Wednesday Wisdom

As our school grows and matures, we are always doing new things at Regents Academy.One new thing we have begun this year is called “Wednesday Wisdom.”

Each Wednesday during lunch we gather the 7th-12th grade girls in one room and the 7th-12th grade boys in another room and talk about how to be wise. We are doing this for several reasons:

• First, the Bible exalts wisdom and emphasizes its absolute necessity. “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding” (Prov. 4:7; see also James 1:5).
• Children are by definition immature and need wisdom desperately; God does not want us to remain in our immaturity. Children in the teen years especially need wisdom if they will learn how to live with others in peace. Children do not come from the womb knowing how to resolve conflict, control their speech, act respectfully, or use their time wisely (if only they did!). Instead, children are born into the world with a natural tendency toward foolishness; it is the job of parents, teachers, coaches, pastors, friends, and heroes to give wisdom to children so that they will learn how to live a life that pleases God.
• Consider this definition of classical education: the cultivation of wisdom and virtue by nourishing the soul on truth, goodness, and beauty. This means that wisdom is not a secondary or optional matter, as if math is a requirement but being wise is an elective. Cultivating wisdom, rather, is central to the work of educators. Our very goal as a school is to join with you to train your children to be wise. The last thing we want to do is churn out smart kids who are skilled at scoffing at things God loves.
• Training children to grow up and be who God wants them to be is a big job – bigger than any one of us. That’s why it takes a community to work together to model, teach, and train toward godliness and maturity. In the book of Proverbs, it is always a wise father who is speaking to a son, the more experienced who is teaching the less so (Prov. 1:8, 4:1, 10:1). Our children need every source of biblical wisdom around to make a contribution. Together we can make an impact on our children that can be accomplished no other way.
• Finally, God has blessed us with a unique and precious culture in our school. This culture requires us to speak directly to many issues in our children’s lives that simply can’t be addressed in our curriculum. Regents students need to hear from someone they trust why it is not polite to whisper to a friend in front of another friend, why cliques are not loving, how to resolve a conflict, why rules are needful, and how to use words to build up a friend rather than tear him down. We are interested not just in the contents of our students’ heads but the contents of their character, the kind of man or woman they are becoming. We want to love them by showing them God’s way of being wise.

Beloved Regents parent, good friend, and former Regents teacher Kara Bertke has volunteered to meet with the girls, and I (Mr. Bryant) am meeting with the boys each Wednesday. We love these Regents students! We want to share the wisdom God has given us so that they will know better how to love God and their neighbor.

Please join us in praying that God will bless our school’s culture and that our students will grow in wisdom and love as they hear and heed God’s Word. God’s greatest and most gracious gift is His Son Jesus Christ, and if He has given us Christ, He will not withhold any other good gift. How we pray that the Heavenly Father will bless us to lead worthy lives before our students, and that He will give us the words we need to share with Regents students so that they will be wise!