Imagine What it Would be Like to be a Graduate of Trinity Christian School
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
On Commencement: Going on Your Own Adventure
On Commencement: Going on Your Own Adventure
Written by Rodney J. Marshall, Ed.D.
"…I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it's very difficult to find anyone," Gandalf says to Bilbo at the opening of The Hobbit.
To this, Bilbo replies, "We don't want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water." By this, he meant that the conversation was at an end.
After an unexpected party with the dwarves in which Bilbo repeatedly says No! to going on such an adventure, he awakens the next morning and realizes he cannot pass up the opportunity. So off he scampers into the journey. Before long he falls into the cave of Gollum and wonders what to do in the dark.
What is the answer to the riddle?
It cannot be seen, cannot be felt
Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.
It lies behind stars and under hills
And empty holes it fills.
It comes first and follows after
Ends life, Kills laughter.
(Answer: Darkness)
"Go back?" he thought. "No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!" So up he got and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter” (The Hobbit, Riddles in the Dark).
You might feel a little like Bilbo right now. Perhaps you are thinking, “I don’t want any adventures.” I just graduated! Can’t I take a break? I’ve been in school forever. I just want to kick back and enjoy life for a while.
Then again you might be thinking “On we go!” I’ll be off to the mainland or have my own place and it will be exciting. What an adventure life will become.
“[Bilbo] often used to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep and every path was its tributary. “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,” he used to say. “You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to” (Frodo Baggins about Bilbo, The Fellowship of the Ring, Three is Company).
Undoubtedly, each of you are “going out of your door;” and “stepping into the Road.” Be sure to “keep your feet…” and don’t lose your balance. Spend your days in fellowship with God, humming a psalm a hymn or a spiritual song all day every day. Choose your friends wisely, for “bad company corrupts good morals,” and as they say, “we are the average of the five people with whom we spend the most time.”
You might know exactly where you think you are going. You have the next 50 years mapped out right up to retirement. You might not have any idea what to do. God has a plan for each of you to discover.
Historian Will Durant states, “Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing things historians usually record; while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks...”
Most people live good faithful lives on the river banks. But, from time to time much is thrust upon you.
It was the age of the Vikings when Alfred inherited the crown of Wessex (the kingdom of England). When he was about your age his older brother died and Alfred faced war immediately. The Danish Vikings swept up the Thames toward London in their dragon boats pillaging the peaceful English farms, villages and monasteries in their quest for farmable land. Threatened with genocide, Alfred, a man of Christian piety, policy and skill at arms painted his face and led his Saxon countrymen straight into the plunderers. After years of war, Alfred defeated the invaders at the Battle of Edington in 878.
Alfred would have the gospel preached to his enemies after defeating them in battle and would baptize them into the Christian Faith. Some say Olaf, King of Norway converted to the Christian Faith in this way while leading Viking raids in England. Upon his return, King Olaf led a great conversion of the people of Norway and Iceland to the Christian religion. Meanwhile Alfred reestablished his nearly destroyed kingdom, and established English Common Law. He restored scholarship, learning and monasteries, learned to read Latin himself and opened Christian schools. In his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Sir Winston Churchill said, “King Alfred saved Christianity for England.” Truly, he earned the title Great.
Who knows whether you will live peacefully on the riverbanks or be swept into saving others in crisis. I am confident you will meet your challenge. We really do not know all that will come after tonight. And yet, with Frodo we say, “I will take the Ring though I do not know the way” (Frodo Baggins, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Council of Elrond).
Aloha and God be with you.
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