Abide Master Plan

SECTION 2: REFLECTION QUESTIONS 6 Bold Godliness: Growing Character and Identity Before we can invite our students to be bold in their godliness, we first, must be bold. Our character, molded and developed as a direct result of our abiding in Christ, testified of Him. As our students face daily decisions, our responses and guidance can have a lasting impact on the decisions students make for themselves. The values that permeate an Adventist school seek to guide and provide a solid foundation for both now and the future. Showing Christ- like love at the core of how we interact, will impact student identity and character. As students interact with those in their school community, personal identity in Christ can be shaped. We are given this advice: “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous — how well I know it.” (Psalm 139:14, NLT) “Character building is the most important work ever entrusted to human beings.” (Ellen White, Education , p. 225.) “God takes men as they are... They are not chosen because they are perfect, but notwithstanding their imperfections, that through the knowledge and practice of the truth, through the grace of Christ, they may become transformed into His image.” (Ellen White, Desire of Ages , p. 294) “At the heart of Adventist education is the goal of empowering students to think and act reflectively for themselves rather than just to respond to the word or will of an authority figure.” (George Knight, Educating for Eternity , p. 110) REFLECTION QUESTIONS: We invite you to consider where you are and where you want to be in the context of the following questions. 1. How are (or how could) students and staff given opportunities to be bold about their faith? 2. How are students, teachers and non-teaching staff (or how could they be) given opportunities to make right choices in my school? Are students (and teachers and non-teaching staff) given opportunities to fail — and learn from their failures? 3. What opportunities do I (or could I) give my students to form and shape their identities as children of God and to develop their unique spiritual gifts? 4. How do I (or how could I) demonstrate a redemptive approach to discipline? 5. In what ways are intrinsic values the foundation for motivation (rather than extrinsic), or how could they be? 6. How do I (or how could I) model Christ’s character in the way I treat students and staff? How can this be improved? How do I (or how could I) model Christ’s character in the way I treat other staff members? How can this be improved?