Opening Chapel

It's a Trinity tradition for our seniors to escort our youngest class (Transitional Kindergarten) from the Lower School to the gym and our Opening Chapel. Here is senior dean, Marlyn Thompson, and TK Aide Bethany Schneider, with both classes (the rest of the seniors were waiting at the gym). Student Body President, Nikki Behnke is holding the school banner.

I love this picture. It shows so graphically the distance a Trinity student travels across thirteen or fourteen years. And I think it's great that the seniors are smiling as much as the little ones.

About the other picture: Cooper, my son's dog, paid a visit to our Opening Chapel. We were reflecting on our school verse (Psalm 24:1) and what it means to belong to God. Cooper, who belongs to our family, did a great job of coming when I called him and running back to my wife, Desiree, when she called him back. A great picture of what it means for us, as the psalm says, to seek the Lord. We belong to God twice: first by his creation of us (and everything); second by our redemption, as we trust in him. Cooper's loyalty to our family and our care for him--not a bad picture of our covenant relationship with the Lord, Strong and Mighty. The only downsides? Cooper's indecorous pose in the middle of the gym. And the fact that several families responded with a "Thanks a lot! Now we'll have to get a dog."

At last night's board meeting and again at the opening staff meeting this morning, we took up Psalm 24 one more time and prayed the prayer inspired by the end of Psalm 24: Lift up your heads, you gates, that the King of Glory may come in. Trinity is not Jerusalem, but we are a community that is a meeting place for diverse Christians, and our prayer is that God's glory will enter into our school yet again this year and fill every space, every heart, every relationship. Here's to a great school year!