Student: “This is hard!”
Teacher: “Good… you were made for it.”
Elizabeth Conde-Frazier, Dean of Esperanza College, explained this real-life interaction as she admonished a room of nearly 3,000 Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) National Conference attendees to “hold the benchmark high” for students, not just because it is right or good but because of the Imago Dei stamped on each one.
True to form, the 2011 CCDA did not disappoint in tackling hard topics and this year Education Reform took center stage. The energy in the Grand Ballroom at the JW Marriott in Indianapolis was palpable as teachers, administrators, pastors and ministry leaders, and ordinary Christians – a majority of whom are parents themselves – discussed the needs of our most vulnerable public schools. Throughout the discussion, a common thread emerged: we need to do something.
This thread was perhaps most acutely summed up in a statement from Jonathan Brooks, Senior Pastor of Canaan Community Church in Chicago’s West Englewood Community, when he said, “Yes, our public schools are failing our children but we’re also failing our public schools.” After eight years as a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools, Brooks knows this well.
The conversations around this topic were refreshing, and could not have happened in a better place. The fabric of CCDA is made up of diverse, humble servants who are motivated by the gospel to wrap their lives around the most vulnerable with a commitment to see “people and communities holistically restored.” Our public schools need the voices of this community, and it is evident the CCDA community is already speaking up.
Unlike Ms. Conde-Frazier’s student who sighed under the weight of a difficult task, the tone of my sigh as I left the conference was one of hopeful anticipation — a sigh that recognizes the reach of God’s grace through the nearly 3,000 servants represented in Indianapolis last week. To be sure, the effort to reform our public schools will be hard, but as Conde-Frazier made clear, let’s remember that we were made for this too.