectives that they represent. Our stories matter. They are a part of what God is doing and will do through us.
3. The story of those around you matters, too – so be curious!
Living in a diverse context is not always easy, even in the church. We cook a good amount of Chinese food in our house, and I vividly remember one of my kids being pretty upset during her first week of school in the United States because another kid at her lunch table told her her food “smelled gross” and was “nasty.” I know that comments like these sometimes happen in CHA’s lunch room, too. Our students can be insensitive in their comments about hair or about clothing or about language. We’ve heard it, and we’ve addressed it.
Often our default, even as adults, too, is to look at differences as a threat. But this often results in hurt feelings, and foundationally it fails to acknowledge that God’s people, while united in faith, are not all the same. The antidote to this, as we’ve already begun expressing to our students this year, is wonder and curiosity. Psalm 24:1 days, “The earth is the LORD’s and everything in it; the world and all who live in it.”
If we see the earth as God’s and all its people as loved by God, the most appropriate response to the world around us is wonder. We should be amazed at what God does, in his “manifold wisdom,” through the lives and experiences of others.
So how can you as parents partner with us in our goal this semester of exploring God’s diverse world? Here are three suggestions:
- Tell your story. This semester throughout Lower School we are replacing our weekly “Mystery Readers” with a fun, new initiative called “Your Story Matters.” Stay tuned for how parents can come into our Lower School classes and tell their family’s story. You’ll have a chance to share with our students about the generations of your family, their occupations and their adventures, and how God has worked through that story to bring your family to where it is today.
- Introducing CHA’s first Flavor Fest. As a culmination of our theme, we plan to host, in January, the first annual CHA Flavor Fest in which families can bring a dish or coordinate an activity related to their heritage, celebrating how God has worked in their family by bringing them to CHA and, ultimately, to have an impact on his world. Stay tuned for more!
- Work to foster a sense of loving curiosity in your kids. When my family lived briefly in Park Ridge we attended a block party. It was the first block party I’d been to, so I was excited. We had a fire truck stop by and everything. I spent the entirety of the time asking all the neighbors I could find questions. I asked about their families, their relatives, their jobs, their kids, their heritage, the works. Kim couldn’t go, and when I came home she asked me how it went. I told her it was the strangest party I’d been to: while I could tell the story of everyone on our block, no one knew a thing about me. No one had asked me any questions! No one knew where I was from, anything about my job, or anything that I enjoyed. They just knew which house I was in and who my kids were. I was shocked!
Sometimes, for whatever reason, we like to just keep our stories to ourselves. But in doing so, we miss out the beauty of God’s manifold wisdom. We miss out on the fact that the earth is the LORD’s, and everyone in it. So this semester, let’s try to model that wonder and curiosity for our kids, exploring God’s incredibly diverse world together.
—J.T.