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Engaging Minds, Transforming Lives

Imagine What it Would be Like to be a Graduate of Trinity Christian School

April 28, 2023
By

Picture the Possibilities. Look far down the road. Imagine, if you will, what it would be like to be a proud graduate of Trinity Christian School. . .


Many of our Trinity students embark upon their TCS experience at the very beginning—in preschool. Still, many others transfer in as new students across all grades, K-12.


So picture yourself, or imagine your child, (or grandchild) at 17 or 18. What would being a TCS graduate mean? Who would you be? How would your world be different?


To begin, consider Trinity’s goal for all of its graduates: to love God, love others, love learning, think and communicate clearly and with confidence, engage culture, delight in beauty, and to walk humbly.


We believe with these attributes, TCS graduates are well-prepared for a Christ-centered future of success, service, and happiness.


Now, let’s take a deeper dive as we picture YOU as a Trinity graduate!


YOUR LOVE OF GOD


“We love him, because he first loved us.”
— 1 John 4:19

TCS is a Christ-centered classical school committed to partnering with parents to engage young minds and transform the lives of students for the glory of God. We seek to find our place in God’s creation and His story of redemption in a fallen world. This draws us into an honest pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty.


With this focus, every single day, a student learns to submit to God’s glorious authority in his or her life and cultivate a transformative life of prayer. TCS students seek to know the heart of Christ and be transformed into his likeness. They value participation with a local church body, and regard all work as a grateful response to the Good News of Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior.


As you imagine yourself as a graduate of Trinity Christian School, these are the core, bedrock Christian values you will carry with you throughout life.

 


YOU LOVE OTHERS


“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” 
— John 15:12-13


As you imagine yourself as a proud Trinity Christian grad, one attribute you will most certainly possess in great abundance is the capacity to love others. You see, this is part of our fundamental ethos at TCS. Every day, we instill the core value in our students to dignify and respect all people as made in the image of God. Each day, our students are taught to practice hospitality, utilizing his or her own God given gifts and resources whenever possible. We instill a philosophy of a life pursuant of service leadership. We inspire students to protect the weak and oppressed. We teach every child to honor authority in thought, word and deed. And these are not just mere words for a blog, we see these acts of kindness and compassion in action every day at TCS. When you graduate, these attributes will be sewn into your very fabric. Imagine it…


YOU LOVE TO LEARN


“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”
— Plato


Learning can and should be fun. The fundamental problem with institutionalized, rote education is that the end result is many students dread going to school. Imagine being a Trinity Christian Graduate, prepared to go out into the world with a deep-seated love of learning and a foundational curiosity for life, beauty, and knowledge. This is you as a TCS grad!


All across our integrated curriculum, our extra-curricular activities, and our many off-campus excursions, we guide students to value learning as a lifetime pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty. Students delight in all subjects and disciplines with wonder and awe for the Author of them.


We guide students to undertake with confidence challenging subjects and to read carefully, critically and copiously. As a Trinity grad, you will always seek to understand both sides of an argument with intellectual honesty. You will exhibit a mastery of subjects and excellence in academic pursuits. And recognizing the mind/body connection, you will be physically trained for health, fitness, and strong mental health as a result.


YOU THINK AND COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY


“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”
— Psalm 19:14


   
Professor Carmine Gallo of Harvard University, who is also a highly sought after keynote speaker, and the author of 10 books translated into 40 languages, states that transformational leaders are exceptional communicators. He states: “Ideas are the foundation of success in almost every field. You can have the greatest idea in the world, but if you can’t persuade anyone to follow your vision, your influence and impact will be greatly diminished.”


Look at the gospel of Jesus Christ. In Reverend Thomas Alexander Hyde’s critically acclaimed book, Christ the Orator, he referred to Jesus as “The Orator of the Universe.”


As we aspire to live and walk in the image of the Lord, let us recognize the vital importance of thinking and communicating clearly and effectively.  


Across all grade levels at Trinity Christian School, we work to instill confidence in our students, to remind them that their ideas, their voices, their opinions matter. And we ask them to share these thoughts. Often. 
Students at TCS blossom quickly as critical thinkers and skilled public speakers simply from daily practice.


At all levels, we guide students to listen actively and to ask probing questions. We instill in them the idea of what it means to truly think clearly and to discern what is true and right. Students at TCS apply Biblically-informed wisdom to all their thinking and are encouraged to be thoughtful, meditative, and reflective. Moreover, to think, write, and speak clearly crosses over to the entirety of the LIberal Sciences, setting students up for a lifetime of success.

 


YOU ENGAGE CULTURE


“A nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.” —Mahatma Gandhi.


As you gaze down the highway of life, imagining yourself (or your child) as a Trinity graduate, you will encounter a worldly, well-rounded, thoughtful individual. Through the close study of theology, philosophy and literature, you will have a deep understanding of the progression of Western thought, all the while applying a Christian worldview to your personal and cultural ponderings. You trust in authority, clarity, necessity, and sufficiency of Scripture. You view the career path as a vocation from God and a service to His Kingdom. Each day, you are faithfully present in the world, living in the moment, even amidst any hostility or ambivalence to Christian faith. As a TCS grad, you engage with culture, question it, think about it critically, discuss it intellectually, and foster a curiosity that stays with you for life.


YOU DELIGHT IN BEAUTY


“Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for Beauty is God’s handwriting.” 
— Ralph Waldo Emerson


As the image of you as a TCS Graduate comes into focus, you begin to see all the integrated components of the Trinity experience forging an exceptionally well-rounded, well-educated, compassionate person prepared to move on into the world!


It is important to note that all TCS students are taught from day one to live a life of gratitude; to recognize and love, deeply, the beauty as displayed in God’s miraculous creation. You value God’s common grace to humanity via the arts and in society. You now possess the aesthetic sensibility to discern beauty in the arts. As a Christian, you promote, vociferously and with joy, what is beautiful!

 


YOU WALK WITH HUMILITY


“It is important that we learn humility, which says there was someone else before me who paid for me. My responsibility is to prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who is yet to come.”
— Maya Angelou


We learn from Scripture to embrace humility as the root of all virtue. Imagining yourself as a Trinity graduate means you understand that virtue is Spirit-led as a result of God’s grace alone. A Trinity graduate demonstrates genuine growth in fruits of the Spirit for the good of others. You, as a TCS grad, seek wisdom every day from godly counsel. You recognize that you are part of a community and seek accountability. You pursue respectful decorum in speech, attitude, and demeanor. Daily, you practice discipline in the training of the mind, body, and spirit.


As you graduate from Trinity Christian School, you are prepared for success, but true success only manifests when we remain humble to our Lord and Creator.


IN CONCLUSION. . .


You have imagined yourself as a proud graduate of Trinity Christian School. You now see the broad range of educational, spiritual, and practical skills and attributes that you have acquired in your time at TCS. You love God, love others, love learning, love to think and communicate clearly and with confidence. You engage culture, delight in beauty, and walk humbly.


You are ready for the next step in life, all through the glory of God.


Your next step?


Give us a call today to learn more or to book a campus visit or shadow day: 808-262-8501 or visit www.tcskailua.net

The Lost Art of "Sweeping the Shed"

April 09, 2021
By Kathy Katoa, Secondary Teacher

How is it that the tiny island country of New Zealand with a population of just under 5 million people can produce the winningest professional sports team in the world? The All Blacks, the kiwi national rugby team have a lifetime winning percentage of 77%, which is unparalleled in any professional sport.  Why?  In my coach’s and Christian opinion, it is because they practice ‘sweeping the shed’ both literally and figuratively, on and off the field. 

What is ‘sweeping the shed’ exactly?  This is an attitude made popular by the All Blacks that characterizes humility, servanthood, and merit.  And just to be clear, it is the opposite of entitlement and equity.  These professional, well paid, elite athletes take the time to thoroughly clean the locker room at both home and away games with the goal of leaving it better when they arrived.  Post-game, they are exhausted, beat down, bruised and many times bloodied, yet still find the strength to honor and serve each other, the facility, and themselves by humbly scrubbing, wiping, and sweeping the locker room until it is spotless. (Do you know how many tiny blades of wet grass and mud make it into the average locker room after a rugby game?)  How does this translate to the field?  These fierce (and they are fierce if you have ever seen them play… or even warm up for that matter…can you say, Haka?) competitors play to win but never sacrifice their character in doing so. Their attitude is, as I honor and serve my teammates, trainers and coaches, we all win.  I am not in it for myself or personal glory.  I am owed nothing.  I am grateful for this opportunity. I know that it can be taken away at any moment.  My part, no matter how small, is vital to my team’s success.  As my brother succeeds, so do I.

Jesus modeled ‘sweeping the shed’ when He washed his disciples’ feet.  We are talking the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords washing (a servant’s job, mind you) the filthy and smelly feet of his 12 disciples, his last day here on earth.  If that isn’t humility, love and servanthood, I do not know what is.  He even tells us, after he is done washing, in John 13:15-17,  I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.  Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.  Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

Sadly, in a world of entitlement and equity, ‘sweeping the shed’ is somewhat of a lost art.  I am grateful for the All Blacks, one of the few living examples of it still out there.   I am also proud to say that Trinity athletics, although not the biggest nor the best has done an amazing job in training up our student athletes in this same attitude. (ever meet a TCS athletic alum?…quality! In fact, I have one as my assistant coach this soccer season!)  In TCS athletics, we focus on character, developing humble young men and women that love God, and each other.  It can be as simple as helping a parent carry stuff to the car without being asked, picking up trash that isn’t theirs, making a beautiful pass so that a teammate can score a goal or basket, or helping up an opponent that fell down on the field.  In the giving, loving, and serving, there is a sense of victory even if the scoreboard says otherwise.  (wow, it’s like the cheesy T.E.A.M acronym is true, Together Everyone Achieves More).  As Jesus promises “you will be blessed if you do them,” and just like the All Blacks, we are blessed.  We may not be at their unprecedented 77%, but as the humility and serving grows, the skills and the wins come, as my dearly departed friend (and TCS coach and parent) Greg Tamaye used to say, “automatic!”

Suffering can either soften or harden your heart

March 05, 2021
By Karli Boe, Makai Administrative Assistant

“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.” Philippians 1:21-24

Suffering can either soften or harden your heart. Elisabeth Elliott has said that suffering can be anything from forgetting to lock the door when you leave your house to cancer. Everyone suffers one way or another in this lifetime. No one is immune to it. It is how you react to your suffering that shapes you. I have personally suffered physically in a very debilitating way for the past three years. I have hated what the disease has done to my body, but I do not hate the fact that it happened to me.

If it were not for the grace of God, I would have given up and gone the easy route in my fight for my health. However, I have chosen to go the hard, grueling, oftentimes exhausting path. Because of this, I have found myself with the same desire as Paul that to be with Christ is far better than being here on this earth. Before my physical suffering, I did not have my eyes fixed steadily on heaven. They were earth bound and I tended to dwell on what I did or didn’t have. However, I have been reminded again and again that my life here on earth is not lived for me, but for Christ and others.

How does one who is suffering from physical limitations have fruitful labor? You can pray. You are able to develop a closer relationship with Christ when praying not only for your physical healing, but your spiritual healing as well. Why not bless someone else by praying for them consistently and watch God work in their life? You can study. It is a great time to go deep into the Word of God. He wants to be known by us, so dive in! Then share what you are learning and bless others by encouraging them with wisdom found in the Word and not the world.

Isn’t it interesting that Paul stated he did not know which he wanted to choose, life or death? For a while I wanted death in order to be freed from the suffering of my body and this world. God still wants me here, so I choose life. However, I do not believe you can get too heavenly minded. When being with Christ is your goal in life, the cares and worries of this world seem to fade away. There is peace and joy that only comes from gazing on the Lord high and lifted up.

Everyone’s body is wasting away, that is the result of the curse. What is more important though, is to be free from the disease of sin. Looking at others who have suffered for far longer than I have physically, I get the sense that God’s focus is on the soul, rather than the body. Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Do you know that there is more to life than the here and now? Christians have a great hope and a great gain awaiting us in heaven, Christ our Lord and Savior. To be with Him is far better than what this world can offer us. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

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